PSA

Thinking of a topic for my PSA was difficult because I didn't want to make one that was similar to others in my 331 class. Once I knew what I wanted to focus on, finding the pictures was an easy task. I am familiar with Windows MovieMaker and iMovie so it wasn't hard for me to finish the rest.

Through this experience, I learned a lot about creating quick announcements to make parents and students aware of the many risks and benefits to technology. In the future, I might make something similar to PSAs for my students and parents. It was a good experience and I hope to create more in the future.

iRLO

Completing this project was difficult at first even though I've programmed before. After careful thinking, I was able to come up with what I have now. I feel that I have accomplished a lot because I believe I figured out Scratch. I have spent a huge amount of time completing this topic just deciding what I wanted to do. I knew it would be something with basic addition, but to have a story line that goes with it was more difficult to think of. This was my first time with Scratch and I believe that I will be able to do more in the future if I keep playing around with it.

Exit Slip 12/9/10

Over the semester, my thinking of technology has stayed the same. I have always loved technology and do believe that technology will play a big part in education. I will use technology, however not fully rely on it to teach students.

3 Different Ways of Integrating Technology in My Classroom

Integrating technology into my first grade classroom will be very important because technology lays the path to our future. One way of integrating technology is to have an interactive whiteboard. This whiteboard could be used in many ways. I would have lessons where the students would have to interact with the board. It could used for any subjects. For math, there's a game called Whack-a-Mole Addition. The students would have to come up to the interactive white board and use a hand to whack the mole. Students could also use the whiteboard to write answers to questions or they can drag things into the correct place. It all depends on the subject and what the lesson of the day is.


Another way that technology would be used is by podcasting. I have previously seen other teachers have their students podcast and they loved it! Podcasting not only shows them how to read by reading their scripts, but also allows them to research their topic. Another thing podcasting does is it allows the students to expose their ideas and thinking to others around the world.


The third way of using technology would be blogging. This blogging would not be used by students, but by parents of my students. It allows parents to post any comments or concerns. It would also have updates, such as newsletters and fieldtrips, so parents would be able to see what we are learning in our class.

Exit Slip 12/2/10

I learned that there are many ways to integrate technology into the classroom. We watched a video about a teacher integrating technology into her first grade classroom.

IWB Reflection

The interactive whiteboard assignment was not hard to complete. We created this whiteboard for another class. It was created to have students learn about the "Life Cycle of a Flower." This meets the First grade Science Wisconsin standards.

Since this is mainly for first grade, the lessons would be a little more teacher-based because students might not be familiar with this tool. The students would need help with using the smartboard such as: moving the words and/or writing on the IWB.

Creating this project has allowed me to finally use the SmartBoard. In the school I work at, we have a SmartBoard in every classroom, however, the teacher I work with is older and does not want one in her room. I have minimal experinces with the interactive whiteboard, so this assignment was great for me because I am exposed to it and know how to use it.

Book Chapter Discussion

My partners and I put a lot of thinking into how we were going to present this chapter to the class. After quite a while, we all agreed with the idea of jigsawing. We had remembered that a couple of weeks ago, Dr. Boyer had mentioned the idea of "jigsaw" and all thought it would be a great idea. As a team, I believe we put a lot of thinking and EFFORT into completing this task. It is important for me to present with my peers because it will allow me to interact with others as well as learn how to "pair teach." I believe this is an important part of teaching because we never know if we'll be alone or teaching alongside with another teacher.

As a future teacher, I believe it is important to read a chapter, then reread it to pick the important parts of it to use to present to the class. This is a task that will happen no matter where you end up in teaching. Knowing which parts to choose is always key to successful learning.

Exit Slip 11/18/2010

I found many new sites with addition activities for first graders. I put it in my delicious account and will have it for future use.

Ch 10 Rethinking

This chapter recaps the entire book of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology. It allows us to rethink of everything that involves technology and education. Technology will one day become the main focus in everyone's daily lives in the future. The chapter had mentioned that one day, technology will take over the role of a teacher and the "teacher" will be there only for the extra support. The teacher will no longer be needed to instruct the students, which is a big concern because educators now will someday lose their jobs before they are able to retire.

Ch 9 Rethinking

As much as some people don't like it, our world is becoming a technology world. Technology has become a big part in what we do nowadays. Children are learning to use technology more than we would like and they are learning quickly. In this chapter, it stated that instead of parents judging what their children are doing, they should go along with them and learn what the kids are doing. This will allow them to learn what their children are learning and what the world is coming to. It will introduce them to what is available  on the web and teach them what is safe and what is not.

Exit Slip 11/11/10

I knew that Facebook could be used in the classroom setting, but today I found out how it was used.

Podcast

I knew right off the bat what I wanted as a topic for this assignment. However, it was hard trying to find sources that would work. After some research, I was able to find some good sources and was able to complete a script for the podcast. As before with the screencast, I hated how I sounded so I recorded myself multiple times. After a couple of tries, I was able to get the podcast recorded. It was a fun assignment because I was able to find out what many people think about children and computers. In the future, I will most likely have students create podcasts to share with their peers in and outside of their classrooms.

I thought that I had uploaded the podcast, but it didn't upload right. So here it is now:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=E9HBDPYD

Ch 10 BWP

While reading the chapter and the epilogue, I reflected on the entire book. I realized how much technology plays a role in education now. As the years pass by, more and more technology will be incorporated into the classroom because that is where the world is going. I agree that technology will continue to grow and we will have to teach students how to use technology in the elementary schools because this is where it all begins.

As a future teacher, I plan to incorporate as much technology as possible into my daily lessons because this will allow my students to be the best they can be with technology. This is where the world is heading and it is for the best.

Cools Tools Screencast - Wallwisher

Kaz's Screencast

I spent a lot of time looking into how wallwisher works and it is amazing to find out HOW it actually works. I spent time writing a script after exploring the site. Doing this was hard, but I work a lot better when I know what to say. I did change things around while I spoke, but it still kept the meaning. I know that I used pause a lot, but it helped me feel more comfortable with recording this screencast. It gave me more time to show what the page was about - the loading took a lot of time and this helped cut it out.

I actually had fun creating this screencast, even though I didn't like how I sounded on there. It was neat to see what my peers did also. In doing this assignment, it will make me a better speaker in front of others. Also, it has showed me how I could use wallwisher in my future classroom. It was a neat opportunity and I hope that I can continue screencasting in the future.

Ch 8 Rethinking

After reading this chapter, I thought about the percentage of students who graduate from high school. I knew that there were many students who drop out, but the number of graduates was ridiculously low. Another thing in this chapter that I liked was the Performance Based Assessment. I liked how they mentioned how lower income or poorer schools can help their higher level students be challenged. By integrating technology into their classroom, it allows their higher students to have an individualized curriculum such as AP classes. This allows the students to be challenged and still learn the same materials as their peers. This would be creating new curriculum to accommodate the "gifted" so they are able to learn. It is amazing to see the many ways that schools can cope with new technologies.

I would love to use technology in my classroom because I will most likely be teaching to the majority level of the students. To reach those who are higher level or considered "gifted" this would be a good opportunity to allow them to explore what is out there for them and have them be challenged.

Ch 9 BWP

I am a Facebook user myself, but only for friend-based relations. I have never thought of it for interest-based relationships. I am amazed at how educators can incorporate facebook into their daily lessons. It allows the students to interact with one another and keeps them updated with what is going on in class if one is absent. Also, I have heard of Ning.com before but have never used it myself. It sounds like it would be a good source for researching and getting peer reviews. It is amazing how many social networks have been integrated into the regular classroom setting.

I will continue to use facebook for friend relationships, but will also use it in the future to connect with co-workers and parents. I think this would be an amazing thing to do because it allows us to learn from one another. However, I would not use it for student-teacher interactions because my students would be too young to understand what Faceboook or Ning is used for (I am primary elementary).

Ch 7 Rethinking

Reading this chapter worried me a little because I do agree with what the author is saying. Because technology is going to be such a big part of the education system in the future, those who are lower income or immigrants or minorities will not be able to access this technology or internet as easily as others. Even today, we can see this. Those with lower income or are of a minority group, sometimes do have a lower access rate to technology today. This worries me because I feel that students who do not have access to this stuff might start feeling like they are failures or might cast themselves out from their peers.

As a future educator, I will try to give students as much access as possible to these technologies. In doing so, it will allow the students to try their best and have the interaction that they need. I will try my best to have all students be treated equally with technology.

Ch 8 BWP

With the new technologies, many things are available to use in the classroom such as podcasting, video and screencasting, and lve streaming. These tools would be wonderful to use in the classroom. I have heard of podcasting before, but never used it myself. I hear alot of good remarks about podcasting because it allows the students to interact with other students in a different way - over the internet via radio. Another aspect that I did not know about podcasting was that it is available through iTunes. I am not much of an Apple person, but do use their iTunes for some things that I have. I will have to go look at that.

Video and screencasting are also important because the students will eventually be using this sometimes in their future. It is nice to have them learn how to multi-task and use the different tools to show others how to do something.

Live streaming is also something that is gettiing popular, however, I am not sure if I would use this in my classroom with primary elementary students.

I will incorporate a lot of technology into my classroom when I start teaching, but will be picky about it just because I will be working with young children. i am a technology person and LOVE to do anything with technology!

10-21-2010 Exit Slip

I know how to use a SmartBoard because of work, but to actually use the tools is another story. I learned about the many different types of tools that are available to use on the SmartNotebook tool.

Chapter 6 Rethinking

I see what the author sees with the location of schools. In the beginning of time when apprenticeship was desired, the children learned mainly from home. However, when the Industrial revolution hit, and children started going into schools to learn the core contents that all children should learn.Now, children can learn anywhere. Children can now go anywhere and have access to the internet, which is where many of the learning is now. Even if they are at a school or home location, they still can learn anywhere.

My stance on technology has not changed even after reading how technology made good and bad changes. I still believe that the future is in technology and that the students are doing nothing, but getting themselves ready for their lives and future in the workforce. As an educator, I would teach what the students need to learn, but let them "loose" and explore how to learn on their own from home or from another location. These kinds of things would be projects or research papers.

Chapter 7 BWP

Flickr is something that should be used in the classroom as a resource for teachers, communication for parents and research for students. As teachers, we can use flickr to share photos or images of projects that we have created with students so that others can see what we did and use it for their own classrooms. It could also be the other way around. Other teachers could post pictures of what they made in their classroom and it could possibly get us thinking in the same boat and create our own. Also, we as teachers can post what we do daily, pictures of students working on  projects or pictures of field trips so that the parents can see what their child is doing at school.

As a parent, my child comes home from school and says she did "nothing" at school that day, however, I know that they did something - so this is a way for parents to see what the children are "actually" doing.

Students can use flickr as a wonderful resource for pictures. If anything is ever needed in a project, students can go and find many different pictures of the same place or same things.

I believe that flickr is a wonderful tool to use as an educator.  It should be used in every classroom. I will definitely use this for myself and for my students.

10/14/2010 Exit Slip

Today, I learned about Scratch and how I can use it to create an iRLO. I am very excited to start this project as soon as I can! I was also able to hear what others thought of the different kinds of learning from the chapter this week.

Ch 5 Rethinking

I believe that children who are home-schooled do score better on standardized tests because they do not have as many distractions as those who do attend public schools. However, I am very against the idea of home schooling because I feel that these children are being contained in one place and not meeting the "social" standards of today's society. They do not have the same socialization skills as those who do attend a public school.

My favorite part of this chapter was the Adult Learning. I find it interesting that adults, especially, retirees are wanting to return to school to learn new things. I would love to teach in one of these classes because I see it as a great learning opportunity. These adults are wanting to learn, which make the teacher want to teach the class. It is not like other schooling, where the students have to take the course. In these type of classes, the students have a bad attitude about what they are doing and learning. These classes are the classes that would be less fun to teach.

As a mom, I allow my children to watch educational television and videos such as: Sesame Street, Super Why, and Baby Genius. There are many other educational TV shows and videos out there, depending on the age group and what you want them to retain. These are the few that I allow my daughters to watch because I feel that these are beneficial to their learning. As a result of these shows, my oldest has learned her ABC's and 123's by the age of 3. It is amazing as to what these educational TV shows, videos and music can do.

Ch 4 Rethinking

Before reading this chapter, I thought of these changes as small changes. But to my surprise, schools have changed dramatically over time. I personally have never realized how materials and things were added to the education system over time. It was interesting to read "The Evolution of a School System." Like I stated before, how materials evolved over time is amazing. I could not possibly think of how a school system could function without "tests" or "grades".

I found the fact that education was once the responsibility of the parents and transferred to the state and now back to the parents was also interesting. I never looked at it this way because I always thought it was the responsibility of the state. I guess the reasoning behind my thinking is because that is what I have always known since I started school. I now see how education has changed - from apprenticeship where literacy was not important to technological schooling where literacy and technology is the sole in education.

Chapter 6 BWP

The social web has made a big impact on how we learn and teach in today's society. There are many things out there that has made these impact. The popular one right now is Twitter. Many people use Twitter to see what other people are "tweeting" about. Twitter is something that grows quickly within minutes or within days. Depending on what your tweeting about and who is following you, it will either grow rapidly or slowly.

Delicious is another service that has impacted technology as a whole. Before, I saved webpages that were of interest to me on my web browser's bookmarks. When I needed to know a site, but was away from home, it was difficult to obtain that information. Now, with Delicious, I can save web pages onto my account and access it anywhere. This is the mobility that I, personally, have been looking for in my many ways.

In my future classroom, I would probably not allow the students to use these social booking  tools because of their age, but I would use it myself to keep my online pages in order. I most likely would use Twitter and tweet with others in the education field. This way, I will see what others are doing and what questions others have.

Chapter 5 BWP

As an educator, I would definitely use RSS. I believe that to be a the best teacher I can be, I need to be up to date with the gadgets, materials and news about education. To do this, I would be subscribing to RSSs to keep my job a little easier. I would not have to go through the many sites to see what is the most up to date information or objects used in the classroom. Since I am aiming to become an elementary teacher, I will probably need this to keep updated on the different classroom books and materials to help make students successful.

For the classroom, I would probably not have students use this because primary elementary students are too young to know how to use RSS feeds and keep up with it. I would possibly use blogging and wikis, but not RSSs in the classroom.

Chapter 4 BWP

After reading this chapter on Wikis, I feel that I use it daily. For my future classroom, depending on the grade that I will be teaching, I would use it. It's an interactive tool for the students, teachers and parents to communicate and post any kind of news in the classroom. If I was to teach younger students, I would post my daily or weekly newsletters to update the parents as to what we are doing in class. This is good because parents can communicate with me if needed. If I was to teach intermediate elementary, I would have wikis to have the students comment or change things to fit their needs or their thinking. Wikis is a very good tool to use in the classroom, but I have to make sure that I seek permission from parents before doing so.

I am amazed at how fast these wikis grow over very little time. In such little time, many people have edited or added information to express their comments or concern or to make information on the wiki more accurate. This is such a wonderful tool to use overall, in and out of the classroom.

What did I learn today? 09/30/2010

Today, I learned how I want to teach. I learned this from the debriefing. The presenters were great today, but I learned that I want to try not to offend anyone, especially other educators, with whom I'm working with. This will create a negative thought about me or create a negative atmosphere for me. It will create some awkwardness between my co-workers and myself.

Rethinking Ch 3

After reading this chapter, I want to use technology in my classroom, but feel weary about using technology in the classroom. I feel that technology could eventually take over the classroom and children will forget how to do work and other things in the "traditional" way, which would be the paper and pencil way.

However, I still feel that technology is very important to incorporate into the daily lessons of students. I feel that we are getting them ready for their future careers because I fell that one day all jobs will have a minimum requirement for technology. Technology will not take over the classroom, but it will be used a lot to show students the different kinds of technology is out there.

What Did I Learn Today (09/23/2010)?

I learned that there is a website where other educators and professionals share their SMARTboard lessons. Now, as an a future educator, I know there are places where I can get ideas for my own lessons. This is a really neat thing and will be added to my delicious account.

Rethinking Chapter 2

I have always known that technology plays a big role in our educational system today, but after reading chapter two, I feel that technology is taking over what we are doing. We are relying too much on computers or different technology because we allow students to learn based on their own interests. So to me, it sounds like we see what the students want to be and then revolve our teaching around that. Technology is an important factor in our school systems today, but we should try to rely less on it and allow students to work on content areas that they need the help with. As a teacher, I feel that we know what is important and what will help the students succeed. Even though times have changed, many factors are still the same. It is important for us as educators to use technology, but use it in different ways that the students cannot rely on it fully.

Growing Up Online

In today's society, I believe that technology plays a vital role in the young people of today. It is what they grew up with and what they know. Without technology, children these days do not know what to do with their "free" time. Being an aide in an elementary school, I see children with cell phones, iPods, mp3 players, and many other things that us "older" people never received until we were in high school or after. I also hear children talking about using their parents' or siblings' laptops/computers or playing video games. Like I stated before, without technology, children do not know what to do. We use to go outside and run for fun or read stories. During long trips, we would read or play small silly games to pass the time aways. Now, children are stuck inside homes playing games or watching TV or using the internet. Technology has also created DVD players in vans, so now, children going on long trips spend their time watching TV which they do enough at home already. I see this as children who are not being taught how to use technology responsibly and appropriately. As educators, I believe that we should educate both parents and students how to use technology the "correct" way, which I mean responsibly and appropriately, and make both aware of the dangers in technology.

Ch. 1 - 3 of Blogs

After reading these three chapters, I thought about what I see with children now in schools. Since I work in an elementary school, I see these new technologies being used daily. Technology has made a huge impact on how teachers teach, but the basis behind it is still the same. It is still teaching the students the same materials as it was before this "technology age" came. In the future, when I have my own classroom, I think I will be integrating a lot of technology into my daily lessons because that's how I grew up. Starting in high school, computers became very popular and teachers used it to teach lessons (PowerPoint, iMovie, etc). Growing up in a world full of technology, it will not be hard to use it in my daily lessons in my future teaching career.

Credibility of Websites

To see if a website is credible, I would tell an elementary student a couple of things. 

First, I would ask them to see what the URL of the page is. Next, I would ask them to see if it takes a long time to load. If it takes a while, it's not credible, but if it's fast, it is reliable. After that, we must ask the students to see if there are pictures on it. If there are, are they too big or too small or are they the right size for the webpage? An important part of a webpage's credibility is the author and the date it was made or updated. If the webpage has been up for only a short time, it is harder to trust its credibility, but that is not always the case for new webpages. Like I said before, the author of the page is a huge part of its credibility. If the author is a well recognized organization or person, it is more credible than those that aren't. This would be what I would tell my elementary students to check if they want to know if a webpage is credible or not.

Preface & Ch. 1

After reading the preface and the first chapter, I agree with a lot of what is being said. I know that in today's schools, technology has made 'teaching' different than what it was many, many years ago. I personally think that technology is a wonderful thing to be added into the school systems, but too much isn't good either. Students should be able to use computers, SmartBoards and other newer devices to learn and interact with the lessons. However, at the same time, if that is all the teacher is using, it will not allow the students to think and do activities on their own.

As a future teacher, I will incorporate technology into my daily lessons to teach the students what they need to know about the subject. During this time, daily work and teacher to student time and student to student time is also needed, so I will have some time for the students to interact with each other and with the teacher.

What I Learned Today?

Today, I learned about the delicious account. It will be very useful in the future because it will allow me to access different resources quickly from any computer. It's also very helpful and resourceful that I can access other peoples' bookmarks. I can see what they think as a good resource and possibly use it for my own class.

Digital Autobiography

My Very Own Digital Autobiography

I knew exactly what I was going to do for my digital autobiography, however, I had a very difficult time deciding which pictures to  use. It took me a long time to finally choose the pictures. It is important to know how to use and make digital slideshows because in our future teaching careers, technology will be a big focus. We will be using similar things to teach lessons to our students. Even if we do not use it in the future, it is always valuable to have that knowledge.

technology

Technology, to me, are the advances in electronics that people use daily, such as computers, mp3 players, internet, and navigation systems.


In a classroom, a teacher should get the students involved with anything that pertains to technology. It could be as simple as using the computer or using a smartboard. This is how they should get their students involved into the daily lessons.