My Beliefs

I believe that the only way to get some students excited about learning is through technology. During field the students were struggling with times tables, but every monday during math time they would go to the computer lab and play this times table interactive game. It was fun to watch some of the students that learn best through technology incorporate this into the book assignments. 

I believe that technology is needed in the classroom to increase the students learning.  I decided when I get a class I want them to show me what they know in technology and then I will show them what I know. I believe this will help increase not only my schema, but my classes as well. I also think that doing something fun on an project using technology is better than reading it in a book.

I also believe that students need to learn cc and other issues at an early age.  I never learned the real meaning of cc until this class.  I also got a fun idea from another classmates sharing of field. That on the first day of school the assignment is that you are supposed to bring your 3 favorite songs to class. The teacher then reviews them and makes a mix to listen to as a reward.  I am sure all of the copy right laws are enacted as well.  I think that the students will probably be more productive and I will get to know my students better by the selections they bring in.

Lessons Learned

I thought all the things that worked were really helpful a few of the videos required a membership to view them.  In the Millennial Generation clip it was interesting how the kids were talking about all the technology challenges of their parents. My dad doesn't really have a problem with these things.  My sweet mom knows all the challenging things of the computer for her job, but struggles with cell phones.

I really liked how in the new WWW it said children want, want, want and looking at the children of famous people or famous people it says how many of these people are happy or in rehab? It is so true these people seem to have all they want, but it seems to me that these are the people that are supporting the depression suffers drug line.

In tools for change I like how it says anytime anywhere. I know that when my debit card has issues and yesterday I had 300 dollars in my account and today it wont work. I want my anytime anywhere internet service so that I can check my online banking. These were my favorite things about the things i viewed I learned a lot more.

Strengths and Weaknesses

It was interesting to see when I filled out the UNI Preservice Teacher Technology thing that I felt like I scored apprentice on everything, but the 2 following items of which I felt I was at novice level. First was describe and implement basic trouble-shooting techniques for multimedia computer systems with related peripheral devices. Like it states for novice I always try to trouble-shoot before asking for help. The second thing was use databases to collect, organize, and analyze data and produce meaningful reports o aid in problem solving. Like it says for novice ability I can locate information databases, but not so great at creating them.

I found some interesting resources on google there is a summer teacher technology workshop at http://sites.google.com/site/iteisit1/it-workshops, but unfortunately it only has 2010 posted as on now but I saved it to my favorites so I can periodically check to see updates to the site. I also found this cool site http://teacherspodcast.org, where I am able to find podcasts on technology and things facing todays classrooms.  Although this is something I would do to find resources I an glad I had this opportunity to find these things.

Honestly after field I was a little stressed about using technology in the classroom because I witnessed first hand the things these 6th graders knew.  I was thinking at the beginning of the semester why do I have to take this class now wouldn't it be more beneficial my senior year. I thought this because I know technology is constantly changing and taking it our senior year would put us at learning the newest stuff out there. I believe that technology is important in the classroom and seen the impact it plays on the students in field. Now after realizing there are things out there that can help add to my schema I am more relieved about using technology in the classroom.

Field Final Week

This is the final week of field. 


On Tuesday we helped with the Thanksgiving Party and gave a farewell lesson. It was kind of an emotional day for us.  All the students in the class wrote us thank you notes. These notes said what they liked most that we taught them. One girl that struggles wrote Mrs. Jones I am going to miss you ever since you came around to help me all of my grades have improved. When we first started working with this class she told us the students that struggled the most and had us go around and help them. She also told us last year this student had a her main teacher for Math and English and scored higher on Science which she rotated around to different teachers for. She believes that the main teacher could see this student struggling and didn't know how to help, but the science teachers figured out the best way to help this student. I figured out she just needed people to catch her mistakes before she taught herself to do it wrong. If I could catch it early then she was fine, but if not I had to change everything and teach her correctly.


 From this experince I learned that as teachers we just need to figure out how they are doing something and help them learn a better way to do it. One student would do Math in a wierd way, but kept getting the right answer. The teacher said as long as he is getting the answer right he knows how to do it once he starts getting it wrong she will figure out how he is doing it and help him to learn a better way.

Field Week 3

This week is week 3 of field. There are no assignments again but the digital story which we have already presented.


This week we got to experience all the different things included in being a teacher. For example there was a fire drill and we got to grade essays. I believe the teacher is having us do these things so that we are not really shocked when we are teachers. Grading papers made me happy that I did not chose to specialize in English. It took us pretty much all week to grade those papers. They were two pages single spaced and twelve point font. 


By grading the papers I learned that feedback is good for the students and that two pages single spaced and twelve point font is kind of tough for them. She didn't have us grade for grammar and spelling, but she just wanted to see if the students can follow directions. After they got there papers back she had them write in there journals what they thought was there strong point, what we thought was there strong point and how they can improve writing on future essays. I think this is a good way to engage the students in helping with feedback on their grades.

Field Week 2

This week has been fun we got to teach all 5 lessons and next week more. 


The teacher we are working with has been very helpful on the days we don't have our college supervisor she gives us teaching pointers (Things to try next time, things to increase while teaching, and ways to improve). I am glad we are doing this because I heard that BYU is only cutting down to student teaching and our teacher made since when she said that if you have a bad experience student teaching you are probably not going to be as excited to teach whereas we get to try different schools and grades to see how we like it. Last week I got to help another group with there digital story and it was fun. I like to help teach things to others. The students in our class were mesmerized by our digital story on Egypt. I wanted to pre record a book that I read on Wednesday and try the Vidcast way I saw a few weeks ago, but I didn't have enough time to do it. I am kind of glad because while I was reading it I had a lot of questions.


Well I got to increase my schema on teaching and learned things that work for this class and things that don't. I know sometimes things will work in one age group and not in another. This knowledge I have gained the last few weeks will help me be a better teacher in the future because I have seen things that work for this class and things that went kerplunk when we tried them. I will be able to keep these ideas in my schema drawer and see how my future students react to these things. The teacher we are working with said she enjoyed how I read to the class while they were working on there art and then walked around the room and answered questions about the book, so all students could see and ask questions. Knowing this I can try it with my future students and see how they react.

Field Week 1

This week we worked on our digital story in class and started field.


This week I saw someone do a vidcast where they recorded the text of a book.  Then just turned the pages of the book and did not read the book aloud and they put some musical instrumental music behind it. It made the book more interesting sometimes when people read aloud I lose interest and I love how the technology was used I never thought to do something like that. Well this week has been interesting our original field teacher got sick and will know by next week if she will be getting a long term sub, so Thursday we got moved to another class. Basically this is teaching me to be more flexible in stuff.


The thing I saw with the vidcast will help my future students. I can read the book and make it more interesting then just reading it aloud. On Friday my partner talked to the teacher cause he wasnt feeling well and left. She had me help struggling students with math, unfortunately I have not had math method yet but I did take math 2020 over the summer and I taught the students the long division method for converting fractions to decimals. A lot of the students thanked me for helping them learn a new way to do it. I realized that maybe the way the teacher teaches it doesnt reach everyone although she shows them lots of ways, maybe they just need a little more one on one help. She also had me help grade papers and by looking at the scores she said that this week we are going to do order of operations again and help some of the struggling students. Although I am sorry that our original teacher got sick, it has been fun to work with this teacher.

Digital Story Week 3

Today we worked on day 3 of Digital Stories. Unfortunately I was not at class and at a funeral for my Uncle Phil.


So using the classroom website it said to keep working on our digital story for field. My partner and I are doing ours on the Roseta stone for Egypt. He wanted to use a program on his computer at home. I love to learn new things, so I am excited to learn about the program he uses. I feel like using photostory or imovie will be something to benefit me more in the classroom. That is why I am using them to make another digital story and learing the ins and outs of those programs. I think that it does not really matter if I mess up as long as I learn from my mistakes. I am planning on teaching the cooperating teacher imovie since she has a mac.


This means that I am probably going to teach my students things about technology, I know that this class has increased my schema on Technology. As much as I am learning I have to keep in the back of my mind that todays elementary students probably know more about technology then I did before this class. Last week after the funeral we helped my grandparents hook up there computer. My grandpa was shaking the computer tower looking for the mouse to fall out. He said people told him they come with mice, when I showed him the mouse he thought it ran in the tower to make things work. I know that things learned today are way more advanced than my grandparents day. Things we have just shock them.

Digital Story Week 2

Today was week 2 of Digital Stories.

It was really interesting to learn about creative commons. Being yearbook editor in High School I knew about cc, but I never knew what it really was. I was under the impression it had the meaning carbon copy. This lesson was really helpful because now I know what it means and how to find things with and open cc licenses. Now in my other classes when I have to use images off the web I am very careful to use ones with an open cc license. I believe this is a very valuable thing to know in the classroom and it is something I am going to teach my students. It is something that they are going to need to be aware of everyday.

Well knowing this changed my schema cause I totally had an experience of disequlibrium. Now I know what cc really is. Knowing this information will help me abide by cc laws and only use cc approved things in the classroom or going to proper places to get un cc things approved for class use. I believe I can give my students a similar assignment as what we did where they learn a thing about cc and teach it to others in the class.

Digital Story Week 1

This week was week one of our digital stories that is a key assignment for the program.


I am excited to be learning this as a teacher this will be one more trick to add to my bag of tricks. I believe we are doing this as a way to hook our students into the content we are working on at the time. I was looking for a video clip on youtube for creative arts and different ones I was watching would say this is our vidcast or podcast and I found it interesting to hear that because before I learned what those were in class I was like wow there is a technology term again, but now I can say there is a technology term and through schema I know what it is with out pulling out a dictionary. 

I believe that this will benefit my future students, but when I show it to them with how advanced they are today they will probably increase my schema on the subject. I just hope that my Elementary students wont be more knowledgeable about stuff then me. When I was at Snow I was required to take a computer class and it was a shame the professor would come in and we would do powerpoint presentations and the professor would not know how to view a presentation. I kept thinking and she is getting paid to teach us. I felt like I was doing more teaching then she was. I kept wondering why do I have to pay for this class I am not learning anything and not benefiting from this at all. This was right when I was out of high school, but now I dont know where things are located in powerpoint with the changes. I am sorry to say if I were teaching I would have looked at it before class and figured out how it worked not just showed up and said the school wants me to teach this but how about you show me what you know. I might have done something like that to see what they know but I feel like I was not learning anything from that class. I would hope when I teach that when students leave they at least feel like they learned something from the class or anything at all. I felt like I never learned anything from that class.

Vidcast Week 2

This week and last week we worked on Vidcasts. My partner wanted to use a program at home so I joined Shellie and Debbie and they chose to do there research on the underground railroad. It was interesting doing this as a teacher in training because I have read the quilt books but doing this really hit home.

I think it hit home finding out about each square and what it all means for those slaves heading for freedom. Doing this I got to put myself in the slaves shoes for a bit, without all the horrible things they went through and learn more about the under ground railroad. I think that we did this Vidcast more for the sake of learning new content and things we have missed over the years. I know that things my elementary teachers wanted our class to learn are different from my beliefs of what my future students should learn. I was also glad like I said last week to work with a group using Apple Computers because of all the things that I learned from the apple computer when my husband bought us a new computer last Monday night he got an apple. He was as excited about the cool things that the computer could do as I was. It does help that he took a computer programing class in High School that allowed him to learn Java, C+, and other things. I think that this technology will be a great way to review content for a test or to present new content. Like I said I have heard about the underground railroad, but doing this was more of a review of content for me and it also allowed me to learn new material.

Like I said before this technology will help my future students because in the event that a sub is present all the sub will have to do is play the video and the students are in a way learning the content the way I want it presented. Although every persons learning style is different, the material could be presented in a way that I would do it myself if I was there. This information only increased my technology drawer  in my schema and I learned this on an Apple so that pretty much doubled my knowledge because I got to learn Vidcasts and some of the ins and outs of Apple Computers.
This information will let me teach this knowledge to my future students and as a type of assessment I can have them create one on a curtain topic from what they create i will be able to see if they really know the content or just coasting by pretending they know the information. I know teachers believed I knew the content. For example in Fifth Grade my teacher had us do those comparing and contrasting things where she would give us a word and say it is to another word like this word is to blank. I never knew what she wanted. I would ask and she would do the first one with me and still not explain it. I just coasted by by using a partner for help. I was crafty in choosing my partner, I chose the one that I did because she would always get the answers right. She would be like I have this what did you put, but I never really had it done so I would just give her a word and she would say that I don't think that is right. it was not until Social Studies Methods class this semester where I actually understood what she wanted back then.

Vidcast Week 1

Today in class we started working on Vidcasts.

My partner had a program at home he wanted to do his on so I joined Shellie and Debbie. I am kind of glad I got to join them though cause I am more familiar with PC's and both of them have Mac's. I am getting the opportunity to play on a Mac and learn things I did not know about Mac's. I believe this will help me in my future classroom because most of the teachers I have observed use Mac's, so I am learning to use a Mac and increasing my schema about Mac's. Also the things I learned about the Mac were so cool I had to tell someone.  So I told my hubsand who wanted to get a new computer cause he wants more up to date stuff we have 2003 stuff on our computers. Now he wants to get a Mac. I will agree with that it will be cool to have a Mac and get familliar with things that I am not familliar with.

I was on yearbook staff in high school and knew the PC's pretty well but with the new 2007 stuff I have trouble finding things where they were before in 2003. Plus the look is totally set up different.  The first time I used the lab to print something out it took at least 20 minutes to find the print button. Now due to incresed schema it take less time. I only have to use it when my compatabilty pac on my computer wont pull up things created in a new version of docs.

Podcast

Today in class we learned how to make Podcast and we got to partnership off and make our own.

I believe that this will be helpful in the classroom cause sometimes you need a sub, but subs just dont give directions the same way we do ourselves. This way I could record my instructions for the sub to play. I believe we are doing this to increase our knowledge of the subject of podcasts because in all honesty I have heard of them but never used them until today. I also think that announcements can be recorded before school so the students doing them dont miss class to go do them. I also believe that his will also be helpful to sick students and parents of students. Not only will they be able to do the assignment they will be able to listen to instruction as well.

I know that children today are more technology advanced than me because when I was doing lesson plans last week. My friend told me that at her school they have laptop carts for the students. Where they are able to go to approved websites and stuff during class. From observing 1st graders this month I realized how much more advanced they are compared to when I was in 1st grade. Well I know that I have a schema of technology, but the things I am learning in this class are making my schema on the subject bigger and in some cases better. I can assign something like this to my students and depending on what we are learning make them podcast about that, plus I know how hard it is to get around in Elementary School cause you are relying on transportation I would assign them to do it with other classmates but some that live close so they are in walking distance of each other. I really like this assignment but will have to put a lot of thought in to more uses for it in a classroom setting.

Google Docs and Google Sites

This week in class I learned Google docs and how to edit my Google site.

I really liked both although it was kind of stressful cramming the information all together like that. I believe that both of these things (Google docs, and Google Sites) will be very beneficial in my classroom. I have already used Google Docs in other classes this week. Before we were sharing information by email, editing things and then re emailing them back to our groups. This wonderful thing has saved time for me and helped me to complete the tasks in a easier fashion. I love Google Docs it makes it possible for me to view information on my computer at home without having to have the updated Microsoft Office. I have the 2003 version. I can't wait to be able to share the Google sites with my colleges because although most teachers know technology many of them graduated like 15-20 years ago and don't know about some of the things Google can do for us. I know before class I did not know all of the things possible with Google, now I have more in my schema folder.

This information will benefit my future students because like you said in class with Google Docs you dont have to buy Microsoft Office everytime it changes, you can save your school and district money by using Gooogle Docs. It does most everything Microsoft does. I also think that the classroom website will benefit my students and keep their parents more informed on what is happening in class because techically I am spending more awake time with their children then they are. I also believe that the classroom site will help increase computer knowlegde of the students.Before I knew I could find things on Google, but now I see all the other possibilites. Thanks for teaching us these great and useful resources.

August 30th 2010

Today was the first day of instructional media class and it was enjoiable. Even though since my stroke last year I am still tring to regain my cordination in my left side and I do most off my typing now with one hand to lessen the risk of not having good cordinaton in my left hand. That is one thing I am working on this semester being able to type with both hands again and get my words per minute back up again.

When I was in 2nd grade we first got computers in a lab at school. I remember they were really big and really expensive. I remember that we did not get a home computer till I was in the 3rd grade and the only reason we got it is because my dad worked for the power company and they were up grading the computers at work and gave the employees an opportunity to buy the old ones at a really cheap price comparied to what new computers were going for. It was a good basic computer, we could use it for word processing and getting on the internet with dial up. I remember it taking so long to do anything. The printer was one of those dot printers that would print on the connected paper that you had to tear to seprate the sheets. I remember this being so load.

Now we have all different kinds of computers flat screan ones connected to towers, labtops that we can take with us, and portable printers. What it cost now for a computer we could probably have 2 or 3 for the price of one then. We also have a much faster wireless internet and the ability to teach using a projecter and a power point presentation compaired to the teacher writing on the board or making a poster by hand, now computers can print those off and we dont have to use much handwriting. Needless to say with all the technonlgy in todays world teachers can afford crapy illegible handwritting. Then with all the note taking from the board it would have been terible to have a teacher with crappy illegible handwritting. It is exciting to think that we are going to have the ability to teach these skills we learn to our future student but scary to think how much technology has changed since I graduated from Snow then it was word 2003 and now it is word 2007 and everything is different. They still have the same function, but the buttons changed.