I learned so many things in this class that will make me a more effective teacher. First, I don’t feel quite so awkward around educational technology and I am better versed in some of the vocabulary. Since I am in the school system already, I hear some of the terminology and now I understand most of the conversation regarding technology. I only wish that I would be invited to the technology meetings that the teachers get to attend. The teachers have computers to work on and if I did attend I had to watch. This did not give me much hands-on experience. I am chomping at the bit now.
I believe being exposed to all of the things that we learned (i.e., Excel Spreadsheets, Social Bookmarking, Blogging, Smartboard, Interactive PowerPoint, PSA project, etc.) will make me a more effective teacher.
I definitely will make a conscious effort to integrate technology in my classroom because I do feel it is important. I also feel it brings a different feel to the classroom for these NET Geners. I feel it makes the classroom come alive. I love that it levels the playing field for all learners. I am definitely all for that. I can’t wait to integrate Smartboards into lessons and tests. I also did not know about teacher tube and I thought that was pretty cool.
Interactive whiteboards/Smartboards are absolutely an asset in the today’s classrooms, in my opinion. I am presently working in a middle school classroom with 7th and 8th grade part-time learning support students. We will be moving into our “New” school right around the holiday break or the Christmas break as some call it. Our new and improved school will have more state of the art technology than our old school. As I hear our district is on the cutting edge regarding technology. Yes, some of our middle school classrooms have Smartboards now but only a handful. Our elementary schools and high school have them in their classrooms and soon we will too. Presently, we are NOT one of the “lucky” classrooms that have a Smartboard in the classroom. I see many advantages of having an interactive whiteboard/Smartboard in the classroom. There are many different ways to expand the traditional textbook lesson by using the Smartboard. Being able to access the Internet capabilities is just one way to expand a lesson. By using the Smartboard, teachers can insert videos (United Streaming), music, link to other educational websites, and show podcasts to their students. Student interaction can take place immediately since students can write directly on (over) the Smartboard. Camera shots can be taken of the page to preserve information for future use. Again, normal everyday lessons (math, science, language arts, health, social studies, consumer economics, etc.) can come alive or be given a new dimension just by sprucing the lesson up by using some Smartboard tools or items from the gallery. I believe all students would be more engaged if the interactive whiteboards/Smartboards were used for teaching and learning.Tests and quizzes can be taken on the Smartboard. Review games can be played and learning can be fun. I like the interactive whiteboard because many different learning styles are tapped into. Visual, tactile, and auditory learners all benefit. Students with learning differences and those who don’t have learning differences can all learn and learn differently using the Smartboard. Technology can even out the playing field or classroom for learners. I can’t wait to practice, learn, and experiment with lessons on our new Smartboards. This will help me for student teaching and future employment, I hope.
Our project topic was child abuse and reality TV. We wanted to raise awareness of a new form of child abuse, parents using their children to promote their own fame on reality TV. The news has covered three “well known families” regarding this topic as of late. The three families that I am referring to are the balloon boy, Octo-mom, and John and Kate plus eight. All three of these families sought fame by using their children to do so. We do not feel that is appropriate. The children do not ask for this life style.
Video is definitely a powerful tool in the classroom. I think back to the classes I have already taken at Albright for my certification and think about how much better my lessons and units could have been if I had implemented more video and technology. I think of the unit that I just finished in social studies on the Holocaust. My Holocaust unit was geared toward 5th grade. I know I would have needed to research videos, etc. to be sure the material was appropriate for that age but it would have been worth the research time. I do think my unit would have been greatly enhanced by accessing video clips on (before) World War II, (during) the Holocaust and (after) the individual survivor stories. In my elementary science class, I taught a science lab on erosion and a video clip would have been helpful to introduce or reinforce the concept of erosion. In my elementary mathematics class, I taught a lesson on estimation. Students could have done a class project videoing themselves or each other demonstrating real life situations where you need to use estimation. For example, students could have gone to a grocery store or a party store where they could plan for a birthday party. I needed to incorporate song into some of my lessons and when I had to do this I used U-tube videos to demonstrate how the song was sung. P. S. U-tube videos helped take the sting out of the fact that I had to sing by myself in front of my peers. It also gave me some instrumental help.
In my own classroom, I would create podcasts with the students and use them in social studies and language arts classes. In social studies, students could research and create podcasts on pioneers or explorers that they were learning about. In language arts, they could create their own books and put them in a podcast or PowerPoint. I would use video to take students on virtual fieldtrips every chance I could in order to enrich the material in the textbooks. Students could also make their own fieldtrips using video. Allowing students to see different locations in the world is very meaningful and powerful. It seems as though when schools want to cut budgets, fieldtrips are one area they seem to cut fairly easily so virtual fieldtrips are an excellent tool to use as a supplement to budgetary problems. Teacher or student created PowerPoints can enhance any class or any lesson too especially if they are interactive. I would make review games
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Excel Spreadsheets can be used in various ways with in the classroom. Spreadsheets can be used to work in conjunction with Smartboards as an excellent resource. I found many lesson plans and ideas on this website http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line_excel.htm. One idea is to make a spreadsheet and have the class will vote on information that they choose and then turn that information into charts and graphs.
Another way to use a spreadsheet in Language Arts class, read the book Green Eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss as a class. Then on a spreadsheet write the items discussed in the book (eggs, ham, cooking oil, green food coloring). List four different grocery stores and ask students to price the items. Ask questions like “Where could you buy the least expensive eggs?” Another idea Language Arts could be documenting reading log/minutes, average the amount of words read per week. In math class, you can use spreadsheets to teach money and making change. This activity would work well on a Smartboard as well. You can also make hundreds and thousands charts to teach numbers. Another cool idea is creating pictographs. I saw a lesson plan on charting weather that was used in conjunction with the Smartboard. There are so many ways to make the classroom more exciting and all we have to do is put some time into jazzing up a traditional lesson plan with some technology.
Social bookmarking can help teachers and students in many ways. I chose Diigo as my social bookmarking site. I do think the Diigo site will help me as a teacher because I see myself contacting other people’s sites to research topics for lessons and to collaborate and share ideas. I strongly believe that we should not all have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to do something! I like the idea that if I find people who think as I do that I can subscribe to their RSS and receive updates on new websites that they have added. I also like the idea of collaborating with other schools and sharing bookmarks between participating communities. I know several teachers in other districts and think that social bookmarking would be a great way to share knowledge. I also would use a feed to the library to stay updated on new books, articles, etc.
As for students utilizing social bookmarking in class, I think they should be given live, acceptable links to select from which would make their search more productive in the time they have to work on it. Students can also do peer collaborating for projects, use video channels instead of face to face presentations, and use links to libraries to get updated on new books, articles, events or information.
I am working toward my Elementary and Special Education Certification. The lessons that I chose were lesson plans for elementary students. I would adapt the lesson to meet the needs of any student. I reviewed the Lesson Plan: Graphing with Google Docs & Forms. The grade level is K-3. I liked this lesson plan because I thought it could be used in a math lesson or I could use the lesson in another subject area and integrate math. You can collect data on any subject which is why I thought it could be used elsewhere. This lesson allows students to get to know each other a little better using a class survey. It also allows students to read and interpret various graphs. Students then view their results by using a spreadsheet. This lesson is very good for students who are visual learners. I think that appealed to me too because I am a visual learner. This lesson is an excellent way for students to interpret information, practice their writing skills, pose questions, and learn or revisit vocabulary. I think this lesson would be great to do in the beginning of a school year. It would allow students to get to know each other.
I can think of a time that I was working on a group project at Albright that involved a Power Point presentation. If we used Google Apps we could have all collaborated and put our setting on private as we wrote our sections of our assignment. We could have given each other more immediate feedback by using this tool instead of working around each other’s schedules, meeting and then making our changes. Our group also did not live near the college, we had jobs, and families to think about so scheduling meetings was quite difficult. We also may have been able to get feedback from other if we were not logged in as private. Perhaps someone could have offered us an idea that they used and we could have tweaked it and used the idea.
