Wesleyan Quadrilateral Reflection

Regarding my life’s spiritual timeline, I feel that I am still a toddler in faith, since; I met God recently in America. I grew up in a non-Christian home, I didn’t know who God was in my life. Even though I accepted God in my heart, I still questioned exactly what is right or wrong in life. In fact, I even had doubts about my beliefs. However, after reading Spiritual Geometry and knowing Wesleyan Quadrilateral, I’ve gained a new direction in my life.

In the article Spiritual Geometry the Vic Reasoner author helped me to realize that Scripture is the most important determiner of life’s decisions rather than tradition, experience, or reason. In the past years, I was reluctant to accep
new ways of thinking. In the earthly world, for example, I usually follow the
tradition such as the rules of family and the accumulated custom of country as a measure to live in a virtuous manner. At that time, I didn’t know how much Jesus’ teaching can impacted my life.

Now, I can discern the differences between Scripture and Tradition; it is said that the former means the Word of God, the sole truth, and an infallible Bible, while as the latter means an attempt to explain Christian doctrine on the basis of a historical consensus without the objective truth of the Bible. According to Vic Reasoner, the Bible must be the first source to which Christians turn in seeking authoritative truth. Before knowing this fact, I mostly relied on traditions, reason and experiences that encompassed most of my life. I did not know about the authority of Scripture. Now I recognize, the perfect will for my life has to be lived based on Scripture. Above all, I was impressed by the lesson (“clean and unclean” hands) that Jesus taught the Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law in the chapter of Mark. According to Mark 7:7, [Jesus] replied, “They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” He emphasizes by this the true worship, is life lived for Jesus Christ, life in obedience to His commandments written clearly in the scriptures. I’ve learned what makes men really clean or unclean through this lesson.

Reflecting my past years again, I had difficulties to determine where to go or what to do in my life since I didn’t rely on the scriptures as a guide. From now on, I will follow the Word of God. I will ask the Lord to reveal to me answers to the question I have in my mind. I will see if I can find my answers within the Scriptures. As well as ask different believers whom I respect, if they have the same thoughts at some point in their lives.

In conclusion I agree with the author’s point that we must grasp the priority and primacy of Scripture, and tradition, reason, and experience must be filtered through the lens of Scripture. Here is my hidden curriculum. I will uphold students so as to make their dream come true with academic integrity as God teaches in the Bible. I will remember that God hates a hypocritical heart and a lying tongue. Teaching and living with integrity, fairness, and empathy and faith are the core of my purpose as an educator.

* image from flickr

For my prototype presentation

I am planning to make prototype presentation I learned in class. Assuming that I am as a teacher, my audience will be 2nd graders who are so curious about dinosaurs. They will learn and understand about all dinosaurs with language arts, science, and technology as a part of the unit on fossil, rocks, and minerals. The children will enjoy using the information on the "easier" quiz with the dinosaurs words, definition and then using the information to apply and answer more exciting questions on the screen. In other words, they will interact with my product. I want my children to identify the main features of dinosaurs and construct their own understanding of dinosaurs by using of information and technology through continuous feedback. I will consider ADDIE model while preparing. My biggest concerns that how it will work such as linking to the resources of dinosaurs and how to delivery them to the students. well, I am thinking about how to use multi-media presentation, or Hyperstudio. Do you have any suggestions?

Professional Communities Online

Once I take look at Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, it is kind of confusing to me since it belongs to Discovery Education site as featured content. However, I felt that it is very simple and organized while clicking the content. I see the layers divide into five sections and one advertisement section. In other words, the author, Kathy Schrock, has designed layers by categorizing list of sites useful by theme such as subject access, teacher helpers, schrockguide stuff, Kathy’s Picks and search tools. Above all, I like best that she emphasizes on the important information of the month as the name of Kathy’s Picks in the middle of the site. I would believe most of her collection for educators is to enhance curriculum and professional growth. When I click the content critical evaluation tool, this part has different layers by grade-level specific. For example, to help the youngest of students to think critically about Web sites, she has designed three grade-appropriate site evaluation forms depending on elementary, middle, and secondary grades.
As examples of language and terminology, I found that the sub folders of Teacher Helpers has specific terminology for educational site such as assessment and rubrics, critical evaluation, digital gadgets, Web Quest, search the leveled books database, the virtual tour, blog, podcast and so on. She used the following expression in the category of slide shows for teachers: Icing on the Cake: Online Tools for Teaching and Learning, Abracadabra: The Magic of Technology Gadgets for Educators, Get A MUVE On!: Online Synchronous Environments, Navigating Primary Source Materials on the Internet. I think these are specific jargon for educational community.
Obliviously, I would like Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators site design because it looks good, but also looks appropriate. She used just two colors on the main homepage like purple and yellow color. She used the same tab color and the same color letter with purple in the navigational elements, and yellow color as a background. Fresh eye! It would be easier to find the content I need without being fascinated by colors. I agree with Krug’s idea that color coding of sections is a very good idea (Krug p.83). In addition, as an example of information design, she lays out the main menu and submenu and links the huge amount of information. She clarifies her goals and arranges her ideas into the site by organizing the content of each theme (Kristof & Satran pp.7-9). I found that she used site maps to give the users an overview of the site contents. She organized text links major menus and submenu pages as the invisible hand of structure (Kristof & Satran pp.30). As a result, I think this site has proper balance of menus and content page for users’ target even though sometimes it is hard to read because of small font, spacing, or formatting of the list. More importantly, regarding as interface design, I can interact with this site easily and effectively by clicking menus, components, forms, and all the other ways by using podcast and mp3. Thus, I would recommend this site that educators including parents, students can use this site to get information they need and do feedback critically.
Overall, with a well-balanced, functional hierarchy I can easily touch menus that provide quick access to huge information. Even though this site looks simply designed, it gives me the most appropriate information to learn. If I teach students someday, I will be trained by this site for improving my thoughts, ideas, and skills. As design references for educators, those books in related to design like S. Krug’s Don't make me think! A common sense approach to Web usability and R. Kristof & A. Satran’s Interactivity by design Creating provide a motivating and valuable reference tool to assist better design on the computer effectively.

Week 3: Educational Implications(Journal Discussion)

Assuming that I will be a tech leader, my audience will be most likely teachers who have difficulty with current technology. Several resistance to technology will be fears of using new technology, denial of the need for technology and worries of being mocked by students. Therefore, in terms of people-readiness for the incorporating technology into instruction, above all , is to define instructional goals and then to select the appropriate programs or software to achieve their goals. It will make them confident in front of students if they know exactly how to use and apply to the class. Like me, under-prepared teachers cannot start to teach them with technology. Furthermore, they should have mind to improve the quality of information by upgrading their existing skills. At this time, I learned many things from CUE event I've never known. And I realized that I was so reluctant and unsure of how to use technology. I was so curious about learning the new way to use technology in class. The more important thing to me from this conference is that I realized that teachers should be more diligent to learn new technology which they can offer students hands -on experiences with. For example, having the Audacity to podcast, they can interact easily with each other in an electronic classroom by making lectures more interactive. For the audience, Frank Gutter presented a new way to make film for the class by using visual language beyond the simple " how-to " presentation in this conference. Obviously , it could be challenge for students, however, they will love to touch camera equipments and make their topic more interactive in several ways. I've learned that instructional delivery should be better integrated with enjoyable activities using technology. Therefore, teachers can design their materials by creating meaningful projects to grasp sufficiently well. As one of the interesting activities, teachers can design their teacher web site and offer on-line system to make for students to work together productively like Hyperstudio. Here are some websites of Podcast and the Screen education of the CUE hands-on workshops.


* Having the Audacity to Podcast

* Create, find and share Podcast

* AFI ScreenNation - Digital Storytelling