Chapter 4

My goal for my second year of teaching is to incorporate more technology into my instruction in hopes to keep my students engaged through an entire period. Like I have mentioned before, I do not have an abundance of technology available to me in my school. We have IPads and Laptops that the teachers on my floor have to sign out, but there is not enough of each for an entire class.

I recently signed up for Donor's Choose in hopes to bring in a projector for my classroom. I have a SmartBoard in my classroom, but no computer or projector to use it all day, every day. It would be impossible for me to sign out the projector for that length of time.

Unfortunately, I do not use technology in my classroom and I always thought of myself as a teacher who constantly used technology to promote learning and hopefully this year I will live up to that expectation. There are so many different ways of creating lessons and activities through incorporating technology into your planning and implementing of lessons. In class I learned about so many different ways to bring that creativity through. I wouldn't have even thought of half of those examples we saw in class. It is definitely helpful to see all those examples and hopefully use those ideas and translate them into my own style of teaching.

Take Away Message

Today, I definitely learned some new things, especially using PowerPoint creatively. I've used PowerPoint in the past and I think I have done a good job with the tool, too. However, seeing some examples of how to really use it effectively for my students. I am excited to work on creating my video trailer for my topic of animal issues. I plan on using it in my own class right before we start our writing unit about raising awareness of this terrible issue.

Chapters 3 and 9

One of the topics that struck a cord with me while reading chapter 3 is the new term digital citizenship. I think this is a great term to describe all users of all sorts of social medias and blogs. Just like we are responsible for being upstanding citizens in our neighborhoods, we need to be responsible for what we post and share online. Not only is it important to discuss with our students about the importance of being responsible while using such websites, but it is also important for teachers to have a discussion about how once something is posted or shared, it is online for anyone and everyone to see. Even if you delete your post or share, it isn't actually gone. It will always be a part of our cyber world. Before I introduce my class to using IPads and laptops in my class, I want to have this discussion with my students, even though my students won't be on social media sites like FaceBook or Twitter. I believe it is important to have this discussion because not all students have supervision while using technology. I am still thinking of a creative way to have this talk with my students- so if anyone has any ideas please share with me!! :)
Being a digital citizen also means respecting all sources of information as well. There are so many opportunities for students to obtain new information to aid them while writing informational essays. However, we as teachers, need to teach our students how to correctly use sources. That includes discussing plagiarism and how to properly cite a source. Last year, I did a whole lesson on paraphrasing while using sources to help their writing. I used the idea of being a parrot to help my students understand that you don't want to sound like a parrot just repeating and copying your sources, but rather put the information in your own words to sound like you!
I enjoyed reading the section Literacy Learning with Digital Cameras. When I first saw the title I was immediately excited. Reading is something that the students at my school struggle with and they don't tend to like reading all that much. If I could make literacy come to life for them, it will make all the difference. The alphabet and concept books would work great for kindergarten and first grade classrooms. However, I teach the 3rd grade so I wonder how I could modify these concepts and ideas into a more appropriate tool for my third graders.

Questions:
1. What are some ways you implement or plan on implementing technology in your classrooms?
2. How would you go about introducing your use of technology into your classroom?

Chapters 1 and 2

Chapter 1 and 2 Blog

In the 23 years I have been alive, our society has drastically changed. When I was growing up, we first got the internet in 1998. I was seven years old and my mom let me go on to play a few games. I definitely was not walking around with the latest IPhone. Yes, technology has made our lives much, much easier, but I do believe we, as a society, may have become too dependent on these advancements. I see some people who cannot hold a conversation with a person face to face without putting down their smartphone. Even my sister, who will be 28 in a few months, has a really hard time letting go of her IPhone. She is constantly connected and posting on social media that we sometimes have to repeat questions to her because she doesn’t realize we are speaking to her.

I would love to be one of those teachers who incorporates and uses technology in her classroom every day. There are so many different ways to bring technology into any classroom to help increase student engagement. In my classroom I have a Smartboard, but no projector and no laptop. My two computers and printer in the back of the room do not work.  We have a technology sign out document for my floor that is shared among nine teachers. It is hard to use a piece of technology every day if you do not have the access to it. I wish I had a projector in my classroom and I would use my Smartboard everyday! I am actually in the middle of creating an account for Donor’s Choose so I could hopefully raise funds to purchase my own projector for my classroom.

There a few other classrooms that have SmartBoards with projectors so they are constantly using it and I am so jealous. There are so many opportunities and activities you can do with students if you have the available equipment. Last year, we had some trainings in which TEQ showed us different activities and tools to incorporate into lessons to make the level of engagement that much more greater.

Questions

1.    How do you, or how would you incorporate technology into your classroom?

           2. Describe your readiness and/or eagerness to becoming technology-friendly.

My Goals

 As far as I can remember, everyone has always told me that I am a technology whiz. I, on the other hand disagree. It is not that I am good with it, I just have patience to sit there and click random buttons until I get my intended results. One of my goals for this class is to actually know and understand what I am doing.
Technology is a great tool to make learning exciting. Children need different learning environments to stay focused and engaged. Now with the Common Core, students are expected to read, understand, and respond to complex texts. These complex texts can be above grade level and the expectation is that closely reading a passage or text, students can achieve that true understanding of the text. However, there are many students who are not on grade-level and are expected to read, understand, and respond to the same text. It is that much harder for students to meet expectations. There are great tools and interactive services that can make close reading a text easier for students to do on their own. It is also important to use different tools inside the classroom to teach my current and future students about the emerging technological era.

I am excited to I get to practice making a Web Quest in class. I made one during my undergraduate career, but I never incorporated one into my own classroom. Another goal is to try to use Web Quests to make learning science and social studies more exciting for my students. However, one of my issues is that it is difficult to have access to enough computers or IPads for my students to complete this interactive activity. That is a major concern of mine, but I am determined to include at least one web quest for each science and social studies. 

I am also looking forward to learning about other tools and websites that I can use in my class to make learning as exciting and engaging as much as possible. This is a huge component for all teachers and we are being evaluated on our ability to engaged our students. I believe this class will definitely help me learn different ways to engage and make learning exciting and different for my students. I do have a SmartBoard in my classroom, but I do not have computers or a projector. I would love to use my SmartBoard everyday, but as of now it is kind of hard to do so.