I thought I'd say more...

I didn't realize that there were some questions that I should have included in my initial post on role play so here are my responses for those:

1. What were some things that you did to create your role through use of language, information in/images used for your bio?

I played the role of a private school administrator. For me, I made language choices that would be things that I could imagine our principal saying (the principal at my daughter's Catholic school). Because private schools do cost money I felt like I was always have to "sell" my viewpoint so I used persuasive words and looked for research that supported the work that private schools are able to do, that public schools can't always accomplish.

2. What arguments were you making to convince other roles to support your position?

I made arguments that private schools are able to tailor their curriculum to have higher standards and focus on core curricular values without getting distracted by the "fluff" of schools. I sited studies that shared statistics that private schools score better on standardized tests as well and that parents have a choice in picking a school that supports their beliefs/views about what education should/should not be.

3. What evidence or reasons were your employing to support your positions? Do you think that this evidence or reasons were effective in convincing others to adopt your positions?

I highlighted many of my reasons for choosing private schools over public in the previous question. The evidence was okay, but I feel like it wouldn't necessarily convince someone that public schools need to be disbanded. Additionally, because I was trying to convince people to PAY for private education, that is simply not something that everyone can do, even though I did share a lot of situations in which people can get scholarships, that still takes work and cultural and social capital to which not everyone has access.

4. Which roles had the most versus least power in this role-play? What are some reasons that these roles did or did not have power? What were some strategies that the roles with power employed?

There was an individual that often made jokes rather than stated facts and though I really loved that from a humor standpoint, in a real debate I would be irritated by someone who wasn't taking a serious matter seriously. I was most impressed by those who included data in their responses but also comments packed with a lot of emotion are, to me, effective.

5. Were there differences between your personal beliefs and those of your role? Did your own personal beliefs on this issue change at all due to the role-play?

Well, this is complicated. I feel like I, as a parent, utilize my role as a white, educated individual, especially being a past K-12 educator when thinking about education. I send my kindergartener to parochial school and will most likely send my other 3 kids to parochial school as well. I will do this because I know what is involved in being a teacher in public education, and how sometimes instruction suffers under the pressure of administrators concerned only with test scores and not with students' well being, moral and social development as well so playing the role of a private school administrator was okay for me. It was hard though to not slip into the role of parent. Right now our kids' school is possibly going to close because of budget cuts so I have been playing the role of very active parent lately in trying to save our school so my emotions are running high right now. It was easy therefore to support a private school option because I do feel that my kids, in classes which are right around 15 kids, with teachers who are invested deeply in their religious development as well as their academic development will meet my child's needs better than, let's say, the public school down the road that has not met AYP in 3 years, where the kindergarten classroom has 27 kids in it. The role play didn't really change my opinion much. When I used to teach 7th grade, I worked on a team with 5 other teachers and all but one of us sent our kids to private school because we all were frustrated with the state of public education, even as public educators. And we weren't alone. In the school where I taught, more than half of the teachers who had kids sent them to public school. Our administrator actually called us together at a point and questioned why this was? She said we were setting a bad example by not supporting public school. I felt like saying to her that she was setting a bad example by not caring about kids... but I thought better of it!

Online Role Play

After our role play activity in class I have a lot of thoughts on using this in the classroom. I think there is a lot of potential, especially for students who may not speak up in a face-to-face debate, students like me. It is quite a bit easier (in some ways) to take on a role that you may not necessarily agree with and push an agenda associated with that role because everyone knows everyone is just playing a role and therefore hopefully no one would take anything that was said too seriously and wouldn't be out to judge what students are saying. In our debate in class I know I said things that I wouldn't have ever said in my true self role. I was much more verbal. It was also exciting to take on a role that was vastly different from my own perspective. I've been asked to do this for a number of classes and I always enjoy the experience. As a teacher I used to teach a debate unit and wish I would have considered using the online format to carry out that unit. It opens up a lot more possibilities for students who are naturally more passive in class. I also feel like it could be used to debate issues that come up within novels as well. So many possibilities.

Wiki-ing

A few years ago I tried using a wiki in my classroom with my students related to the Holocaust. It didn't work, not because the kids weren't capable of adding content, but because the limited access to computers required that all of the students were posting at the same time in our school's computer lab. Because of the synchronous posting, many posts didn't show up and it became a frustrating process for all of us. I never tried again with my students.

For this class, when asked to think up a blog topic, because I couldn't exactly find a place where it would neatly fit into the course I am teaching, I thought I'd make a wiki that would fulfill another interest of mine, and help others with whom I'm connected-parents. The wiki is a resource for parents on ideas and activities to do with kids. I am hoping that, after I share the wiki site with my friends and family, they will add to it and we can all learn from one another. I have some things to figure out yet and so it is a work in progress and pretty basic, but I'd like to spice it up as I become more familiar with the workings of wikis.

http://havingamommyday.pbworks.com/

I hope you enjoy!

A new way of telling a story

For my next trick... no, just kidding. This class does make me feel like a magician of sorts realizing all of the cool things that can be done with all of the free technology tools that are out there on the web. This week's endeavor, the voice thread story. I struggled to choose a topic. I was just going to talk about how awesome my kids are, and though to me that would be a completely fulfilling assignment, I chose otherwise to tell a story about one of my children, but to have a point to the story. So here goes, this was an emotional one for me, and I can see some glitches in it but for my first shot at putting speech to pictures, I think it is okay.
http://voicethread.com/share/1369684/

I hope you enjoy!!