The Semester is Ending...

When December 1st rolled around you could see it in the classroom...it is the holiday season. And with the holiday season brings the end of the semester. I now have two semesters of my "Teaching with Technology" class under my belt and looking back (to do a little reflecting, as we as preservice teachers often do) I have learned so much from this whole experience.

I have seen, learned about, and created things that have brought ideas to life using technology that before could only be found in textbooks. It is amazing the resources that we, as teachers, have at our finger tips because of the internet. We are able to see all that others are doing, share ideas, which is becoming even more important in a world governed by standards that decide our worth, we need to be able to help one another! This semster alone I was introduced to the world of webquest, sites such as Elluminate (which is amazing by the way!), and most impressively the K-12 Online Conference. And although I could not particpate while the conference was ongoing, all the materials are still there avaliable for me to look at. I particularly find the work of John Pearce who comments on blogs and other web related activities for students, particularly his third graders. Which was interesting because I am placed in a third grade classroom and have some of those same concerns. I loved the way the students could rate how much they liked or disliked the bloging and other activities because I am always worried about how the student feels.

I have enjoyed these past two semesters, my eyes have been opened to a new world. I hope that I continue to look toward the world of technology and blogging especially in my own classroom. In a few months I will be a full time student teacher, it's a scary thought, but a good one at that because hopefully I can continue to use more technology in my classroom to create a unique learning environment that can fit all of my students! (reaching all learning types is one of the ways I have seen technology used most effectively) I just can't wait!

Technology Outside the Classroom

For my Social Studies Curriculum class, we were assigned to visit a museum and plan a lesson surrounding the student's visit. My third grade class goes to the Mariner's Museum (Newport News, VA) every spring, therefore I thought that I would visit this museum in preperation for my student teaching. -- one lesson plan down, many many more to go.

As I arrived at the museum, which was recently rennovated and absolutely beautiful, I was not sure what to expect inside. Of course I had gone online and did basic research on what I could find there. I knew the museum has various different exhibits all documenting maritime history, but I really had no idea what to expect.

I knew that I wanted my students to participate in the Age of Explorers docent-lead tour, but I needed more information on what the students would be learning in order plan my lesson. When I came up to the counter, two wonderful employees quickly came to my assistance. Each employee was also a teacher and worked at the museum on the weekend as a side job. They knew exactly what I needed and were very helpful. However they could tell me all about the museum but little about the tours offered. The education department was not avaliable on the weekends, but still I was led on a private tour of what my students would be seeing and other interesting parts of the museum. I left feeling very excited for my next visit, yet I still did not know too much about the program I was about to commit to.

I again looked online and this time I took my time to navigate through the website. It was AMAZING all of the information I found. The website is actually a huge resource of information on maritime history. It has many articles from its 1,750,000 item library avaliable online. I was able to find the entire curriculum that would be covered in the Age of Exploration tour. But most importantly I found activities and lesson plans that the museum recommends for students before or after their visits. The lessons could be used for almost any aged students and most were legitimate, but just needed to be personalized. It was great!

I think that it is great that a museum is catering to a larger audience (the student, teacher, and parent) by provided such a wealth of information online. In an age when time is so precious it was great to see so much information on the programs avaliable from anywhere with internet access. It also allowed those who are not able to travel to the Mariner's Museum to retrieve much of the information one would recieve from a tour-pictures, movies, and articles are avaliable. Maybe I am just behind the times, but I was and still am very impressed with how much we are able to learn through the internet, no longer do we have to travel to museums to learn the information, although I am still a full believer that nothing can be better than the in-person visit, but this allows those who can't to be that much closer!

Goooooogle Earth!!!!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago in my Social Studies Seminar my professor praised Google Earth. Directly after class I downloaded it on my computer and was intrigued. I immediately looked up my house, the college, all the places I have stayed on vacation, my friends' homes, and gosh everything even our elementary school! Lets just say I played and I loved it! I decided to use Google Earth in a unit lesson on Greece and Rome, I thought it would be a great way to show relative location by first looking at our school, then Greece and the following day of study Rome. My professor loved my lesson and I can't wait to implement it in the schools.

Earlier this evening I was just browsing other blogs and came across Rob Lucas' blog which questioned the effectiveness of programs like Google Earth. I had similar thoughts when I first looked at it in class, like how effective would it be in the classroom? would students really understand what it was showing? but then after I found myself completely intrigued for more than an hour I knew it would be "cool" and I think that student's could learn not only relative geography but students can even see the topography of areas, and understand the natural resources surrounding the studied location. (like rivers-water, forests-lumber, etc) I'm glad that someone else sees how Google Earth stands out above others as a interesting and possibly great learning tool in the classroom!

Results!

So I last wrote about my upcoming Webquest on Explorers....and I know that I expressed my worries about how my students would respond. Well, it turns out that my Webquest was definitely a learning experience.

My students had just finished 2 hours of county-wide testing and I was hoping that the Explorer's Webquest would be a great "fun" activity after sitting for such a long time. But...what I didn't consider was their behavior after sitting straight for 2 hours, lets just say it was just plain awful! Luckily we were able to do our lesson in the computer lab itself other wise I think laptops in the classroom would have been more chaotic. Although behavior was not great and my lesson did not achieve as much as I wanted I thought it was a great inquiry based learning activity that allowed my third graders to work in cooperative groups, which sadly because of standardized testing does not happen much. I hope that this will remind me how much the students' enjoyed working together! It was a "learning experience" at best and challenged my authority and teaching ability for that matter, but I know that using technology in a new manner really did make the student's excited about the material. And that is enough for me to keep trying!

2 days and counting....

On thursday I will teach my first real lesson that integrates technology. I have spent hours upon hours creating and perfecting my lesson and the webquest that I am using. But now it comes down to how the students respond and how well it works in the classroom.

My webquest allows students to become explorers and sail with a famous explorer of the past, but this time they are steering the ship. The decide who they will sail under, Christopher Columbus, Juan Ponce de Leon, Jacques Cartier, or Christopher Newport after each student becomes an expert on one explorer. Before the students can "sail the ship" they prove their map skills by labeling the 7 continents, 4 oceans, equator, prime meridian, Spain, France, and England on a world map. I am excited just talking about it!

As I created my webquest I got so excited picturing the students on their laptops; laughing, smiling, debating with their group, and not even realizing how much they are learning. I can see my cooperating teacher loving the activities and how involved each student is. I can see her being inspired and asking me to help her incorporate more technology into her lessons. But at the same time it could all go wrong, the students could be lost; distracted by the computers in front of them. The lesson might be too complicated, or too easy. It is meant as a fun review of all of the map skills and explorers required under the VA SOLs. It's stressful not knowing how it will all turn out. Throughout my experiences in the classroom in and my technology class I have seen the benefits of using technology into the classroom. The idea has been ingrained in my brain, but I could see all that changing; could all of this be hinging on the outcome of one lesson?

Two days from now when my lesson is over, I hope that I am not frustrated with how the webquest turned out, but instead inspired by the impact that using technology made in my own classroom. Technology provides so many opportunities for students, I just hope that my webquest does the wonderful uses of technology justice and is effective enough that my cooperating teacher would be happy to see it used in the classroom again!

No matter what happens on Thursday I will always be proud of what I have accomplished and learned, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world. I may not have perfected the use of technology in the classroom but I know that I will continue to try. If you are interested here is My Webquest, enjoy!

School Technology

As an assignment for my technology class, we were to explore all the technology found in our school. Upon exploration I found that my school offers a wealth of opportunity for students involving technology. My school previously had a partnership with the College of William and Mary which provided the school money and the means to have all of the amazing brand new technology.

The classrooms are equipt with "ELMO"'s which are computer projectors, that can display a picture of a worksheet (similar to an overhead) or can display the computer screen. My cooperating teacher uses this technology daily. It not only is an update version of the overhead, but it allows the teacher to use online resources and other computer resources in a whole class enviroment. There are computers in every classroom and the computer lab is top notch. The computer teacher truly takes advantage of modern technology as well. The lab has about 30 computers and laptops as well as a PRS system. In both the lab and library there is a "smartboard", which the students respond to very well. There is also a cart of laptops that are avaliable for general classroom use as well.

Not only is the technology at my school amazing, but it is easy to access as well. One just nees to send out an email or ask a question and it is all readily availiable. The school makes it easy for classroom teachers to use technology in their classroom and as part of the cooperation with the College the teachers were taught in seminars how to use the tools in the classroom.

I am really impressed with how the technology has been incorporated into my classroom. Although it is not perfectly integrated, I know that the use of technology in my classroom is more than at other schools. My teacher does a great job of trying to expose the students to all of the technology, daily we use the "ELMO" projector, the students use the computer for AR testing and other projects, and I have seen the classroom set of laptops used for scavenger hunts online. I hope that the use of technology continues to grow. It is great to see the results of a partnership turn out so positively, I hope that when I have my own classroom I can embrace technology in the classroom as well. The more I learn about its benefits the more I know it will have a important and large place in my classroom.

I Wish poems...

Around the Corner, highlights a second grade lesson that uses blogs to post student work.

In the lesson second graders will learn how to properly plan for the writing process and how to write a poem. I especially liked how the lesson not only truly integrated technology but the technology allowed the results to really shine.

The students were to watch a PowerPoint presentation that showed various pictures of animals, after picking one animal the students were to make a "word map" to describe the animal and how the animal feels. The the students were then told to use the "word maps" to write a poem about what it would be like to be the choosen animal.

I loved how the assignment encouraged student's imaginations to take control. I thought that posting of the 5 poems voted best in the class on the classroom blog probably encouraged the students to do their best. It would be really neat as second graders to see your work posted online for "all" to see. However, I wish that all the children's poems could have been posted so that each child could share in that excitement.

I really liked how by posting the finished poem on the classroom blog to share with other classes the student's work was really published. I can remember in my second grade class we had "writing workshop" where the final stage of the writing process, publishing, meant making pictures to go with our stories which we had written and reading them allowed to the class. By using the technology avaliable today the teacher has taken the writing process one step forward by actually publishing the poem for many to see, in a professional-like atmosphere. It would be very rewarding as a student.

It will be interesting to see how successful this lesson is. I hope it works out well because I would definitely try this lesson in my own classroom.

Inspiration

I began down the path of education not only to inspire my students but also to be inspired by them.

Today I spent some time in a Kindergarten classroom. When I set foot in the door I sensed a feeling of relief, I guess sometimes the "grind" of being in my third grade practicum even gets to me. I can't imagine how the students feel. It was great to see students free to explore the world around them and take learning into their own hands.

I took a look around and smiled when I saw a young girl on the computer playing educational games. I was happy to see that even at that young age this teacher had made sure that a computer was avaliable for student use in the classroom and by all means encouraged it. I began talking with the teacher and she mentioned that the little girl on the computer was born with severe autism and using the computer was one of the few things she did in the classroom. The teacher explained the frustration she felt when the little girl wouldn't participate in "circle time" or classwork. But she continued on to say that although she was not doing these things she was very very smart and was always reading or on the computer. I loved seeing the use of technology in such a positive way. Although the little girl would probably be best moving along with the class, it was great to see the computer and all of the education it can provide used in such a great way.

Yet, as the teacher called the students for "circle time" the little girl put her headphones down and headed to her name which was pasted to the floor. She drifted somewhat but chimed in for a few verses of "who stole the cookies from the cookie jar" and jumped up and down as we counted out the number of days we had been in school. Then as the rest of the students learned to take "bunny hops" when putting glue onto paper, she was right there with them. I was amazed, I knew that this was a big deal and when I looked at the teacher's face she glowed. She was so proud of that little girl.

Today I was inspired not only by the small but at the same time very large steps taken by this one little girl, but I was inspired by a teacher not willing to give up and who was willing to do anything necessary to make everyone in her class a part of