Exit Slip, Week 14, 12-7-10

There are quite a few things that I have learned this semester that has changed my thinking about technology’s role in teaching and learning. One of the biggest things that have changed for me would be learning when and how to use technology. If technology is enhancing the lesson or activity that I am doing, than I should definitely use it. On the other hand, if the activity or lesson I am doing is great without technology, there is no need to incorporate it! I think a lot of people simply use technology, even if it’s not needed, just to say they use it in their classroom; this is the wrong use of technological tools.

The other ways my thinking has changed over the semester is the ways I can actually use technology within my classroom. The biggest and most profound way I want to use technology will be communication with parents. I truly plan on creating a wiki for my future classroom that will outline all of the things we do inside and outside the classroom. This will include a daily schedule, my contact information, any homework assignments I give, etc. I believe parents will benefit from having this extra source of information.

The last thing that really struck me this semester was the extensive debates we have had about how technology may or may not be overtaking classroom teaching. Many students are looking for outside learning experiences and technology is providing students with these experiences. A good teacher can incorporate these technologies into his or her classroom to motivate students to still come to school and learn with their peers. Also, although my opinion hasn’t entirely changed on home schooling, I do believe I have broadened by knowledge about this type of learning experience. We had quite a few debates and discussions over this topic and it has made me realize how technology can be beneficial in every setting of society.

Today in class we viewed an article about a district in Texas that is banning teachers from using technological tools such as blogging, text messaging, Facebook, email, etc. This angers me and makes me very disappointed because I can now truly realize how beneficial technology is in the classroom. In the beginning of the semester, when I looked at the course syllabus, I was extremely frightened by the amount of work I saw. I had never listed to, let alone make, a screencast or a podcast. I had NO idea what an “iRLO” was and I had only worked with an interactive whiteboard on a limited basis. After finishing this semester I have realized how this class has prepared me for my future. I look back and I can honestly say to myself “That really wasn’t that bad!” I have really enjoyed this class and I will always value the information I learned.

Ways I can Integrate Technology Into my Classroom!

I would like to start off by saying I have learned a vast amount of information about technology and the technological tools I can use as an educator. There are various ways I plan to integrate technology into my classroom, but there are three main ways I will talk about within this blog post. The ways I will incorporate technolgy will be as follows:

1.   Communication with parents and guardians:

One way I plan to communicate with the parents and guardians of the students in my classroom will be throug a wiki page. This will be an online webpage that will consist of various things four our classroom. The different pages I plan to have on my wiki are as follows:

v  A biography about myself & my background

v  My contact information

v  Our classroom schedule

v  Our classroom rules (set & created with the help of my students)

v  A list of materials that the students will need for the class

v  An ongoing list of all homework assignments

v  A list of different opportunites for parents to come in and visit or volunteer

2.   Student Blogs:

In this aspect of my classroom my students will be indivually creating a blog. This blog will be an ongoing project for my students. There are two ways I would like to incorporate blogs into our daily learning:

v  Online pen pals: I would like to connect with a teacher in a different country that would have the availaility to communicate with my students. We would communicate about things we are doing inside the classroom, but also on a personal level. My students will be connected with an individual student and they would be able to communicate much more often than writing a letter and sending it through the mail.

v  Literature Discussion: My students will be using blogs to communicate about the literature we are using within our classroom. This includes books we are reading, along with writing my students have personally done.

3.   Interactive Whiteboard Lessons:

I hope to have an interactive whiteboard in my classroom. I have an extensive practice with interactive whiteboards and I have the knowledge to create unique lesson plans. I believe the interactive whiteboard motivates students to want to participate in the lessons I am trying to teach.

How can blogs promote student reading & writing in an elementary school classroom?

Click Here to see my Technology Inquiry Screencast!         

I feel as though I exerted a lot of effort on completing this task. This requirement was the largest project I worked on all semester. I can honestly say I spent a lot of time and effort researching and creating this project. I started simple and I created my question. The question I came up with for my technology inquiry project was “How can blogs promote reading and writing in an elementary school classroom?” I chose this question because I have truly enjoyed working with “blogger.com” this semester and I was very interested to learn more about how I can use this tool in my future classroom. From there I simply started my research. I looked for formal resources (journals, articles, etc.), but I was also very interested in looking for informal resources, such as a real blog from an educator. It was much easier looking for informal resources; I found at ton of blogs from actual elementary school teachers. On the other hand, I had a much more difficult time finding formal sources. I even had to go into see Professor Boyer to ask him if he had any suggestions on how to find formal sources; I think this alone shows the amount of effort I put into this project. After meeting with Professor Boyer I did not have any difficulty finding the sources that I need. I was quickly able to find a few articles that had great information! After I found my resources I began by creating my annotated bibliography. I am glad I did this before I began my actual paper because it helped me reflect upon the resources that I found and which ones would be most beneficial for my project. Finally, I put all the information together. There were quite a few methods that were common among articles and these were the ones I wrote about on my wiki.

        I feel as though there is high value in completing this task. The resources I found for this project are ones that I will keep and refer to in my future classroom. I think this goes for everyone that completed this project. I hope to scan other peoples’ resources in order to better my knowledge on technological tools.

        This task highly impacts my future as an educator. Like I already mentioned, the resources I found for this project will stay with me throughout my life. Yes, there will be other resources that come along in the future, but these are just as important! This project also highly impacts my future because it taught me some valuable researching skills. It taught me how to look for information and decide what information was going to be helpful for my paper. It also taught me to decide if that information was even reliable! I can use these skills in the future when looking for activities or lessons I may do with my students. I hope to use creative and innovative instructional strategies and I will openly admit that I don’t know all these creative and innovative strategies off the top of my head. I can use these important skills to research the things I will need for my classroom, students, parents, and administrators.

Exit Slip, Week 13, 11-30-10

Today we began by watching a video about a teacher who integrates technology into her classroom.  I thought this was extremely beneficial it showed us a real life example of a teacher using technology in the classroom. It also showed me that even though she changed just a few things within her classroom, which were actually very simple, she made a world of a difference in the lives of her students. Her students were more motivated and excited to learn. We have been learning about a wide variety of technology and sometimes I find it quite overwhelming, I am always asking myself “How am I going to use all of this?” It was helpful to see that I don’t have to use every technological tool, but using just a few can make quite a difference. Some of the different things she used within her classroom were as follows:

·         Interactive whiteboard (SMARTBoard) to encourage student participation

·         Students use laptops (whole cart of laptops---mobile lab) and desktop computers (mostly Macs)

·         Her students participate in online collaboration projects with other students around the world

·         Cooperative learning- small groups of students working together

·         Daily Blog (teacher blogged about assignments, updating parents with news about the classroom, etc.)—Created an open classroom

·         Each student has a blog to write about current events around the world.

·         Youtube videos (she actually created the one we watched)

·         Online books or text? She said she doesn’t make photocopies anymore

We then classified these different things/tools into three categories. These three categories were: Things we could do before, Things we couldn’t do before & Things we could do before, but can do better now. This was helpful because it truly hit home how impactful technology is in our daily life & within the classroom. It also goes to show that we could do many of the things before, BUT we can enhance those topics through the use of technology and make them better. It also shows us that technology is not needed in EVERY situation. If we technology allows us to do something we couldn’t do before, or it allows us to enhance something we could do before than we SHOULD be using technology. On the other hand, if it was something we could do before &technology isn’t enhancing the lesson than we don’t need to be using it.

The next thing we looked at were articles about the “7 stupid mistakes teachers make with technology” and the “7 brilliant things teachers do with technology.” I thought this was simply a very interesting article. It showed WHAT NOT to do within the classroom, but also WHAT TO DO with technology. It simply did not bash teachers for trying to use technology within the classroom, but it gave things that teachers did well.

Exit Slip, Week 12, 11-23-10

        Today in class we began by talking about Chapter 10 of “Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology.” The group had us discuss a quote from the book that questioned whether technology would “leech critical learning resources, such a talent motivation, attention, and resources, out of the education system.” I thought this was a great quote to take from the book because there were quite a few varying responses and varying ways people interpreted this single quote. It was a reinforcing point that as an educator, many of my students will interpret the things that I present in my classroom in different ways. It was also interesting to hear the different opinions that people had on such a topic. They then showed us an article about a teacher that is using technology in her classroom, while integrating it with activities from “yesteryear.” I thought this was a great example of how to incorporate real world examples into a subject that we are learning within the classroom. I was also excited to read the article because it sounded extremely interesting!

        The next activity that we worked on in class was a media search. We were to find a video, podcast, Smart Notebook file, a Scratch project, and an online game or simulation that corresponded to a certain grade level or content area. I thought this was interesting because it teaches us how to find appropriate media to use within our classrooms. It also gives us future resources to use in our classroom because we are posting these various types of media to our Delicious accounts. I am interested to see what other projects my classmates posted to their delicious accounts!

Cyber Bullying Public Service Announcement

I felt as though my group and I exerted a lot of effort in planning and producing our PSA. We started by simply finding a topic we would like create our PSA about. Then we got together to plan the various scenes that needed to be taped for the PSA. We made scripts, planned out who was going to be in which scenes, and took pour own pictures to put in our PSA. We also researched various facts that we wanted to put in our PSA. Then we began the taping! We were not able to tape all of the sections at one time so we took turns videotaping each other at different times. We also all took turns taking pictures of each other to use in the PSA. Lastly, we had to put the PSA together. It was difficult because the videos would not play on any of our group members’ computers. Therefore, we all came to the lab and figured out how to encode our videos so that they would work in Windows Movie Maker. Putting the movie together was the easiest part!

I think creating and sharing a PSA impacts my future as an educator because it is a great example of a project that I can use in my classroom, with my students. I can easily see myself having my students film & create a PSA instead of having a test on a certain unit. They would have to create a PSA about a subject that we had been working on for a few weeks in order to show their knowledge of the material. I also think this impacts my future as an educator because I am more aware that Public Service Announcements exist. I knew what a PSA was before this project, but I truly never thought about how it can aid me in my teaching. There are thousands of Public Service Announcements in the world and they would be great introductions or attention grabbers for certain lessons, activities, or units.

Exit Slip, Week 11, 11-16-10

               

We started today with a presentation by our peers about the chapter from “Rethinking Education in the age of Technology.” We started by discussing how we would incorporate technology into our content standards. I thought this was a great question because it truly applies what we have been learning to our future as educators. Many of us are concerned about using the standards within our classroom and many teachers do not know how to address these standards. It was helpful to hear of ways we can personally connect our classroom technology to these standards. We then also talked about how we would help our students adjust to the new technology. I think this was helpful because many of us do not realize that not all of our students, parents of students, administration, and fellow teachers may not know of or know how to use technology. This will be a challenge for all of us to encounter and overcome in the future.