My New Found Confidence with Technology

As this course comes to a close, I am really excited about how much my confidence has grown with technology. I used to feel somewhat technologically inept. Now I feel that I can really work with technology and use it to my advantage as a teacher. Although there have been several frustrating moments when I have been trying to complete projects, I feel that I really know how to work with a variety of programs and technological resources. Overall, I am really excited about the new ideas I have about technology and all the ways I can use technology to support my teaching in the future. I now know how to make quizzes, videos, how to blog, twitter, and utilize the various aspects of Google. I am very excited about whats to come, for me, in the world of technology!

Restrictions with Technology

Last week, I planned a lesson to teach in my 2nd grade class at Beaumont. I had tons of great ideas to ingrate technology into my lesson. When I got into the classroom and began to teach it, I realized that the school website had Youtube blocked and I was unable to teach a very important aspect of my lesson. These are some of the reasons I feel hesitant with utilizing technology. I ended up having to somewhat improvise and I was disappointed because this was the best part of the lesson. I felt really discouraged and just felt that the lesson did not go very well overall. What I have gained through this experiment is that I need to be sure to check my resources before I teach the lesson rather than banking on them working. I do not want this to shy me away from utilizing the resource of technology, I just want to utilize this experience to give me an awareness of how technology will not always follow through. It was a good experience to have because it pushed my teaching skills to improvise and still teach the children what they needed to learn.

Utilizing Technology in a Social Studies Lesson with 2nd Grade!

This past weekend, I wrote a social studies lesson that had several activities and phases. I was really excited about the ideas I had that utilized technology. The children have been studying plants and animals for about 4 weeks now. My class, in particular has been studying the Arctic. I decided to end the unit with a map exploration and creation. For the exploration portion of the activity, the children will be researching various maps throughout the activity. I have set aside websites for them to go to to find information about the map of Antartica so that they will be able to create their maps based on their research. I am also planning on showing the children some videoclips by utilizing Youtube.com and also by showing the children the videos on the SmartBoard. Before this class, I was oblivious to how much I utilized technology. Now I feel as though I am looking for ways to utilize technology more within my lessons and I am also becoming more and more confident in my own capabilities with technology. When I first began taking this class, I felt that a technology course was not going to be very useful to the Early Childhood Field. Now that this class is coming to a close and I feel much more confident and educated in technology, I cannot wait to continue applying technology in my classroom next year as an intern, and in the future as a teacher!

Classroom Website

As I have been creating my final project through a website, it has made me very excited about the possibility of having a website for the parents of my students when I am a teacher. There are endless possibilities for utilizing the website to communicate with parents and showcase children's work.
It could be a great way to stay in touch with parents on nearly a day-to-day basis. It would take little time to get on the website and post a little blurb about how the day was and what the children learned and to remind parents of what ever their child may need for the following school day.
When I am a teacher, I really hope to utilize the tool of creating a website through Google sites. It would also be a great way to post homework for children that they can practice at home with their parents to not only gain extra practice, but also to show their parents their progression over the course of the school year.
This is also a great place to post resources for parents, as well as students. We have discussed this in class before, but for children who do not have many books, you could post a couple of read-alouds each week so that they could have the opporunitity to either be read to or to read to themselves. The possibilities are endless! This is something I definetly hope to utilize in my teaching career!

Activboards in Relation to engagement

I am spending 9 hours a week right now in a second grade classroom at Beaumont elementary. Overall, this experience has been very beneficial for me and my future career as a teacher. The teacher I am with does a great job of utilizing technology in her classroom through her Activboard. She utilizes her active board for language activities and also utilizes it as a center during their designated center time. She pulls up worksheets that the children would normally have in paper form and allows them to write on the board with the pen. I really like the fact that she allows them to utilize the board because I feel that it gives them a sense of competency with technology and it involves them in her instruction. It is also a great way to create a classroom community because the children will often read aloud from the Activboard together or will work on activities by brainstorming together.
Another aspect of the Activboard that has been really neat, is that I have gotten to utilize a couple of the assignments from my Tech 486 class by utilizing the Activboard. I was actually able to show a video recording I made of the book, "The Very Lonely Firefly" by Eric Carle. These boards are a very practical, useful tool in the classroom, because not only are they fairly simple to use, but also serve multiple purposes and have multiple uses.

The Very Lonely Firefly

This is a video presentation that I created through Imovie. I recorded myself reading a book and scanned the pages and added background music. This was a great project for my field of teaching and was something that I would do again. I was actually able to show the video I made to my second grade class at Beaumont elementary and they absolutely loved it! It would be a great tool to segway into a writing activity where you have the children write a story of their own and then allow them to publish their book by reading it and recording it. Having a day where you allow the children to share their stories with one another would be a great way to integrate technology into reading curriculum. I was really excited when I thought about this possibility because so often I think of finding ways for me to integrate technology in the classroom and forget that it is also a great tool/way for children to learn. Allowing the children to read a book and record it would be great practice for their reading and would allow them to see/use technology at the same time!

Spreadsheets!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtzuezMMY4zOdHdqenQ4SFRCMW4ybEUxQXVfclVwNWc&hl=en

Here is the link to my spreadsheet quiz in google documents. I could not get the printscreen to work, but this works just as well. Overall, I enjoyed making this quiz and could see myself enjoying it more once I get more accustomed to how excel works. It ended up taking me kind of a long time because I was following the directions so religiously. One aspect of creating this that I was thinking about was that once you have created one quiz, you have it and then can continue using it for the years to come. If you were to commit to sitting down and making even one of these a week, you could easily create a ton of them over the course of a few years and be well stocked with fun little quizzes for your classroom. The way that I have thought to utilize these the most, would be for pratice and for a morning activity when the children arrive to school. This would be a great way to get them engaged and thinking about what is to come in that school day. Overall, I do feel that these are a great resource for teachers and I am excited to implement these in my classroom!

This is the diagram that I created. I am really excited about this diagram and feel like it is clear in the way I laid it out. One aspect of creating this diagram that I realized, is that it is very important to incorporate several learning styles within the way you lay it out. I made my color coordinated, I put arrows so that children will know the direction, I made it available in a word document if children do not think in diagram form, and several other things. I do feel that this is a great learning tool, but I will definitely need more practice to become faster at utilizing this program and all it has to offer. Overall, I am very excited about continuing to utilize this tool.

Digital Images

This is a slide show of photos that I learned to edit in Tech 486. We created an album with four different types of images. One picture from the internet, one scanned picture, on personal picture from our digital camera and one clipart picture. This assignment was very practical and I learned all about Picasa through Google. This is a great way for your pictures to come along with you wherever you go technologically. My computer actually just crashed and I lost all my pictures. I will most likely be keeping track of my photos through Picasa now because they will be guaranteed to be in a safe place.
This is also a great thing for the classroom because if you can create digital image slideshows for a lesson that can illustrate different concepts. For example, if you are teaching a history lesson, you could make a digital image slideshow to show pictures of historical landmarks or people. Another great aspect of digital image slideshows is that they really cater to visual learners. A huge majority of children are visual learners and this can be a great reinforcing tool for these children.

Classroom Connections Lesson Plan

After finishing my classroom connections lesson plan, I am very excited about the ways I found to utilize technology with young children. I was struggling with feeling like the content in class wasn't as applicable to me because I am in the Early Childhood Field. After writing this lesson and applying some of these new ideas, I am really beginning to sink my teeth into how useful technology can be for teachers of all ages.

One aspect of technology that I am excited about is teaching young children to research. Acquiring the skills to research is vital for success is school and life. What better time to start teaching children the importance of research then when they are young. This will allow them to incorporate researching into their entire school experience rather than waiting until high school to learn what researching is.

I am also interested in the concept of assistive technology (AT). This is very important in an elementary classroom. I was interested to see that technology moves beyond computers and smart boards, but also gives great resources to help children with learning disabilities in their learning experience. This aspect of technology I feel is very important and can make or break a child with a learning disabilities overall experience with school.

Overall, I am really enjoying all of the new things I am learning about in Tech 486. I feel that the connections lesson plan was a very good assignment for me. It allowed me to really apply the material and really see ways in which it is applicable to me and my personal field. I am excited to continue learning more ways to incorporate technology into my style and values as a teacher.

Frustrations with technology in the classroom.

In this moment, I am feeling very frustrated with technology. I just feel like something always goes wrong! I do feel that technology is a valuable resource for learning to teach and also for using with students, but how do you ensure it will work? It just seems unreliable, at times. I feel that I steer away from using technology because I do not want to worry about something going wrong or not working out. I feel that it is easier to just find someway to do an activity that I know will work and there is no potential of technical issues. I want this frustration to fade because I know that technology CAN and WILL be a great resource for me in the classroom once I get all these glitches sorted out. I am glad to be taking this class because I believe it is giving me new, more efficient ways to use technology that will help me when I am a teacher. I just want to get past the fear I have with technology. I do not feel confident with technology which I feel causes me to not want to use it. I want to gain more confidence with using technology so I will be able to broaden my horizons and utilize technology to my advantage. It just seems difficult for me right now and I feel that I am in the process of working through my difficulties and I am beginning to feel more confident in my use of technology. I hope that by the end of this course, I will feel fully assured and will have gained a great deal more confidence then i currently possess.

Webquests

When I first began creating my webquest, I felt that I didn't really understand the point of them. As I began creating it, I slowly began to realize just how useful they can really be. Due to the fact that I am a Early Childhood Education major, I felt somewhat confused as to how these could be applicable to little children. I realized that as teachers, we can utilize webquests to achieve standards set by the state. I created my webquest to achieve three different social studies standards and I really felt that the webquest was a great way to teach these standards. I created a webquest on culture. The children were supposed to choose a country and then explore aspects of that countries culture through the websites I gave them. I also had the children draw the flag of the country they chose and find similarities and differences. What I realized through this whole process is that technology can really be a resource for teachers of all ages, you just have to know how to make it age appropriate for the children you are working with. I ended up feeling that this webquest could be something I save and really utilize with students in the future. Overall, I am really excited about the idea of webquests and I think it will definitely be something I utilize in the future.

How can we integrate new technology in our classroom, but still develop a sense of wonder in children?

I am a huge believer in developing a sense of wonder and excitement in children as learners. I believe that this first comes with developing a sense of wonder for the world they live in and all of its components. I want to continue to be able to have this value and belief as a teacher, but also be able to teach to where children are at in this world and what is surrounding them. So my biggest struggle right now with technology is how will I be able to do both?

I want to figure out ways to integrate technology and allow children to see what a valuable resource it is, but at the same time, I want them to see how big of a resource the natural world is and how big of a resource knowledge can be. I want them to see the value of learning to do mutiplication i their head without using a calculator ect. I think the biggest battle at this point, is figuring out how to make technology a resource to me as an early childhood teacher. I think it will take a great deal of creativity considering young children can't have a facebook or twitter.

One teacher that I worked with about a year ago, would have her four year olds do research projects on aspect of the natural world. The way she would have them begin their project was through research. She would take small groups of children each day and walk them through utilzing her computer to find pictures of ideas for their project. Although this took a great deal of scaffolding, she was able to introduce them to the concept of searching the internet and using it a resource for achademia. After the chidlren gather their research, they embarked upon a huge journey of recreating one of the ideas they had researched through art. They could utilize what ever type of art media they wished. They were then able to utilize the pictures they had found through there research as references.

This is a great example of how I have discovered technology being a resource with young children. I hope to continue in my search of how technology can be a valuable resource to me as a teacher and how I will integrate it into my beliefs of learning and development.

Integration of Technology in the Classroom

I find technology to be a valuable resource to all teachers and hope that I will utilize it in my own classroom to support learning. Last semester, I actually did a presentation in a Special Education course on the integration of technology in the classroom and ways in which it can be utilized. This was a great topic to create a presentation on because it really educated me on what is out there and how positive of a resource technology really is. When working with younger children, I feel that technology really comes in hand for teachers and students. For teachers, there are tons of great assessment tools that have been created because of technology. There are several alternate programs for instruction in reading and math that can almost act as a second teacher and provide a different form of instruction for children. Technology has also provided teachers with a great way to update and maintain portfolios digitally. Technology has also provided more efficient ways to not only diagnose learning disabilities but also to work with children who have been diagnosed to best adhere to their abilities and learning. Technology has also given teachers many resources right at their fingertips to gain the latest information about changing policies, new findings and ever increasing standards. I find technology to be a vital tool in my field of teaching. I feel that not only children benefit from technology, but also teachers.

PLN

Through my developing PLN, I have been able to find some really interesting resources. There are several pre-school and kindergarten teachers that I have found through Twitter and they have provided me with some very valuable resources. One teacher that I have been following on Twitter is constantly posting amazing activities that correlate with each particular day and really incorporate the seasons. I am always intrigued to see what she will post each day because her activities are always so interesting! For example, on Ground Hog day she posted several great activities that moved beyond the cutesy, theme aspect of Ground Hog day and really focused on learning. I am also following several other teachers who have great posts dealing with just teaching in general and are not necessarily focused on a specific grade or age level. Several individuals I am following have great information about policy aspects of teaching and also ask great questions about a career as a teacher. Overall, I am finding my PLN to be a very valuable resource and have been very interested in all the new information I am gaining!