Technology articles #2

Digital cameras can be used in the classroom for many projects and assignments. A few that is listed in the article mention having an orientation on the cameras for the students so that they have an understanding of the proper use of the camera for school. Students of all ages can use a digital camera in their learning. It is a great way for students to explore new things and add it to their projects in the classroom. Digital cameras are one of the easier technologies to have in the classroom and can be very beneficial to teachers. While I was in field I used my camera to create a power point of various walls in Utah County that went along with a lesson. Digital cameras can be used for the students to use as well. I think that digital cameras would be one of the more beneficial tools to have in the classroom.
The easiest way to get going with the cameras is to just play around with them. Use them for pictures to post in the classroom or at parent teacher conference or with permission from parents to post and share with others. I think that digital camera bring a new way of learning something to our students. Through the lens they can explore a whole new world of technologies available to them to learn and be able to have it integrated in to the classroom.

Technology Article #1

On of the technologies I chose to research is the smart board. The smart board is a rising technology that is being found in classrooms across the country. Smart boards are an interactive technology tool that allows students and teachers real-time interaction with educational web sites. Combining a whiteboard with the power of a computer, Smart Board interactive whiteboards have been engaging students around the country. “I have never seen anything in my 21 years have an impact on teaching like this technology,” said Clinton-Massie administrator. Through Smart Boards, students get hands-on technology “for meaningful, relevant purposes.” Smart boards are becoming a popular addition to school classrooms as well as to office meeting spaces. The interactivity that a smart board provides allows teachers or professional presenters to let their audience collaborate, draw, and interact with information on the screen. Lessons and activities in a classroom setting become more engrossing for students and increase overall retention of the lesson content. Research that has been done shows clearly that teachers that use smart boards see greater improvement from their students compared to classrooms that do not use smart boards enriched classroom content. The technology allows students to "take more responsibility for their learning as teachers move from being the sage on stage to the guide on the side, the concept is not about learning to use technology. It's about using technology to learn."
I feel that as a teacher a smart board would add immensely to the classroom. It would draw the students into concepts and then would become engaged in the lesson. The smart board can offer great things to teachers and to students. Research show that those students using a smart board in a classroom score higher on test, as to compared to a classroom with out a smart board.

My Beliefs

My beliefs when it comes to technology might differ from many others beliefs. I think that technology is important and needs to be integrated into our educational programs. Technology is our future and the students who are going to be the future need to have an understanding. At the same time I feel that we need to not have our students rely on technology. When a student is given a math problem and only ever uses a calculator how will ever know how to do it with out one. Many will say well the technology is there so we don’t have to do thing the hard way, well that is true at the time but what will they use when technology happens to not be there?
Many students are intimidated by technology. Some of them just do not learn in that way. I feel that technology is a great learning tool and can bring the world in to the classroom, but we need to keep in mind how our students learn and maybe not all of them are as comfortable with it as others might be. I will integrate technology in to my classroom but I also believe that there is a place for when it should be used.

Lessons Learned

With in the websites I thought it was interesting to see what is available to the teacher that maybe some didn’t know existed. I liked the film on Why Integrate? It was so interesting to see how much technology that the school had available to them. Not only that but that the teachers were using it in the classrooms and knew how to use it. I liked how they integrated the technology into what the students were interested in. Whether it was science, cheerleading, music, etc. I also really liked the film Did You Know? Just like in the film we do need to be preparing our students for the 21st century and for those problems that haven’t come yet and those answers that are not there yet. The number s that were given in the film are amazing to me to that children are living in a world of technology and in order for our students to be functional in the world they need to technology at a young age.
From these readings and videos I have been able to see the importance of teaching our students technology. Students need to know it now, but even more importantly for the future, which is in their hands. By seeing all that is involved I can see that as a teacher I will need to set continual goals for my self to stay update on technology so that I can teach my students to the best that I can so that they are prepared for the future. We do not know what technology has in store for us but it is growing and being more and more available to all. It is our responsibility to make the students comfortable with it.

Strengths and Weaknesses

In accordance with the UNI and NET Standards I was able to view where my weaknesses and strengths are in applying technology in the classroom and my understanding of technology. It was interesting to see that technology is integrated in the classroom in everything. One question in the UNI survey asked if I am competent in operating basic and discipline-specific equipment. Such as graphing calculators, laserdisc players, MIDI keyboards in music, cameras, etc. I thought that when I said I was technology savvy I really was, but then I realized what all technology encompassed other than a computer. I realize that I have a lot to learn. Through out the survey I also realized how much you have to adapt technology for various reasons, such as for the special needs students and those who are not able to have the technology at home and may not know how to use it as well.
Some of the goals I have that will help me to have a technology rich classroom are; to stay up to date on the current programs and or tools that are available to my students for the classroom. Take technology classes, tutorials, etc. to increase my knowledge of technology and how I can use it in my classroom. There are so many resources out there for me to use so that I can use technology in the classroom. Not only through the internet or other facilities but in our own schools are there teachers that know a lot that are willing to help us to have a better understanding of technology use in the classroom.
I found two great Internet tutorials that are available to teachers the first one is http://www.edzone.net/~mwestern/tutorials.html. Marilyn Western's Technology Tips for Classroom Teachers. With in this web site there are tutorials on basic concept on how to make things for your classroom through the computer. Some that are included in the web site are how to make templates, how to make and organize folders, how to print on sticky notes, sticky note template, how to make desk name tents, how to create a newsletter, and so much more. The second web tutorial I found was http://sqooltechs.com/resources_teacher_tech_tutorials.html. This web tutorial is online practice modules. The practice modules are for power point, excel, dream weaver, webquest, macintosh, word, works and many more. It is great to work through these so that we can be more accessible in our classroom technology needs.

Webquest week 2

This week in class we were still working on our web quest. We decided to change it over to google presentations it was going to be easier to work on and finish it faster. We were originally going to email, cut and paste, then work on the final touches. This way will be so much easier, it will eliminate the cut and pasting and we finish it on our own rather than having to meet with our group out side of class. It feels good to have the semester widing down. It has been a good semester, but it always gets hard around finals. Ecspecially when christmas is only a few weeks away and trying to organize all the holiday celebrations and shopping with school and work. All the other classes are going well also. They are all widing down for the semester just getting ready for the final or our final presentations.

Technology Interview

1. What did you learn from this interview?
This technology interview was very helpful of informing me of what is available to me as a teacher to use in the classroom for my students. The school I was at was fortunate to be able to have a mac lab that they could use. It was given to the school by the PTA who raised the money to purchase the lab. We used the lab in our technology rich lesson plan. The students are pros at the computer you can tell they are comfortable around technology. Not only from this interview did I learn what was available to use I also learned what is not. The school does not have musch funds for technology in the school but basically what the teachers need can be found if needed.

2. How will this experience affect you as a teacher?
This experience helped me to see that technology is not a burden. I always thought that by using technolgy in my classroom that it would take so much work and time. In some ways that is still true to me but over all technology can make things so much easier and once its made you can save it and use it again and again. The students love technology as well. They are good at it and I had a first hand exeperience that when I was up lecturing students on was going to be done than the mac lab was brought in, it brought a whole new feeling of learning into the classroom the students were all 100% engaged in the learning assignment.

3. How did this experience change your thinking about the use of technology?
Just like mentioned in the paragraph above I always thought that it took so much effort to bring it into the classroom and make it part of the lessons. But it doesn't it really doesn't. In the classroom I was in technology was always used. The teacher was very good with technology which I can't say that I am (I'm working on it) and brought it in to the lessons so easily. I hope that I will one day be that good at it. This field experience changed my attitude towards technology in the classroom completly. I saw that the students loved it and wanted it to be apart fo their classroom.

week back after field

This week was hard getting back into the normal schedule of school just to get back off of school for Thanksgiving break. This week in class it was nice to be put into groups to do our webquest. When its this close to the end of the semester it is nice to be in group to divide the work up to get done fast. My group is great to work with we came up with an idea really fast. Divided up the work and got started. We hope to only have to work on it during class rather than take time out of our days to do it and try to get every one together. This semester has flown it wil soon be over with still a ton to get done. I hope to get caught up this week so when the end is here i can jsut turn it all in! All the other class are going well it was nice to have an extra week to work on some assignments in other classes because of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving wasn't very productive because I worked every day all day but it was nice that way because I didn't have work and school. Get a few extra hours in. The end of the semester is here I hope it all goes well!

Week 3 of field experience

WOW! I did it. I made it through the 3 weeks of 6th grade. I learned so much while I was at Salem elementary school in the 6th grade. I am so excited to keep going and to one day have my own classroom. Teachers are busy people I can't believe how much they have to get done in one day. Organization is key to alot of what takes place in a classroom. This experience was a huge eye opener to what I need to do as a teacher as well as how what I am learning at UVU applies in the classroom. The cooperating teacher was great! He gave great feedback to my lesson plans and gave me great resources to use as a teacher. He was great to work with and helped me to get out of my bubble and try new things that I might not had normally done. The students in the class were great kids they were patient with me and made it a really good time. I learned a lot from them as well . To see how 6th graders are again was good for me. It put me down to there level to plan lessons on what was interesting to them so they can learn and grow. I had a great partner she was great to work with and kept on top of things. When I messed up or lost what I was doing next she picked up the slack and it all worked out. I am glad that I had the opportunity to be in the classroom now rather than be thrown into a classroom for my student teaching. I hope that when i get back to classes at UVU I will be able to relate it back to some eperience I had in the classroom with the students I worked with.

WEEK 2 OF FIELD EXPERIENCE

WOW! This week was great we taught for our first time on Monday and on Tuesday. The lessons went great the studetns really enjoyed it. We taught geography for our lessons. Our advisor was there and gave us great feed back on how we could improve as well as what she saw that was goign well. We showed up on tuesday and Wednesday and there was a substitue teacher that we weren't expecting. It was actually really good for us, the sub handed the class over to us. We taught math and corrected homework and taught our lesson. The students were so good for us the students are really good kids. Like I said last week in my blog it is great to see the things we are learning in classes at UVU apply to the real classroom. In one of our lessons we talked about walls around the world and how we have walls in our own lives. I took pictures with my ditgital camera and put them on a power point to show to the students walls around Utah County. I posed the questions of why is it important that we have these walls and what purpose will it serve for us. The studetns loved to see the waslls and how they have walls around here so close. It really made it concrete for the students. The students then made a brick and we built a wall to show how we live in Utah and what our civilization is like. I am really enjoying my field experience. The teacher we are working with shares so many great ideas and resources for us and has taught so much to us. I am so glad that i am having this experience.

FIRST WEEK OF FIELD WORK

This week was crazy trying to get everything organized for field and being in the classroom. I am enjoying myself being in a sixth grade classoom. It is interesting to see how a sixth grade classroom is ran because when I was in sixth grade we were in middle school and had class periods, lockers, gym, etc. It is really different. At first I was against teh older gradeds didn't hink that i clicked well with them but over this last week I could see my self teaching teh older grades just as much as teh younger grades. The teacher that I am working with is great he loves his class adn job and it shows. He uses alot of technology in his classroom. He has an overhead projector that shows what ever is on teh computer as well as you can watch TV and movies on it. It is great it makes having power points and digital stories worth wild. It is so easy to show them and use those things in the classroom. This week already we saw how the technology is used in the classroom. The class is studying planets and space, each student was assigned a subject to make a power point on. The powermoint we saw was on Mars. It was great and the students really know their stuff when it comes to being computer savvy. It has been interesting to enter a classroom and see all that we have learned apply in the classroom. While in class you pretend and here how it is affective but when you are in an actual classroom it is great to see it all come together. I look forward to the next couple of weeks and how much more I will learn.

Week Before Field Experience!

This week in all classes we were loaded with all of our assignments for field. At first it seemed over whelming but all the teachers are great, they helped to break down the assignments so that we can take them one step at a time rather than all at once. I touched ground with my teacher I am working with to make sure we are still on for monday morning and all is set to go. I am looking forward to field experience to see all that we have learned taking placing. I am a little nervous to plan the lessons and teach them to 6th graders but it will be so good fo rme to get out of my bubble. I have met the students already and they are great they have such respect for their teacher I hope that I can demand that as well and that the students will be as good for me. I am making a list tonight of things that need to be taken care of while i am in field work jsut to make sure that everything gets done and in on time. WISH ME LUCK!!! ;)

Classroom website

This week was great learning more things that I can do on my web site. To have a classroom webpage would have huge advantages for me as a teacher as well as for the parents of my students. I like the calendar that is availabel to have on the web page to help parents to remeber what is going on in the classroom. Some of the things you had has put on our web page I never would have though to put on it before. I like the idea of putting what technologies are being used in teh classroom. I would use these tools in my classroom and try it out to see fi it was utilized by the parents and it was useful. also this week I worked on finishing my digital story. We are pretty much done just have to put the music in and burn it on to a CD. It turned out really well! Some of things we wanted to do didn't turn out but it all worked out. I would love to see everyone elses. It took alot of time to put it all together it woudl be worth it to see some that people made.

Almost There!

This week for our digital story we worked on the images panning in and out the way we wanted them to as well as finished putting in our words on the pictures. We aren't going to be able to have the words and pictures pan in different ways the photostory program can't do it. That was going to make our story really cool, oh well we hope it will still look neat. We also got started on putting in our music. We chose some music from the 60's 70's to put in our power point we need to find one more song though to use. This weekend we are going to record various people saying their right and responsibilities to use in our story. We want male vocies, female, kids, teens, etc. we weren't quite sure how we were going to get all those voices to beabel to put them on the computer to use, but Kari found a digital voice recorder so we are going to use that. Hopefully this coming week we will have our finished product. It has been good to work with a partner and figure all this stuff out! We also need to put the story on DVD's to turn in and also for us to keep.

Find and Save!

This week for digital story we were searching for pictures, music, and narration. We also got started on playing with photostory. We put in all the pictures and number of slides we needed, as well as even some words to go along with the pictures. We played around for a while to figure out out how to use photostory so we didn't get as much done as we had wanted to. We also started using the program to put music or narration in our story. we still have alot of work to do and we have come up with some cool ideas as we have gone along. I look forward to seeing teh final product. It as been good for me to learn how to use story board I think it is a great tool for the classroom and once you make it you can use it again. It will save you time in the long run. I am interested to see what technology or programs are available in the school I will teach at to see what will be availabel to use in teh classroom.

Learning

This week in class we took a closer look at digital stories. It was very helpful to see examples as well as go over some web pages and resources we had available to us to use. Its also great that we can work with our field partner to create our story. It is always good to have two heads rather than one. We talk about what we might want to do and we got together to create our dashboard this week as well. It was helpful to see it all layed out on paper of the detail we plan on including in the story. So far we have stared looking for pictures, music, and naravtive. I think that by creating this story we will be able to learn how to use it in the classroom to give our classroom media in the lesson plans for our students. I look forward to actually creating the story and seeing the final product.

Ditgital Story

This week in class we were introduced to digital story boarding. At first I was a little aprehensive because I wasn't sure what was expected of me, but then the sun shown through the clouds and I understood what was to been done. I researched various topics within the sixth grade curriculum so that I can possibly use it when I am doing my field experience. I chose to do standard four of the social studies curriculum. I plan on making it reflective on rights vs, responsibilities. I want to have students reflect on what their rights are and what they need to being doing to keep them (their responsibilities.) Some of the things that I thought of were education, speech, assemble, healthcare, religion, opinion. Some things I thought of concerning responsibilities are honesty, fairness, community, protection, respect. These are jsut a few I still need to think on it further to make it all work and make sense.

Google Site

I loved doing google site it was so much fun! It is such a good tool to know, it would be great to have a web site for your class and use it for newsletters, annoucements, etc. It was so easy to create. I know that I will use this tool in my class.

Mathematic concepts using the web

Today was a whole new world to me. We started colaborating with each other using gmail. It was rough to get it down but our group eventually did it!! YA YA YA! We found the chat more useful then we did the gmail. We focused our research on mathematics using the web. We found lots of great web sites that will help teachers come up with interactive activities that will help students understand the concepts better. We also found websites that the students can play at home on the computer to practice math other then in school. We need to create math concepts in a way that applies to students lives. It was great practice today learning how to get in contact with one another to colaborate ideas to help one another in coming up with ideas for classrooms!

Technology In The Classroom

My eyes have been opened to how much we are holding back our students by not applying technology in the classroom. I often feel intimidated by technology (I am not a computer whiz!), but I see now that I need to be open minded to learning new areas of technology and not staying in my comfort zone of what little knowledge I have. I hope to one day be one of those teachers that applied technology in the classroom and helped those students to better understand it as well!