Exit Slip 12-9-10

3 ways to intergrate technology in Ella's class. 

If I was a teacher of Ella's 3rd grade classroom I would implement 3 different technology tools in the classroom.  First of all I would make sure all of my lesson plans catch my students interest by making them interactive.  I would design Interactive white board lessons to help all of my students learn the material.  I would make sure not to use the software as a power point lesson, but allow my students come in front of the class and manipulate the lesson to enhance learning. 

The second method I would intergrate in my classroom is different blogging tasks.  I believe it is a good idea to have students write for other reasons besides getting a grade from the teacher.  I want my students to see the value of why they are learning material and not just doing the assignment to recieve a grade.  I would love to intergrate my English and Literature subjects onto the blog.  Students would be able to write different ideas, and also collaborate with other students.

The last element I would like to incorporate into my classroom is the idea of learning from any where. This not only allows parents to see what is happening in my own classroom, but allows my students to follow my class from anywhere around the world.  I would have my students create pod casts to update parents and allow students to share feelings about the ideas they have learned.  I would also have Screen casts available online for students to follow If they were stuck on a math assignment. 

Overall my thinking about technology has changed over the course.  Before entering this class I thought technology broke at the sight of me.  But now I am able to embrase technology.  I always thought I would use technology in my class, but I never really had a vision on how my classroom would look with technology.  I now have a clear picture of how technology should look like in a classroom and am excited by the different possiblities technology can change my teaching style. 

Reflection on IWB lesson

My interactive white board (IWB) lesson was very easy to complete.  I feel the hardest part of the assignment was having to come up with a topic to design my IWB around.  When I was in high school, I volunteered in my local Elementary school.  The teacher I was assigned to, taught math class every day using a SMART board.  When I was choosing what topic I should do mine on, I just knew that I saw a lot of math lesson plans, which all seemed easy to do.  I was then inspired to do something using reading because I feel that teachers are less likely to create a IWB during a reading lesson.  One challenging thing with developing a reading IWB lesson is the amount of words on a given page.  We have discussed that you should only have roughly 30 words on a page.  I however wanted to put a page of text on the IWB which isn't always the best thing to do.  However when I developed my IWB lesson I needed more words on my page to show the class how to use context clues.

I feel that it was beneficial to do reading as a IWB lesson because I was also able to see other lesson plans relating to reading.  Teachers can use a IWB to assess the students if they understood the plot of a story, explain different elements to a story, learn about literary elements.

I would also love to have an IWB inside my classroom.  When I am in practicum around the Stevens Point area I see many SMART boards inside the classroom, however teachers use them just like they would use an overhead projector.  I personally believe if these schools are paying big money to incorporate this expensive technology inside their classroom they should use the technology like it was designed and not teach a lesson like I was taught when I was in 3rd grade.

Designing this lesson opened my eyes on how to make a particular lesson interactive.  When you teach you  shouldn't just put a piece of paper on the board and read off of the sheet of paper.  You shouldn't make a IWB lesson like a PowerPoint.  There are many other tools in the SMART notebook technology to allow students to participate in your lesson besides calling on a student and having them respond while sitting in their seats.  For example you can have students solve different math problems using manipulatives created in SMART notebook.  In reading you can have students illustrate what clues they actually used to find the meaning of a word.

IWB lessons are also engaging in students involvement.  When I was younger we didnt' have a IWB board and would have loved to be involved in moving objects across the screen with only the touch of our finger.  As a future educator, I would make sure to develop different lesson plans that are engaging to students and are very interactive to promote learning in my classroom.

Exit Slip 12/2/10

We watched a video in class about integration of technology in a teacher’s classroom. In the beginning

The teacher in the classroom had a smart board and allows students to use it for cooperative learning and actively engaging students encouraging participation.  Students integrate learning online with collaborative assignments with students from across the world.  Teachers could reach out to experts in a particular field and integrated into the classroom.  Virtual pen pals could be used to teach students 

She posts a daily blog for her classroom so that students are always in touch with what is going on in the classroom. This blog creates an “open classroom” for parents to be involved with what is happening in the classroom. Parents always want open communication with what is going on in the classroom. Students are always in touch with what is going on in classroom. She also posted different assignments online which allows students to always be informed. The blogs were great for recognizing student success. Students are also blogging different current events and sharing views of world outside of the classroom. The students are able to share their perspective in and outside of class.  Students are able to be a global citizen.  They are writing for an audience outside of the teacher.  This process engages the students even more. 

The students all had Laptops in the classroom and they were all using them for daily tasks.  We were wondering how many computers she really had access to in her classroom.  Students having blogs means that students need to have access with computers. 

Some things we could have done before technology was sending home assignments to the teacher with assignment notebooks.  You could have collaborated with different grade levels or schools across the city.  Collaboration is still available.  Engagement was still possible and as long as you have an effective classroom management.  Journaling could have taken place the online blog about current events. 

There were some things that we couldn’t do before.  Worldwide collaboration would take too long.  Active blogging requires an active blog.  The concept of being online is only fifteen years old; the ability to be online is a big change.  SMART board and Laptops are new tools.  The recognition of others besides the teacher is a big change because you are opening up difference audiences.

There are many things with technology that makes learning better.  Technology can help increase engagement and make cooperative learning more easily.  The open classroom concept makes things easier there are less trees cut.  It’s easier to get on Skype than to jump on a bus and visit a different classroom.  Current events are very current and we can know up to the minute when a certain event happened.  If we maintain a blog it is easier to communicate with students. 

If technology is doing what we already doing what we have been doing we shouldn’t use technology.  We need to find a way to integrate technology to make learning better, efficient and easier. You need to find a balance between what technologies is out there and what do you want to do. 

We read through the 7 most brilliant and dumb things about the internet. We discussed in a jigsaw and it was a good way to enhance learning by only being knowledgeable about one particular area. 

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson032.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/johnson/johnson033.shtml

Technology may make it easier to be distracted but students have always been distracted.  Boundaries are always important.  You should think twice about using personal technology at risk for students to use.  Separate your two worlds.  If the district gives you a laptop, the district can take it at any time. 

Chapter 10: Rethinking Education in a Technological World

In order to sum up this book, we need to look at the current teaching methods and really question if those methods are working with the new generation of thinking.  Learning not only happens in courses taken in school but in the outside world.  I can tell you that most of the information you have learned while growing up and do not use in my daily life is lost in my brain.  As learning is moving outside of the school, we need to rethink the different methods we want to use in order to catch our learners.  Motivating students is important because if students don't feel that the material is worth learning, they are likely to  not use the information.  Students need to learn information that will provide them a basis for the rest of their life.  Like we said before we need to provide students for their future and not our past.  It is through teaching students using different techniques that we are able to provide them with tools to succeed in their future.  Lastly students need to be able to receive information when they need it.  Students need to know how to learn information later on in life.

Overall I believe that Students should be using technology in the classroom.  It is important to motivate students to learn so that they can succeed in the rest of their careers.

PSA Reflection

A Public Service Announcement, or PSA is a great learning tool for students to use in the classroom.  When we created ours, It was very simple to do.  We completed ours with a Mac video camera built in to Kara's Laptop.  After we were finished filming it was very easy to edit and finalize.  The hardest part for our group was submitting the video on You Tube.  We were unsuccessful in doing this and ended up posting the video right on our blog.  If a class was to make a larger video they might not be able to do this.  

Having students make their own video's is a great learning tool.  Whenever I made video's in High School, I remembered the material better.  Videos could be created for parents to find out what the class did on a field trip or to highlight rules in the classroom.  

I think it would be a neat idea to create classroom rules in the beginning of the year and then have different groups make a video why these rules are important to follow.  This would be a good method of teaching PBIS in the classroom.  Another idea would be to have students create a public service announcement about a conflict in a story we are reading as a class.  Students can recognize the conflict in a story and give possible solutions.  My last idea was to use videos as a learning tool to common mistakes made in Math class.  Students could make a video about the mistakes they have made and then show students the correct way to solve the problem.  

Public service announcements are a great way to teach in the classroom.  Even though I dream of teaching a younger aged students I still believe that Public Service announcements are a great tool to enhance learning in the classroom.

Exit Slip 11/11/10

Today in class we talked about if we want to fit the current teacher picture, or if we want to be innovative and buck the system to try to change things.  The model works for some students but not all students.  He showed some articles about teachers who are pushing the boundries.  Reasearch shows that it doesn't matter how much technology you use, it matters how well you are teaching. 

I presented my book chapter for the class today.  Technology royaly screwed up today.  However as we said in our presentation. Because there is one negative aspect of technology, doesn't mean we should stop using it right away. We should teach about the positive aspects. 

Cyber Bullying Podcast

Creating this pod cast was fairly easy.  The most challenging item of creating the pod cast was finding what to say.  It was difficult because I would write something and then when I said it out loud, it sometimes sounded funny.  I think before we publish anything we should speak what we are trying to say out loud to see if it sounds foolish or not.  The other challenging thing about the pod cast was limited materials.  In class we discussed how a Mac was the best method for creating a Pod cast.  I am a proud owner of a PC, but found it challenging to create a podcast using it because the limited amount of music available.  Once I got started, it was easy to do.  All you have to do is press the record button and you are good to go!

I would love to use this method in the future.  It was very simple to do and it  would be great to incorporate in the class.  I feel that I would love to have my students create their own messages and create different pod casts that way.  It would also be good to do a poetry unit and have all my students share their poems via pod casts.  This way you could also display your students work to their parents with out having each parent take time off of work to hear every ones poetry.  This would also be a great way to have students create their own radio station.  You could talk about the events that are occurring in your classroom so parents feel in the loop.  If you are studying about different current events you could have students create individual pod casts about different elements in the news.

In the hour it took to create my first Pod Cast I have fallen in love with the process.  I am now jealous of Mac users and would love to own my own to create more.  The process was very simple and I am sure to create more podcasts in the future.