My Beliefs

My Beliefs

I believe that there needs to be a happy medium between technology and other forms of teaching. There are several different ways you can use media in writing and still teach the art of cursive, which some experts say is essential in helping both sides of the brain grow and connect equally. We also need to be sensitive to our students and their technological abilities.

I have seen many teachers have their students write out their rough drafts by hand first then type up their final copy. I like this idea but what if occasionally we had the students type up their rough draft and write out their final copy in their very best hand writing. I think this way could keep things fresh and give the student a chance to practice their hand writing skills. They could then illustrate their stories with their own art work. The times that they type up their final story the teacher can show them how to insert pictures from the internet, thus improving their computer skills.

As teachers we need to be sensitive to those students that might not have a computer at home. I observed a teacher that had put some practice tests for the ended of the year tests on her web site. She could track who took the tests, at what time, how long it took them to do it and how well each student did. I asked her what she had the students without a computer should do. She said nothing; they could go to the library and use theirs or go to a neighbor s house and borrow theirs. I didn’t like this mentality of thinking. I believe that multi-media lessons are wonderful and can enrich just about any lesson in any subject but if not used to its fullest capability and doing the same thing every day the students can still become bored.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

I learned a lot from the videos and articles that I read and after I finished I interviewed my high school aged son. I am concerned that with so much media at children’s finger tips other skills are being lost. How do we find the balance between too much media and not enough?

One of the articles talked about how 82% of students don’t see their social networking as really writing and that they didn’t feel like it spilled into their school life. I asked my son if he thought his social networking helped to improve his writing skills for school, if it made them worse or didn’t affect them. He said that it definitely makes his skills worse. I asked him why and he said when he is chatting with his friends he uses the on line short hand (that’s not what he called it, he said he uses acronyms) so his spelling has gotten worse. So bad in fact that he will spell a word so wrong that even spell check can’t find the word. He also said that he doesn’t use capitalization and punctuation correctly. This scares me. Being a good writer is an essential tool in survival in the really world.

I know that my son has some classes that don’t use technology at all and these classes are his least favorite but he also has teachers that only use media. Too much of a good thing can back fire. One teacher only lectures and with his lecture he has power points that he posts on his web site. I love the idea that the students can go back and watch the presentation again but they are word for word what he wants the student’s notes to say. How much learning is taking place when all the student has to do is stare directly ahead and just copy down what they see in front of them? This same technique day in and day out can get really boring. There needs to be a balance between both styles of learning or you will never reach all of your students.

Strengths and Weakness

Strengths and Weaknesses

As I read through The NET Standards and took the UNI survey I came to realize that I am still a novas in most areas of technology. Some of it is from my lack of teaching experiences and just starting to create my own lesson plans but a lot of it is because I am still learning.

My husband and my oldest son’s best friend are brilliant when it comes to technology. I asked them the same question “how did you learn so much about computers?” They both gave me the same answer. If they had a question or wanted to learn how to do something on the computer they Goggled it and learned as much as they could. I am now doing the same thing. My goals are to be able to develop media enriched lesson plans that will grab the students’ attention and not only teach them core content area subjects but also stretch their technology abilities. I would also like to learn more about video conferencing. There is a whole world out there that students may not otherwise be exposed to.

To help me reach my goals I need to increase my knowledge. I love the section in UEN entitled Professional Development. From there you can find out when and where all the continuing education classes are. There is a class called Use Technology to Teach on March 17 and 18 2011at the U of U. Another class that really sounds like it would be fun is the Digital Video Projects class. It’s March 9 and 16 2011, also at the U of U. Whenever I need to find a Professional Development class I will go the UEN first. Another great resource would be the district office. From time to time they will offer special courses for their employs.

Field Experience Service Learning Project

1. Provide demographics of school, number of students in class and who your cooperating teacher is.

• The students are in the fifth grade, which is approximately ages ten to eleven.
• There are thirteen girls and eleven boys
• There are five Hispanic students, four of which speak Spanish at home and are in resource for help with English. There was one Pacific Islander who does not speak English at home, she too is in resource for English. The rest of the class is Caucasian and speaks English. Another student comes into class, checks in with the teacher and then goes to resource for the rest of the day. He will sometimes come back for computers, PE and science. One other student goes to resource for math.
• There is one high functioning Autistic child, one student that gets pulled out once a week and taken by his father to visit a psychologist ( this same student has a peanut allergy), and one student that is diabetic.
• Our cooperating teacher is Barbara Steele. She has been teaching for the past five years but received her degree about twenty five years ago.

2. How is your relationship with your cooperating teacher? Explain. I really enjoyed my time with Mrs. Steele. The first time that we met, a week before field, she seemed excited to have us and asked us what we needed to fulfil our assignments. When we told her that we needed to teach five social studies lessons she told us that she was getting ready to start teaching a unit on colonization, specifically Jamestown, the Mayflower voyage and Plymouth. She asked if we would like to teach the entire unit. She also gave us stacks of resources to help us develop our lesson plans.

• When we finished teaching a lesson she would meet with us after and ask us how we felt it went, then give us her feed back. She was wonderful to work with and I really learned a lot.

3. How does he/she feel about the technology piece you created? We had not finished our digital story but we showed her our own personal vid-casts. She liked them. She thought that a digital story would be a fun way to start a lesson.
4. How does he/she feel about the lesson you completed? For our digitally enhanced lesson we took the students to the computer lab and assigned them certain activities to complete on the http://plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html web site. For our last lesson I created a Jeopardy game using jeopardylabs.com . If you would like to see or play the game go to jeopardylabs.com/play/enter-title24772

• The teacher said that she really enjoyed the jeopardy game. We had the students feel out a survey listing in order of most favorite lesson to least favorite. The two lessons that were the most enjoyed were the plimoth.org and the Jeopardy game.

5. How did the the training session go? Explain. The training session did not go as well as I had hoped. I have never used a mac before so I didn’t know how to work Imovies but our teacher didn’t want it down loaded onto her computer anyway. Krystal and I both brought in our lap tops but we couldn't get Internet access to show her how to find pictures and put them into digital story. We tried to show her by using pictures we already had on our hard drives but she basically said that she didn’t think she would ever have the time to do something like that and to not worry about trying to show her anymore. Her room is full of technology but she said she would be the first to admit that she didn’t know how to use it very well but that she wanted to take some classes to helper her learn it better.
6. How do you feel about this service-learning experience? I really enjoyed my time in field. It was fun to watch the students explore the plimoth site and get into the Jeopardy game. I loved working with the students and I already miss them.
7. What did your cooperating teacher gain from the experience? I think that our teacher learned that not only does she need to expose her students to more technology and different varieties of it but that she needs to learn more about it her self.
8. What did you gain from the experience? I learned that I too need to become more familiar with different kinds of technology. I want to take as many continuing education classes in the field of technology that I can and until then I need to keep using, playing with exploring the things that I have been taught.
9. Was it worth why or why not? This experience was definitely worth it. When you teach someone else something new one of a couple of things can happen. You become even better at the thing you are teaching or you realize that you don’t know as much as you think you did. I had a little bit of both. I can’t wait to continue to learn and grow both as a student of technology and as a teacher of technology.

Field 3

What: This week we saw our cooperating teacher use technology in a couple of different ways and we taught two technology enriched lessons.

So What: Our cooperating teacher again used her document camera to show the timer as she gave a timed multiplication test. The second time we watched a live program that was being broadcast from Plimoth Plantation. The students and I really enjoyed the broadcast but we could have done more with it. Class from all over the country that had document cameras were able to video chat in questions. I think that this helped the students to stay more focused.

On Thursday we taught a lesson were we took the students to the computer lab and had them go to http://plimoth.org . We had them play the beginning game together then we numbered them off by twos. The ones were the historians for the Indians and the twos were the historians for the pilgrims. They navigated around the web site learning about the first Thanksgiving then wrote a small essay on what they learned, then printed it. The next tecnlogy enriched lesson we did was on Tuesday. I created a computerized Jeopardy game using http://www.jeopardylabs.com . The game was a review of the entire unit on Colonization, to help prepare the students for a test we gave latter. To play the game we got to use the smart board. It was awesome. I have never used one before. It was fun to be able to touch a large screen instead of moving around a mouse on a little computer screen. The last question on the test we gave had a list of all the activities we did for each lesson. We had the students number them in order of their favorite lessons. Both the Jeopardy game and the plimoth.org lessons were the students favorite activities.

Now What: So what does this mean for me as a future teacher? I hope I find a job at a school that has the latest technology but chances are I won’t. What I have found out during this experience and during my field work for Intro. To Education is that most of the technology that the teachers have in their class rooms they have either gotten through grant money or bought on their own. I need to learn how to write up grant proposals and were to find grant money at.

Field 2

What: We had our second week of field. Our cooperating teacher has lots of different types of multi media but she doesn't use it to the full extent to what she can, but there was one particular activity that she did that I really enjoyed.

So What: The teacher uses her document camera once a week to display a timer for the students timed multiplication test. I really like this so that the students can look up when they are done with their test, however there are many more ways to use it. It is possible she uses it for science and the other subjects that we are not there for. On Tuesday we taught a cause and effect lesson on the Mayflower voyage. After our lesson the teacher had registered through plimoth.org to watch a live broadcast about the settlement of Plimoth and yes I know it looks like I spelled it wrong but that is the way they spelled it in 1620. The students enjoyed it. But as part of the program, classes from all over the country either e-mailed in questions or video chatted questions to the program. I wish our class could have participated in this part of the broadcast.

This week we tried to teach our cooperating teacher how to create a digital story but all they have at the schools are Macs and I don't know how to use Imovie. We are going to take our PC tomorrow and see if we can get internet accesses and show her how to create a digital story using photo story.

Now What: First off I know I need to learn how to use macs but I don't think I have ever seen one in person. Next week we are going to be teaching two multi media lessons and try again to teach our teacher how to do a digital story. One of our lessons is a Jeopardy game that I created using jeopardylabs.com I would like to teach our teacher how to create her own. Our other lesson will be using http://plimoth.org/ I am really exited. I hope it goes as planned.

Field 1

What: We started field, it has been one whole week. I am very impressed with my cooperating teacher. She has a great personality and is always joking around with the students and making things fun.

So What: I have been very impressed with this school and all the technology they have. Mrs. Steel and from what I can tell all the other teachers have Apple lap tops so instead of creating something on their computers, then running down the hall or to the other end of school to the printer to change the color of paper, then running back to their classroom to press print, then back down the hall to the printer to collect their printed items, they only have to make one trip down to the printer with lap top in hand.

In the computer lab there are about 30 Apple computers with the large wide screen monitors and the really nice key board. Today the students went their to take a math test. When they were done with the test the computer showed them their score and it will generate a report for the teacher along with graphs so she can see as a whole how the class is doing. The only thing I didn't like was she let the students use their multiplication charts off their desks. The test was on division.

In her classroom Mrs Steel has a TV with a DVD and VHS player, her lap top, a document camera, and a smart board that are all connected to a projector that hangs from the ceiling. I love the smart board. From her computer she pulled up a weather tracking map that she projected on the smart board, the smart board worked as a touch screen. It was awesome to see her fun her computer from it. In the one week that we have been at this school we have seen the teacher us technology seven times.

Now What: I would hope that the school that I some day work at has this kind of technology but I know the chances of that are pretty slim. My kids school doesn't have that kind of technology. But on further research I found out that not all of the teachers at this school have that kind of technology either. One of the teachers work very hard at writing up a grant proposal to get the smart boards and some of the items were purchased with Trust land money. I definitely need to learn how to write up a convincing proposal. I want my students to have all the technology they can get their hands on at school because there may be some students that don't have that opportunity at home.