Final Blog

How important is it to incorporate technology into your classroom?

            Incorporating technology is important because it allows the students to learn more about how our world revolves today.  The world today is all about technology, most all toys today “do something,” they move, talk, or light up.  Children are growing up with toys doing the thinking for them.  When they go to school they are expecting the same types of things so as teachers we need to help them by using the technology to keep the children interested.

What ate the benefits to you and your students?

            Technology is a huge part of everyday life but not all students will have access to the technology at home so in school they can learn how to use it so they are more prepared for the future.  Also it can help students to see that what they are learning in the classroom will help them when they are out in the world and that there is a point to learning everything. 

What are some of the challenges?

            Technology can be tricky, break or may not work the way you want it to, so teachers always need to have a backup plan if it does not work.  Also some students may not know how to use it or may use it in the wrong way, teachers need to be able to watch the children and correct them if needed.  The internet is a big place and children can end up in the wrong area or looking at unreliable information. 

What are the important lessons you will take with you from this class and use?

Smart board

            This is a great tool to use in the classroom (as long as you have a smart board in your classroom) because it can get the students up and involved and it is interesting to them because of the animation.  This helps the students learn and retain the information because they are having fun and don’t see it as learning all the time. 

Creating a form on Microsoft word

            The lesson plan form I created will be very nice to work with when writing lesson plans because the formatting is already done and cannot be messed up.  Once I have a job and have the schools lesson plan I will create a form for that too. 

Inspiration

            This is a good program not just for organizing units but organizing almost anything.  It is helpful to know what you need to do and where it fits in the best. 

Electronic Portfolios

1 good and 1 bad example of electronic portfolios on the Internet

• Good
• http://durak.org/kathy/portfolio/
• This portfolio has a side bar that has links to what is in the portfolio
• It is easy to see what is being offered and easy to navigate back to the home page
• she offers a lot of pictures of student work
• colorful
• Bad
• http://www.electronicportfolios.com/
• The links on this page are all over and it is hard to know what is offered
• Once off the main page it is hard to navigate back
• A lot of the same colors (gray and black)

Copyrights

Copyrights are a lot stricter than I thought.  I was surprised that even if you own a movie and show it in the classroom not for educational use it is illegal.  I have always watched a lot of movies before breaks and on random days in school.  Outside of school people are always using other people’s things and going off of it, I think this starts to run into plagiarism with copying other peoples work.  As a teacher I think it is our responsibility to talk to students and make them aware of what the laws are and what can and can’t be done.  I think Jeopardy is a good and fun way to help students learn also having the students do a research paper and site all the sources. 

Video Project Lesson

I would use this in the classroom for history and have the students play out a scene in history.  This would be for a 3^rd or 4^th grade class.

 I would have to reserve the cameras and computers ahead of time to know that I will have them for the students when they need  them.

 I would have to teach about the different times in history first.  In order to prepare the students for the project.  I will then teach them how to use the camera and the different aspects of using it.  I would also teach the students how to use the movie software. 

I would have a small project first where the students would use the camera and get used to it and the movie software before actually filming their project. 

Video Project

Our video project went well.  We didn’t have a lot of talking which was helpful when filming.  One thing that we could have improved on was filming everything the first day we were still a little unsure how we were going to film it all so it took us a while to get started.  From this project I have learned that making video is not that hard and that I can be a fun and useful project for in the classroom.

Interactive whiteboard

I feel that the interactive whiteboards enhance teaching because they are interactive and the students can come to the board and answer questions or play games that will tell them the right answer in the end.  Learning to actually use the smart board was not hard; the hard part was creating the lesson.  Each button does something and all the commands were new.  One problem I had was I would forget to click on the arrow hand after I made a text box or added a shape and would then make a new box or shape. 

Pros: I feel that the interactive whiteboards will help keep students interested because there are so many ways to use then that the students won’t get board and will always be wondering what is on the next slide. 

Cons: The interactive whiteboards can be distracting when teaching and can take away from the learning and focus more on games if the teacher is not careful about what they are using it for.  Also if a teacher is using it all the time it may be hard for the students to go back to just a lecture style lesson.

In the science lesson I could use the smart board as a way to show the steps of a process, I could use it to match things or find places on a map.