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.