Week 11 Reflection

This week during my field experience, I found several uses of technology in the classroom. The teacher emails, takes role and lunch count, does research, uses programs in the classroom, and has the students take tests in the computer lab. The students spend two days a week in the computer labs with the goal of having one half hour of typing and one half hour learning new technology. The first thing Monday morning, the teacher had the students go into to computer lab and take a computerized test on planets. I had the opportunity to help a student by reading the questions and answers aloud to assist her in taking the test. One afternoon, the teacher used the Starry Night program to enhance the classroom discussion on constellations which was part of their current science curriculum. Through this technology, the students had a much better understanding of the way the constellations moved around the North star in the sky than if the teacher has tried to explain it.

During the week, I had the opportunity to speak with one of the computer technicians and gather some interesting information about the technology philosophy at the school. They students go to the computer labs twice a week for one half hour each. During one lab time, the students spend the time practicing typing. Once the students were finished with their typing drills, they were able to get on their email or play games. I found it interesting that each student has an email through the school. During the other lab time, the technician teaches the students different programs. It was interesting to me that next week the students are going to begin using Movie Maker to make digital stories. I asked the technician about this and she said she had recently been to a district training in which she was trained to use Movie Maker and now she now planned on teaching it to the students. This district has training for computer technicians four times a year.

I used a PowerPoint presentation I had created on the geography of Europe in my first lesson I gave to the class. My partner and I used a web quest we had found on the Middle Ages to introduce the student to people of medieval times. Our cooperating teacher told us a trick that she uses to facilitate getting the students to the right site. Through experience she had learned that it was easier to email the link to each of the students because inevitably the students have a problem typing in the link no matter how simple it is. The following day, that is exactly what we did and it was much easier for the students as they did not need to spend a great deal of time trying to get to the right site.

From my experiences in the classroom this week I found that the students were very skilled in their use of technology. I was impressed with the computer technician’s willingness to learn new technology and immediately expose the student to it as well. I thought it was really neat that all the students had email and could sent emails to their friends and that the teacher could use it to help facilitate learning. I am continuing to make additional lessons in which I will incorporate technology as I found the students are very sophisticated in their use of technology. It was very interesting to see the different ways technology is being used daily in the classroom.

Week 10 Reflection

This week, I have been busy using many forms of technology in preparation for my field experience. I have been emailing a few professors, my cooperating teacher, and my field partner getting ready for the upcoming field experience. I have been surfing the web, looking for reliable websites to learn all I can about the Middle Ages. I have been creating and sharing lesson plans with my partner. I have been creating PowerPoint presentations on feudalism and medieval architecture. I have been looking for an appropriate webquest for my students to complete; and the week is not even over yet. As I prepare, I try to keep in mind if I am truly creating technology rich lessons. Am I using technology to inspire the students I will be teaching? Are the sites I am considering really interactive educational sites? Will they be of benefit to the students? I hope I will make wise choices that will inspire the students and help them learn.

Although I watched the video We Didn’t Start the Fire and I enjoyed it, today while watching the NBC News they referenced a video created by students at Village Academy High School in Pomona, California. They are students in Mr. Michael Steinman’s advanced placement language arts class. As part of their studies they had been reading The Great Gatsby about the American dream. Mr. Steinman asked how the students were doing in this economy. Every student had something to say. As a class they talked and did many writing assignments and then they decided to create the video. The experiences they relate are very emotional, so emotional in fact that President Obama mentioned them in a speech on March 10th and actually paid a visit to the classroom today, March 19th. This is an example of an authentic use of technology in the classroom that made some very important people see the economic crisis from the eyes of teens. I recommend watching it. Is Anybody Listening? A testament by Village Academy High School Students on the Economic Crisis can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WMTTrOrKVI.

Week 9 Reflection

Here is the voki I created to speak for me.

Week 8 Reflection

During the week, I finished working on my PDP. I feel as though I need more instruction in order to be able to create lessons that use technology in the classroom. Therefore, on the surveys I was only a novice or apprentice. Today in class we had the opportunity to work together to figure out what was necessary to turn in for our PDP assignment. During class, I checked my grades and and watched the video for the week.

The video Did You Know? 3.0 was very similar to another video we have already watched. The information that I got from the video was that we are preparing students for jobs they will have that don't exist today. The United States is insignificant compared to the populations of many other countries in the world. We are living in exponential times. What is a exabyte? The amount of technical information is doubling every two years. This applies to me as an educator because I will be teaching the children that will one day be running our country. I need to keep current on technology and include it in my classroom in a real, rich, and relevant way.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Although my level of competency in any area on the UNI surveys did not exceed that of apprentice, I feel that I have many strengths when it comes to technology. First, I feel as though I consider both the positive and negative effects of technology and I do not intend on adding technology to my classroom unless I feel it with create a rich, real, and relevant learning experience for my students. As a “digital immigrant” I continually strive to learn about new technology and strive to stay abreast of current technologies. I am able to use many technologies and frequently have my children “teach” me how to use new programs to enable me to use the technology myself. Through my instructional media class I have become effective in communicating and collaborating with my classmates of different class projects. I believe this will benefit me throughout my career as I continue to use technology to communicate and collaborate with others.

According to the UNI Surveys, I have weaknesses in several areas. Three areas which I would like to work towards strengthening include learning to use graphic organizer software, learning and understanding the copyright laws as they relate to educators, and finding instructional software through professional review sources to insure matching software to the needs of my students. A website that offers help learning more about graphic organizers is http://www.inspiration.com/Educators/Trainer-Resources. I had a very brief introduction to the Inspiration program and would like to more fully understand the possibilities that its counterpart Kidspiration has to offer teachers. A website that I can learn about copyright laws would be http://www.umuc.edu/library/copy.shtml. I have been concerned with copyright laws and the legal parameters an educator needs to work with in preparing lessons for the classroom. Finally, I believe that I can gain valuable information from concerning educational software reviews from the website http://www.superkids.com/. Using this site with help me evaluate which software might be appropriate for use in my kindergarten classroom.

A definite weakness that I can see from the UNI surveys and section two of the NETS standards is that I have not designed any specific learning activities for diverse learners to teach any of the competencies listed on either surveys. At this time as a student, I feel as though I need explicit instruction and direction into how to plan and design effective learning experiences that are supported by technology and how I could incorporate them into the classroom. On this topic, I have been able to find a wealth of information concerning technology use at Kathy Schrock’s website located at http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/.

Lessons Learned

This activity helped me to explore my strengths and weaknesses related to teaching technology, helped me realize there are many options available when it comes to ways I can present lessons to my students using technology, and helped me see that the students I will teach in the future do not want to be taught the same was as I was taught in the past. I have realized that I have a great deal to work on in regards to technology if I intend on helping my students learn in a technology rich environment. I have many strengths, but need to strengthen them as well. There are so many options when it comes to educating students today. From a link on one of the websites we were asked to read, I found an article titled Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Marc Prensky. From this article, I learned that I definitely am a digital immigrant. As such, I need to accept that I don’t know much about many technologies available and I need to take the opportunity to learn from digital natives in order to integrate. The students that I will teach are digital natives and they think and process information differently from me. In order to engage my students I need to find effective ways to incorporate technology into the traditional curriculum.

This activity helped me see various forms of technology used in the classroom including online courses, web quests, classroom websites, electronic books, social networking, and computer games to name a few. Technology is growing at an exponential rate and to be of service to the students I will teach, I need to use technology in the classroom in a useful way. The article titled The New WWW helped me to realize that students today are accustomed to having whatever they want, whenever they want it and getting it where ever they want it. As an educator I can help students make satisfying choices through engaging them in technology rich learning activities and helping them engage in service to others.

My Beliefs

As I prepare to teach kindergarten, I have often wondered how much technology it would be possible to incorporate into a kindergarten classroom. The articles and videos mostly focus on students far older than five year olds. I decided to do a search for “technology integration in kindergarten” and found some very useful information that gave me better insight into how I can use more than just computer software, PowerPoint presentations, or digital camera projects in my classroom. From a link on Kathy Schrock’s site, I found a very useful site that gave ideas using iPods, podcasting, and ACTIVboards and SMARTboards. I discovered that there are many ways available to incorporate technology in a meaningful way into my kindergarten classroom. I can use iPod shuffles to make a take home pre-reading program, I can use podcasts to share information from Back-to-school nights and other school functions with parents unable to attend the activity. I can use smart board technologies to help students actively engage with the curriculum. Two sites that I plan to obtain more information are http://prometheanplanet.com and http://www.pre-kpages.com/ipods.html. I intend on learning more about the use of iPods and ACTIVboards in kindergarten classrooms. From my personal research on technology integration for kindergarten, I now realize that I can find many useful and meaningful ways to incorporate all kinds of technology into my classroom. I just need to keep looking, keep an open mind about the possibilities, and be prepared to write grant proposals in order to help pay for the technologies I would like to use in my classroom.