It Was All A Dream

It was shortly after my uncle passed away. I was back at the family farm in Corozal, Puerto Rico. My uncle and I were taking our horses out of the stable. We prepped them up, and we were ready to ride them. The steep mountains delayed our ride, but as soon as we reached the top, it was a view that made me believe that heaven is real. We galloped down the grassy trail. The mane was dancing in the wind with each step it took. All I could see was the horse I was riding and my uncle riding his horse ahead of me.
It seemed all too real for it to be a dream. I woke up both happy and sad. Happy because he appeared in my dreams doing what he loved the most, and sad because it can never be relived. My mom was in Puerto Rico for the funeral when I had the dream. We FaceTimed later that evening and I told my cousin (one of his daughters) about the dream. I described to her the horse I was riding and she said, “That was Tio Freddy’s horse!” She was happy for me because she too has had dreams where he had appeared before her and talked to her. My mom began crying when I was telling the story. It was as if I was experiencing the same thing in Orlando as everyone else in Puerto Rico.
Te quiero Tio Freddy. Te extraÑo y te amo mucho. Ya estas descansando en paz, sin dolor.

Tech Creation

For one of my full lessons that I had to teach in my internship, I created a Kahoot quiz as a way to end the lesson and review what I covered in class. My supervising teacher actually recommended that I create one because her students respond so well to it. The kids got competitive and really enjoyed the review game. This is something that I will certainly take with me in my future classroom. Here is a link to the Kahoot quiz I created!
https://create.kahoot.it/?_ga=1.258806410.1234886533.1460932507&deviceId=49c035a0-7c2b-4422-9bda-4bbae807d9dc#quiz/6b727379-df99-4247-bacf-6f59faec3ebb

Leading a Life of a Poet?

Hello everyone,

For this open post I would like to share a poem that I entered in a contest through Poetrynation.com. It advanced all the way to the finals but unfortunately was not the chosen one. This is something that I am so proud of sharing because I took a chance and watched this piece go so far. Knowing that people have looked over this poem and considered it good enough to continue on in the contest just really brings me so much joy! Moral of the story, take a chance!!! CARPE DIEM!

This is the poem I wrote and submitted. Hope everyone enjoys 🙂

Nightmare
The clouds are dark and full of sorrow,
Knowing that you will not be here tomorrow,
Nothing is the same now that you are gone,
My misery begins and will last for so long.

Just give me the Helm of Darkness,
Perhaps I can be made invisible from my mess,
And no longer have to face my fears,
But rather hide under the cap for years and years.

You have pierced the thought of love from my mind,
Melinoe’s presence is made and deems to be unkind,
Love is now a nightmare that I receive as a gift,
They are likely if you are in a rift.

I�d rather be taken to Hades,
There is no one there I need to please,
Only the god that takes me,
�You will be enriched by others like you,� says he.

Souls that are drawn together,
Unite as one forever,
In this place called the underworld,
Where our broken hearts and dreams swirled

 

Using Technology to Amplify Instruction

1. I consider myself between a digital resident and digital native. I am familiar with about half the words in the wordle. For me, it feels like technology has been incorporated into my life. As I got older, technology got more advanced, it was like we were maturing together.
2. I’ve had experience with Padlet, Kahoot, and Socrative. They are excellent tools to check for student understanding of the material presented in class. In my LAE361 class, the professor had each of us create a digital narrative using VoiceThread. It was a fun way to express myself using pictures while telling my story. This would be a fun replacement of an ice breaker, where the shy students can use technology to describe themselves without feeling restricted.
3. Writing virtually, at least coming from a person who is shy, is a  great opportunity to get my thoughts out about the material the teacher presents in class. The benefits are that students do not have other students to  influence their answers or get distracted. The risks are that some students can possibly post some inappropriate answers where the teacher may or may not have control over depending on the platform that is being used. Another risk is the animosity online and that anyone can participate, leading to potential threats and dangers to the students.
4. Some of the top technology tools teachers are using are the same tools that my professors are currently using such as WordPress, Twitter, DropBox, Skype, and Evernote. All these tools that teachers are using around the world are community-based applications. They work best when multiple people are involved creating an environment where students (and teachers) can learn from each other based on the responses received. These are social media platforms that are popular at the moment, but perhaps another even more popular media will emerge in the future that teachers will get behind.
5. When integrating technology into the classroom, teachers need to understand that the piece of technology itself may be a distraction to the students. Going back to Bloom’s Taxonomy, that last three tiers are crucial because no one wants their students to get into the habit of memorizing and have them ‘magically’ no longer remember the information. Applying, Understanding, and Remembering are ways that technology can be used by using the right set of tools where they are able to do those things such as Twitter by having students tweet their responses. They are applying the information they are given and understanding based on what they post and will most likely remember because students most likely have a personal account themselves instantly having them connect the information.
6. Something that I have not yet tried is create a graphic novel. That is something I can see myself introduce to the class and have multiple uses. I believe that high school level students will  have a great time with it. It is a platform that they can access at home too so they can continue their fun outside of the classroom.

Looking Back…

Today I went to the school where I am completing my internship at. The reason why was because I missed a whole week of internship due to my uncle passing away (but that is neither here nor there) and today marks my last makeup day. I went through the whole day going over vocabulary with the students, assisting them in analyzing the poem “Identity,” help answer any questions the students had about their analysis and of course help my supervising teacher out in any which way I could. It was when the bell rang and the school day was officially over! One of the students left her water bottle so I went to return it to her homeroom teacher which my supervising teacher informed me that it was just done the hall across the bathrooms. I poked my head in and did not see her, but the math teacher was there, who I am going to be observing next week. We chatted and talked about UCF and how she graduated from here about 20 or so years ago. She thought I was a student at first but noticed my white name tag and even told me that I could easily be confused as a high school student. Jokingly I said that those days are behind me as I made my exit, but then she replied, “looks like it wasn’t that long ago.”

For whatever reason, it bothered me. Those words just rattled in my head actually making me angry. I’m 24 years old. I looked back on my high school days and began doing some comparing and contrasting to how I was as a high school student to high school students now. There really isn’t much of a difference, except the lack of respect students have for their teachers overall and that most students don’t seem to care about receiving good grades, but want to magically make it into their desired college after graduating high school. After having me in the class and students see a UCF student, I think they are taking their work more seriously and want to do better because I am trying to do better for myself by being in college.

I look young but I am older than most people think! I’m older than most people in my class because I changed my major three times after finally deciding on secondary education. Just thought I would let that out since I feel like I will be getting a lot of that in the future.

Intro

Hi everyone, my name is Adriana Lamour. I was born in a small but beautiful island of Puerto Rico. My family moved to Florida when I was four years old. I grew up in a bilingual home, so when it came to school work I was behind on reading comprehension. It wasn’t until high school when I became fond of reading and began to make connections to the written works. One of these works was The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. In a weird, dark and twisted way I was able to relate to him, which is what made my love for poetry grow. That is when I began to read poems by Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson. Even though the themes and tones were similar, it was all different and unique. The majority of their works were based off of their own experiences with a hint of their creativity mixed in.

While I was taking English Comp II, that is where I discovered my joy for writing. I found myself actually looking forward to and writing essays. Weird, I know! For that, I am always grateful for having the professor I had for that class. He permitted his students to think outside the box, as long as we can back up our ideas with textual evidence. It was always something new, exciting, and fun for me each time I stepped into his classroom. It should’ve been at that moment that I changed my major to Education, but I continued on the Biology track until I transferred to UCF.