Week 15 Reflection

This is our final reflection and this class has been a lot of fun! I have learned about WebQuests, which I had no idea what it was before this semester and I just finished creating on with my group. I think that this class has opened up my eyes to the need to teach technology, but there is also a lack of funding to bring technology to the schools. I think that once we get out of this recession we might be able to start adding more computers and so on in the classrooms. I think that teachers in the school now need to take a course on using technology to teach because the teacher I observed hardly ever used technology to teach because she didn't know how. I hope that as I start teaching I will be able to remember what I learned in this semester to use technology in the classroom.

Video- Do You Believe In Me?
I thought this was an awesome video. It made me realize how much the students need good teachers that believe in them. I think that many teachers get in a rut after a few years and just do the same things over and over again each year. This video inspired me to not ever get in a rut, to change it up each year with the different students that I will meet. I think every teacher needs to hear this speech because I think we all have heard this from principals and district leaders but it is different to hear it from a student.

Week 14 Reflection

This week was our first week back after our field experience. It was a busy week but in technology we learned about attaching videos to our websites. This was very helpful, especially when we want to have the students watch a video they can just click the link instead of having to type in the URL. We also attached out Webquest to our website and knowing how to do this will take ease off of teaching technology and trying to have students type in a web address and I have 30 students that I need to make sure if they typed in the right address. I think webquests are great tools for students to use. They are able to learn by discovery and usually that creates a better memory of what they learned. I think that students also enjoy webquests because their assessments aren't always the same test of quiz they have to take. Also having these links on our website, other teachers can have students do the same one by going to my website. That creates a better teaching team by working together and I think the students can recognize how strong the teaching team is and they can feel more comfortable.

School House Rock- Noun Video:
I love school house rock and I think that these videos are a lot of fun for the students to watch, while they are educational. I think it is important to have the students learn the songs as well as watch them, that way the concepts stay with them a lot longer. I would use this video to teach about nouns, I would give each student the lyrics of the song, and first have them listen to it and then sing along with the video. I would then review the song with them everyday until they have it memorized.

Week 13 Reflection

This last week of field experience was very interesting. My partner and I switched teachers with another partner and taught their class our unit while the other partnership taught the class we were assigned to. It was fun because this classroom was a technology integrated classroom where there was a computer for every two students. We used the computers in our lessons on day one and two. For day one we used the dictionaries on the computers to look up new vocabulary words. For day two we were able to show our power point on each computer so the students would be able to see all of the slides up close and get the information off of it for their worksheet they were filling out when they viewed the power point. I would hope that one day each classroom will be able to have the same set up as this classroom. They were all new, nice computers and they weren't being used all the time but they were there for them to use. In order for the teacher to have this set up, she had to go to school for 2 more years with 4 hours a day spent in the classroom. It would be a dream to have this set up but the funding for school in Utah is being cut so much that there aren't even librarians. I think that so much money is being spent trying to fix the wrong thing when the real problems can be fixed by teaching the children the right things so this doesn't happen again.

Week 12 Reflection

This week in the elementary school we worked on the computers twice. Our class was never scheduled a time to go to the computer labs so they have a traveling computer lab where there are 30 laptop computers that are on this cart where they all plug in and they sign up to take this computer cart. We were able to work on the computers and find more about the different biomes but that was all they had time to work on with the computers. We also used a power point to help us teach the Pony Express and I think that the students really enjoyed it because they don't see a lot of technology besides the over head projector. My partner and I are going to be switching classrooms this next week to teach our unit in a technology integrated classroom where there is a computer for every two students. I am interested to see how much the teacher actually uses the computers and what she uses them for. I think that it is really unfair to have so many students with the ability to access computers so easily but then have the class I am working with and I am sure there are a few others as well that don't have a constant access to any computers. But at least they can use the computer cart and have some access to computers.

Week 11 Reflection

This week was our first week in our field experience and I thought that it was very interesting to see how different each elementary school works with their schedule. Our class has technology class every Thursday if the lab isn't taken; they forgot to schedule the class a specific time to do go have a time with the computers. There is also another fourth grade class that is specifically technology integrated where there is a computer for every two students but our classroom has 4 computers and only two of them have the internet so our class doesn't get to spend a lot of time working with technology. There is also only an overhead projector in the classroom and so I think that the teacher doesn't have a lot of resources to use a lot of technology in her classroom. I think that is a big setback for the students because the world is becoming more industrious in technology every day but this classroom is still pretty old fashion in the way that it is taught. For our lessons, I am hoping to be able to use a projector with a Power Point to help incorporate more technology in the classroom. I also think that our teacher doesn't know how to use all the resources so she doesn't and I think that as we can teach we can use web quests or use the computers in centers. There are a lot of things that our class can do to use technology but I think that way that the schedule is set up at the school makes it really difficult for this classroom to really use technology.

Week 10 Reflection

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Week 9 Reflection

This week in class we learned about webquests. I think that webquests are a great way of teaching students because students can use technology in guided setting to learn about a topic. I also think that students are more excited to learn because they get to discover for themselves about the topic and they aren't just listening to a lecture. Sometimes webquests even include games which make them very kid friendly. I think you can also let the parents view the webquest before the students view it to approve it. I think that this will help parents know the details of what their child is learning about and can even have fun exploring the different websites on the webquest. A webquest is great for the students as well because as a teacher I will get to choose what websites the students will look at and they won't run into any bad websites that are out there. I think working with other teachers on webquests is a great idea because every teacher in your grade will have to teach the same things and if you work together to create a webquest, it cuts down half of your work and is more enjoyable for the students. I think you have to be careful with creating too many webquests because the students may get bored of them and not put in the effort needed to complete it. Webquests are a great tool if you use them properly.
Surface Computing Video: The video from the website wasn't working so I went onto the YouTube and found a video called Microsoft Surface Computing and this is the URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pojPBPFV-Y. I thought that this idea is really cool especially when the virtual restaurant orderings explained. You can look at each food item and then place your order and then set your card on the screen and it will charge it right then and there. It is cool to see the technology growing in the world and how homes will start having these technologies where you don't have to have a keyboard or mouse with your computer; you will just be able to touch the screen. You can see it now in a lot of the cell phones.

Week 8 Refelction

This past week I was working on my PDP. I learned a lot from the videos and the readings but I think that the survey was hard to really rate myself because I haven't taught or even thought of teaching students technology. I was an apprentice on almost every step because I wasn't a teacher who planned lessons. I think this survey would be more beneficial if I took it after I was teaching to get a good idea of where I stand compared to the NETS. But the survey was good to see what I already knew about technology and what was expected of me to teach. I was also a little confused with the whole workshop part of the PDP. I didn't really understand the workshops because we were learning how to teach students so I thought that we were supposed to create activities to help the students learn. But after I talked to other students I realized that the workshops were supposed to be for us to improve.

Video: Did You Know 3.0:
This is a very similar video to the other Did You Know video. The facts were updated which were a little more interesting for me to watch because of that. I think that it is good to understand how fast technology is growing and the need for teaching it in the classroom. It was good for me to compare what facts are in the first video and this one to see the changes.

My Beliefs

With technology growing so fast, I think that it is crucial in teaching and presenting with technology in the classroom. I think that there is something about technology that this generation of students can relate to easier than just the chalkboard. I have seen from experience that if we try to protect students completely, they will always find a way to get out from under that protection. I think that this goes with technology, the more we try to fight it and not let it into our classroom, the harder it is going to be to connect with our students. I feel that cell phones and personal computers can be a wonderful thing in the learning process but a lot of students seem to abuse them. I believe that we can successfully have a computer for each student and have each student working on something educational on the computer if they are always engaged. This can go with regular teaching, students won't be very bothersome when they are engaged and I think why not let them be engaged with something they are so interested in with the technology. It is going to help your atmosphere in the classroom more pleasant when students are interested in the items they are learning about and there are some many great resources out on the internet and different activities students can participate in if we try to incorporate technology into the classroom. It is hard to do when not every student has a computer but there are things you can do with just one computer in the classroom and I think you don't always have to use a computer to teach. Making class interesting is about changing the way you teach all the time and I think that you need to use all types of teaching styles to have a successful classroom.

Lessons Learned

I have learned a lot about how technology is changing. I had no idea how many students would actually want a computerized teacher. I know that it may be possible on day to have the smartest computer teach our children but personally I would much rather have human teachers in my child's classroom rather than an electronic one. I think that a student can learn more skills when there is face to face contact besides just the curriculum that is being taught. I also found it interesting what ideas students have for our technological future and some of the things they would like to invent will happen because they are our future and will end up creating what they think students need. I also find that social networking can be beneficial if it is used in a controlled way. Students tend to spend too much time social networking because it is so convenient. I agree with the video that talks about how social networking sites can be educational but only to a certain extent. When students only worry about how many comments people posted on their site or only communicating with their friends through chat, it tends to overtake their lives and there is never anything educational with addictions.
Overall, technology is growing and we need to be aware of the new types of communication but I think it is still important to have the personal face to face contact that has been since the beginning of time.

Strengths and Weaknesses

After taking this survey and reading the NETS paper, I found that I am at the apprentice level in almost every single operation and concept. My biggest weakness that I found filling out the surveys was that I haven't really thought about how I am going to teach my students how to use technology and how to reflect on the activities I teach. The survey also said that the activities need to be authentic. I think that every activity taught by a teacher is going to be authentic because every teacher teaches differently and has their own level of skill when it comes to technology. My other weakness that I noticed was that I have never used video chat. With such an evolving technological world, one day I could be using video chat to talk to my principle or even parents. I think that one-on-one meetings are going to become less frequent and video chat will be more common. I found a video that explains how to use video chat on gmail and I think that how wide spread gmail has spread, knowing how to use video chat with gmail is a great tool. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGJRfoK9xQ. This other video I found motivated me to use technology when I teach and teach technology to my students. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6AqDNjNmhw&feature=related.

I think because I have knowledge of using computers it is going to be hard for me to not get frustrated when a student doesn't understand what I explain to them. For my first goal, I am going to be patient with the students who don't understand when I teach them, review or start from the basics of using a computer. For my activity, I am going to have the students first learn the different parts of the computer such as the mouse, monitor, computer, key board, etc. That way the students will know what each term means when I use them and not have to explain to my students one by one what each part is. I will then take them through learning how to use word processor by having them make a cover of a book that would be about themselves and have them create a creative title for it. That way they will learn how to put pictures in a word document and how to use the different font sizes and style as well as font placement. I will continue on to teach how to save documents and the importance in saving them regularly when working on the project. I will help students whenever they have questions but when I take it step by step and show them how do to it on a projector as they are doing it, it will help me create a steady pace where I won't become frustrated with the students.

My next goal is to use video chat. I am going to use it with my peers and maybe another teacher that way I will be able to know how to find the video camera on the computer and know how to make it go into video mode to chat with others. My activity to help teach students about video chat, I am going to have them video chat with another student on the other side of the room. I could also have a cooperating teacher from another school have all of their students on one video chat with our classroom and that way we can still see the distance video chat can work between as well as have it not be one on one with each student. It will also help teach this concept if there isn't a camera for each student to use. I will take my students step by step through the process of finding a camera on a computer and connecting to another through a projector and that way they can physically see how to do it instead of just hearing how to and having a list of steps to follow.

Week Without Class Reflection

This week I spent quite a bit of time working on my Digital Story. Our pod was trying to figure out how to combine both our music and our narration. We couldn't figure out how to do it on Window's Movie Maker, so we decided to combine it on Garage Band on an apple. I think that this experience really helped me learn a lot of different media. I am now sure what type of systems I will be working on at the school I teach at and I will have to know how to use a variety of programs. This experience for me was a lot of work but it really benefitted me in the way that I can learn how to use a variety of programs. I also think that making a Digital Story won't just help me have a fun video to show my students. It helps me learn how to work with technology better in my classroom and I will be able to help my colleagues with the different programs that they don't know how to work. After helping them with the different programs, they will be better able to help their students in the classroom with technology and be able to use technology more in their classroom because it won't be as intimidating when they know how to use it.

Week 6 Reflection

Digital stories are a great tool to communicate to your students, whether it is an example of a digital story you made or an instructional story on how to make a digital story and each step you take to make one. Students' lives now days are spent watching TV and spending time on the computer and a great way to communicate with them is through these media sources. I think you are able to communicate to parents with digital stories by posting some on your website about whatyou are going to cover throughout the year or that unit and letting them know ahead of time whae the assignments are going to be. It also helps the parents get to know you better from the digital stories you post and how to better work with you as their children's teacher.

MILLENIAL GENERATION VIDEO: I think this video gives you an insight into what the kids are thinking towards technology and what they know about technology. I think that as long as there is money being put into the research and building of technology, there are going to e so many advancements throughout the years and everyone of the students I teach will see these advancements and learn how to use them. So we need to teach them in school how to use the basics of technology now because a lot of students don't get that knowledge at home.

Week 5 Blog

Digital stories would be really fun for students I think. It does take a lot of work but when you set aside time in class for your students to work on it and take it one step at a time. I think students would enjoy making a movie about something they are leaning in school or about a story in their life. It would help them create in a different way than the regular paper and pencil. It helps them use digital pictures and their own vice to create a story. I think that having students make digital stories and share them with other classes is great becuase it has other students and teachers see what students can do with technology. I think sharing your own digital stories with other teachers is very helpful because you can use the video without taking all of the time to make your own stories. You can base a story from one of the classroom objectives and have the students watch it and pair it with an activity.

DID YOU KNOW 2.0 VIDEO: This video was very interesting for me to watch to see where this world is going in the aspects of technology. It was crazy how many text messages are sent per day and how impersonal our communications have gotten. It is also cool to see how much information is on the internet and how often people turn to the internet to find information. It would be so easy to deceive people on the internet and you have to be very careful when searching the internet for information. This video also presents the need for students in the classroom to start learning how to use a computer and the internet at a young age so they can be involved with the technological change going on in the world.
A VISION OF STUDENT TODAY VIDEO: This video is so true about college life. As students we are expected to perform a variety of different tasks each day for everyone of our classes so we can better the world when we graduate. I think students today are learning various ways to get around doing these tasks quickly so they can finish all of them. Teachers may think that assigning all of these tasks are helping these students make the world better but in reality it is hurting because they have so many other expectations they cannot put enough effort and time into what they should. As a teacher I think I need to remember this concept and how it can help of hurt the students I teach and if the homework I assign is really helping them learn what I would like them to learn.

Week 4 Reflection

This week we learned about digital stories. We watched a few examples and then got in our PODs to do the rest of the work. I think that digital stories take a lot of time and work but that they are very worth it. I enjoy making movies so it is fun for me take these videos now and I will continue to make them for not only my own life but to help teach my students. Digital stories also bring variety into the classroom, which I think is very important with teaching kids. You can keep the structure of the class but still have some different ways of teaching. With the technology that we have in our world, it is a great fun way to have the stuents get involved with technology. It is also useful to save paper becuase if the students create a digital story instead of the regular book, they won't waste paper and they will be able to have it for a longer amount of time. Also having students make digital stories is a different way of writing a story becasue it uses pictures that they didn't draw and they don't actually have to have word written down. It involved different media and with that gets kids to be more creative in the way they use it. Something you have to be careful of when making a digital story is keeping short. It is tempting to go over five minutes and add a lot of information into the story because there are so many resources out there to use.
The video this week was really interesting. I didn't know that so many astronauts died in flights or practices. I knew space flight was dangerous but I didn't think it was that fatal until I watched this video. I also thought it was cool how the video shared other things that have come from the NASA research. I didn't know that Kennedy was the President when Nasa sent a man to the moon and I really liked the speech that was in the video and how it sounded as if Kennedy was the speaker.

Technology Tool Blog #2

The technology website that I found is The National Archives Website video section that has a lot of primary source videos about the economy and different things that affect it. The website address is http://video.google.com/nara.html. Even though it is through Google, you know it is reliable because it works through The National Archives website. A lot of the videos are 10 min-30 min, which seem long for elementary students so you would have to cut it to the exact spot you would like to show your students. There are a lot of videos and it would be hard to watch them all, because they are so long, to find the right one you wanted. But it is also beneficial to have so many video sources because there are a lot of subjects that go with each video. It is also really cool because the videos are filmed in the past so some of them are black and white and they are some news coverage from the past. The actual National Archives websites, www.nara.gov, has a lot of primary source documents as well. I would use this website to find pictures and documents that I will use to teach my students from that era of time. I think that it is important to teach with primary sources because it directly takes the students to that time period. The website is a little difficult to figure out. There is a teacher section that you can go to and search and it sorts out what wouldn’t be very beneficial to teach elementary students. Once you figure out how to get to the teacher website and find what you need, it is a very useful website to teach any social studies topic. The videos also work well with Zamzar so you can convert the files and use them whenever, not just when you have the internet.

Technology Tool Blog #1

The technology tool that I found where I was able to use information from was pbs.org/teachers/. I found it very helpful because I was able to find great websites to use in my lesson plans and fun for the students. You can search in almost any topic but I chose to search under social studies economics because I am writing a lesson plan for that topic and I thought it would be good to include some of the websites for the students to look at on our web quest. There was a website that I found where students can create their own pop star and learn how to handle the money and get everything paid off and how the economy was affected. I think this would be a fun way to assess the students on what they learned with budgeting. This website also talks about the tricks of advertising and how owners try to make things look cool. It also has links to different commercials and you can have students watch and see what the makers do to make the product look cool. Something I found with some of the websites was it was hard to convert the video on that website to the mp4 format. I couldn’t figure out what format to use so I wasn’t able to convert some of the videos. You have to be very careful that you don’t pick a video that won’t convert to mp4. This website also has links to non-online tools so you can teach students if you don’t have access to computers all the time. I thought this website is very good to use because it brings a lot of kid friendly websites into one big website and they are very educational. It also uses familiar cartoon shows on PBS to teach these lessons which would make it even more fun for my students.

Week 3 Reflection

This week we learned about how to use information from the internet into our lesson plans. We went onto Youtube and Teachertube to learn how to convert the videos on Zamzar.com. I have never heard of Zamar before so I am excited to use it more often in the future as well as the teaching I am doing now. This information is going to help me teach my lessons because the students will be entertained and they don't have to hear me all day. It is nice to have other resources to help you teach and I think that if the resources are out there then why not use them. We also went onto Engrade to see our grades and learned how to check them. This is a helpful resource not only so we can know what our grades are in this class, but we will be able to use it when we are teaching so the parents wll be abe to check their students grades any time they want. I think that the parents can enjoy these videos by having their children show them the videos. You can also put the videos on the website so the parents will be able to watch them and know what the students learned that day. I think you can also use other teachers to help download the different videos so you don't have to wait all the time it takes to convert the video. This will save a lot of time for all of the teachers and increase your library for different videos. You can also use the stimulations to add variety to the classroom and if there is going to be enough computers, you can have the students do the stimulations themselves or they can do it in a group.

Week 2 Reflection

I think that these tools are very useful in a classroom. For students, it is fun for them to go onto the classroom websites and seeing things that thy have done in class, pictures, and see who is the student of the week. It is also helpful to help them get to know technology better. When they live in a world that revolves around technologies the students will need to know how to access a website and know what a good website looks like. It is also important for the students to know how to move around on a website and use the internet for useful information. I think students will enjoy going on the website to review what homework they have due the next day. I think that a classroom website is important for parents so they can see what their children are doing at school and they will know what homework is due and when so if their student forgets to tell them they will still be able to help the child remember to do their homework. They will also be able to see when big projects are due on the calendar so they will be able to help the students with the projects and not wait until the last night to do them. From other teachers' websites I can look and see what they are doing in their classrooms and take some ideas from them that I think will work well in my classroom and vice versa. It also helps in meetings when we can actually see what goes on when we talk about the classrooms and when to help them with things they need. I have seen a few classroom websites and blogs that I can tell the students really like to go and visit. They have pictures of things they do and students of the week. It is also good for the parents and I think that it can solve a lot of problems when all the classroom information is put up on the website, like different books the students are reading and what they are learning about in school for that unit.You can also put on the website the different units you will be covering so they students will at least know what you are studying and you can list websites that would be helpful if they go and visit before or during each unit. There a lot of good things that can come from using a website but there are a few draw backs. There is the privacy issue to putting up pictures of students so you will have to make the website private so no stranger looks at the website. There can also be too much information on the page for the public eye to see. The first guy singing is a lot of fun. It would be fun to show the students this video and then have them make up their own song to a math concept as groups. I could also teach the song to help them remember how fractions work and it would be fun for them. The second video that goes through the different terms used on the internet so people can be updated to what's going on if they are unfamiliar with the internet. It isn't very interesting if you know most of the terms already.

Week 1: Ideal Classroom Reflection

My ideal classroom setting would be at a school where I was free to teach how I wanted. There wouldn't be a test that measures exactly where each student is suppose to be, but a test that is based on personal achievment. My classroom would be fun and colorful but not to busy so the students wouldn't get distracted. There would be the student's art work posted on the walls and there would be a large updated map and math posters to help the students. There would also be different poems and quotes on the walls. The school's budget would be large enough that I could buy as many books and supplies that I would need to teach my lessons and we could go on plenty of field trips. All of my students would be willing to participate in the activites that we do and the whole class would all be friends. The goal of the classroom would be to be everyone's friend and not to have any tight little groups but have the whole class be one big group. They would feel the classroom was a safe environment away from all of their problems and even though everyone is different, they would all be the same. The parents will all cooperate and help the student with the homework they get from class. They will also read with their students at home. They would be supportive of how I taught and I wouldn't have to worry about a parent getting mad at me. I will use various techniques in the classroom such as movement and group projects. Each teaching strategy will work with the way each of my students learn and I will rotate each one so the students won't get bored. I will use different technologies to teach like power points, movies, projectors, and overheads. I will teach reading comprehension, math, science, language, music, social studies, P.E., and arts, but a lot of these will be combined with the other so I can fit everything in that I want to teach.