teaching philosophy

First thing I learned:  I guess I should have read the assignment before just going ahead and writing a philosophy. I did it all wrong.  "Teach Every Day", is a good statement, so I am keeping it.  Today's submission is more in keeping with the assignment..

This second submission is the Brief Teaching Philosophy. 
I am not usually so brief when stating my philosophy. For the longer version, see my previous post

The voki thing in the post above this tells part of my Brief Teaching Philosophy (in a rather intellectual tone of voice.) Click on the play button on the voki thing to hear him speak. (The play button is the larger arrow in the lower left hand corner of the voki.)

What I did:  I wrote my philosophy statement, but it was wrong, so I redid it.  I wrote a 2nd philosophy, aligned to the questions posed in the assignment.  I sent both to Google docs, then published both to the web. Using the Microsoft start button, I clicked Word Options, clicked spelling and grammar.  I clicked "show readability statistics".  I then hit the F7 button to spell check and display the Flesch-Kinkaid reading level for the document. I signed up for and created a Voki account Using the tool, I made the animated Voki.  It talks, using my words (from my philosophy), but in a suave British accent.  (See the post above this one to see the cute animated Voki thing.)

What I Learned:  One iomportant lesson I learned was that I must be careful to save documents in Google docs, just as I would in Word.  I almost lost both statements,  but fortunately had them on my travel drive.  On both philosophies, I had to edit-edit-edit.  I wanted them to be as brief as I could make them.  I learned to make the weird Voki thing.  My students will like it.  I learned to use the Microsoft tools for editing.  I didn't know I had those.

NETS- T:  This assignment goes with Standard 3b, which states that the teacher will "collaborate with students, pers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation."  This could have been a dull assignment, had it not been for the Voki to brighten it up.

How to Use It: Learning will be enhanced by creating a Voki creature and making it "say" what the class has learned.  I will use the Flesch-Kinkaid tool when writing professional documents.  I may also want to use it for elementary school doc's.  My students do not read on a high level, and it is necessary to write in a way that they can read.