Sonja+Ozarslan!!!

My (in-progress) class wiki



Hello everybody! I am excited about this class and learning about new technology and how I can apply it in my classroom!

I attended U. of I. and earned my degree in elementary education. I also enjoyed a summer internship working in Washington D.C. with our congressman Larry Craig. That was super fun and memorable to boot! While in D.C. I learned about the American University, which I loved! It was there that I earned my Masters in Learning Disabilities. http://www.american.edu/

I worked for about 20 years in private schools in the Washington D.C. area. I worked with students with learning disabilities, and I also was a "science specialist"!

INSPIRATION= cool teachers everywhere! I get inspired by seeing good teaching that is engaging, motivating, and loved by students. I want to imitate it! Plus, my students inspire me to always work hard to do a better job.

As far as when I became interested in teaching, I just was always good at it. I can't recall a specific time or year when I "allofasudden" realized that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. It came naturally as an extension of who I am.

My hardest day teaching. Very memorable. Quite recent. A student of mine had committed suicide. We found out 15 minutes before the students were to come in for classes. I had to tell my students that their peer was no longer with us.

On a more positive note, my best day teaching. A student who had been in my 10th grade class walked in one day shortly before graduation in his naval academy whites. He came in to tell me that it was //my// class that had inspired him to do great things with his life. I felt so proud I wanted to burst!

VALUES. I value always trying to be better. I value students who stand up for what they believe in.

Embarrassing Teaching Moment. Picture yourself sitting quietly at your desk, minding your own business. I was just enjoying my morning tea, sitting on my yoga ball at my desk.... when... THE BALL POPPED!!! The students took a collective breath, held it, weren't sure if they could laugh or if I was alright... and from the floor I said "It's okay, go ahead and laugh, it was funny"... And, I did not spill my tea!

=**Cool links:**= Hyperbole and a half I recently discovered a blog called Hyperbole and a Half and it has quickly become my favorite. Blogger Allie Brosh (an Idahoan) is a great story teller. She pairs her stories with Paintbrush drawings that will make you laugh until you cry. In addition to pure entertainment, her blog posts are wonderful examples for aspiring creative writers. Her stories do contain the occasional expletive, so make sure you check them out before sharing with students. Ms. Brosh is teacher friendly, so I'm guessing that she would let you edit the stories for use in the classroom.

My in-progress class wiki This is my class wiki that I am in the process of setting up. Suggestions are welcome!:-)

media type="custom" key="8762114"Straight Razor poem podcast

= = =**My Projects:**= = = Here is my Google Search Story about Ponyboy Curtis from The Outsiders. I thought it would be a fun do a search story from a character's point of view.

media type="youtube" key="NVrypjSDW8A" height="226" width="381"

Civil Rights photo gallery (Power point)

media type="custom" key="8582648" width="42" height="42" I am awesome!

Animoto video: The consequences of global warming

media type="custom" key="8585752"

media type="custom" key="8588982" width="63" height="63" Water Cycle word art

=**MY RSS FEEDS**=

Just for fun! The latest from Allie Brosh's hilarious blog. rss url="http://feeds.feedburner.com/Hyperbole-and-a-half" link="true" description="true" length="500" number="3" date="true" enclosure="true"

Connect to YALSA - The Young Adult Library Services Association

rss url="http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/feed/" link="true" description="true" length="200" number="5" date="true" enclosure="true"

Need a new book? Watch these book trailers! rss url="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BookTrailers" link="true" number="5" date="true" enclosure="true"

The following links will take you to videos completed by my modified earth science class. In our unit on water, students were asked to become an expert in one area and then share their expertise with the class. They were asked to find 15 interesting facts on their topic and then create a Photostory using those facts. They did a good job with researching the facts and finding interesting photos for their video, but had difficulty linking the facts to their photos. I structured the project so that they would do the research first (finding the facts) and the fun stuff (finding the "cool" pictures) afterward, thinking that it would help the stay productive during our class time and help with time management issues. For next time, I will structure it so that they find a fact, then immediately find a picture to illustrate that particular fact. Overall, I was happy with the results. As you will see, some are better than others and some of the kids circumvented the editing process when I got called out of class to an IEP meeting, but that's part of the learning process. The kids were very excited about having their work posted to Youtube and were engaged and focused for every class period we devoted to this project. That is pretty amazing when you consider that this group includes kids labeled as LD, ED, at risk, health impaired, and ELL. The best part of the project resulted from a snafu we had with saving the file. One of my students who was not usually seen as a leader stepped forward with the solution and became my "go to girl", tutoring the others and saving the lesson. She was so proud that she was a couple of inches taller when she left class that day. :-)

Here are the links to their videos.

media type="youtube" key="wfDGOIjN3vs" height="185" width="237"

Alicia's ocean trash video

Brooke's cloud video

Kayla's geyser video

Kenya's well video

Austin's ocean trash video

Ramon's glacier video

Mohammed's cloud video

James' tsunami video

Skylar's ocean trash video

media type="custom" key="8496860"Dianne's Comments for Sonja!