Blog 3

Step 1
University of Florida
http://www.registrar.ufl.edu/catalog/programs/majors/elementaryed.html
University of Tennessee
http://web.utk.edu/~tpte/minor/elem_ed.html
Step 2
Purpose:
1. I would be writing to recruit students into my field.
2. I would be prompted by the education children need.
3. My outcome would be getting people involved with wanting to be a part of a child’s life.
4. The reader desires to decide what career field they would like to join.
Profile:
1. Primary reader is the students.
2. Their relationship to me is
3. Reader’s job title is student and their responsibilities are to decide what field they are going to choose to make a career out of.
4. Professors may read this communication.
5. The reader is not real familiar that is why they are researching the subject.
6. Again the reader is researching the subject.
7. Communications preferences should be taken into account, they may be visually or hearing impaired.
8. You should also take into account that most students are young and not sure of what they want to do.
Situational Analysis:
You should take into account that some students are not as educated as you and you may want to word things in simpler terms for them to understand. You could give a step-by-step evaluation to help understand more.
Usability Objectives:
1. Readers will ask: Why do I want to join this field? What benefits will I receive? What is the pay? Will I really be a part of the future? Can I really help a child learn?
2. The reader will search for the answers by asking others their opinion or by doing research for themselves. They may ask people from that specific field what they think.
3. The reader will use the information provide by all of the reason stated. They will compare, follow step-by-step, and determine how it will affect them.
Persuasive Objectives:
1. The reader’s attitude is what do I want to be when I grow up? What is required of me to achieve my goal?
2. The reader’s attitude toward me is Does this college have what I want? Do they meet the requirements? How easy is it to understand the requirements?
Stakeholders:
1. The stakeholders with the website are everyone affiliated with the college. If the website doesn’t attract students then there will be no students and that itself can cause a problem of everyone within the college.
Constraints:
I really don’t think there are any limits to what you can write as long as all the questions can be answered within that area. Of course you are expected to do your best and it would always be helpful to get a second opinion after all you are the one responsible to requite people into your field.
Step 3
I liked how the website of Florida has everything broken down into semesters. It offers you certification options. I like how it took you to another site that gives you more options. It gives you all the information needed to receive your degree plus shows you the next levels you can take to continue your education.
I looked at the site of Tennessee. I really didn’t like how it was done. I liked the brightness of the site, but found it hard to navigate to the information I wanted to find. Once I found the information there wasn’t a lot of understand definition to the site. If I were considering this college, I would have a lot of questions to contact them for.
In this day and age people do not have time to contact many places they prefer to let their fingers do the waking: therefore I believe you should be able to find all the information you want at your fingertips and be able to understand it.

ENG 333, Summer 2010

Sherleen Thibodeaux

Blog Assignment 2

Summary of Win-Win Math Games

Using games to help support math learning helps to lift the math of the pages of the book. The article “Win Win Math Games” describes several games a teacher uses to help students grasp the concept of math being taught to them.

Four Strikes is a game that could start as early as 2^nd grade and could continue well ahead. It helps students reason numerically about the clues, encourages mental computation and understanding of place value. This game works well with competitively, cooperatively and as an individual activity.

101 and out is a game that could begin as early as kindergarten and also go well beyond. It consists of using columns and a number cube the students try to equal 100 by rolling the cube and placing the numbers in the columns at the end the students must equal 100, 10, 1000 etc. depending upon the grade level. Students can play this game in groups. It encourages communication as they reason numerically.

Seven-up is a card game in which the students lay seven cards out and take out any combination of ten they can find until there are no more combinations (kind of like solitaire). This can be played in pairs or individually and is suitable for playing multiple times. It helps the students understand all the numbers that can add up to ten.

Target 300 is a game that gives students the opportunity to practice multiplying by ten. It also helps mental computation and develops number sense. It can be played in pairs by using number cubes; to advance this you could use a nine spinner to challenge the students.

All of these games are wonderful examples that can be played school and also at home. I personally look forward to utilizing these games within my own classroom and having the students share with their families. I believe these games will expand the concept of math to any child with hands on interaction.

· The writer is Marilyn Burns she is a math teacher of second and third grades.

· The publication is Instructor magazine. It would suffice to say the magazine is intended for teaching purposes.

· The call-to-write is to help teachers help students in math.

· The writer’s purpose is to lift the math off the textbook pages and support students learning about numbers and operations. She is using games within the classroom to help the students learn number operations, while they are using their minds to expand the problems.

· The intended audience would be teachers who want to help their students accomplish the goal of Math.

· The context is a variety of math game used within the classroom with a variety of grades and problems to use. An example would be 101 and out, the goal is to roll dice and place the numbers within the columns, once the columns are filled the student then adds up the columns to try to get to the score of 101. The student closest to 101 wins. This game helps the students use their math skills to add in columns, and they have to use reasoning to help determine where to place the number rolled. The game could also be used with larger numbers. This article would motivate teachers to use games to help the students with math reasoning and mental computation and an understanding of place value. These games could also be played at home with family members.

I believe Marilyn achieved what she set out to do, which is to educate others teachers about how math games can help children accomplish math facts. She gives examples and instructions of how to play and encourages the children to work together and accomplish the given goal. She could have given more facts on why children need the extra help or statistics on how many children are lower than average and how using these games helped them accomplish a goal.

ENG 333
Sherleen Thibodeaux
Student Profile

Hi, my name is Sherleen Thibodeaux; I am a teacher assistant at Oak Park Elementary in Ocean Springs, MS. I am pursuing my teaching degree through USM online. I will be starting my intermediate block this fall and hope to graduate in December 2011.
I am married to a wonderful man that truly stands behind me while I am on this quest (yes, he does dishes and clothes!). I have two children a boy 14 and a girl 12. It is never ending around my house with baseball, softball, football, cheerleading, friends and everything else that comes along with children. Sometimes I wonder how I am accomplishing the things I am doing while being a full time student, full time worker, and most important full time wife and mom. (Someone above must really like me!).
I will be the first to admit that English/ Grammar are not my best subjects. I have taken traditional English and passed with a D but, I needed the C. I am the type of person that can write about anything and write lots about it, I just am not sure how to put things together and most important how to begin. Once I get my first sentence I can take it from there, I just have trouble in the beginning.
I am really nervous about this class, therefore I am keeping a very open mind. My goal in a “C” but I hope to do much better than that. I hope to learn how to write properly, I can say a lot but am not sure of putting it on paper. I know it will come in handy later in the future because I am always the one that is elected to request donations for the ball teams. I always write the stuff and then have a friend reread and make corrections to my papers. I look forward being able to do most of this on my own.