Final Blog

How important is it to incorporate technology into your classroom? What are the benefits to you and your students? What are some of the challenges? What are the important lessons you will take with you from this class and use?

Technology is extremely important in a classroom because technology is all around us. Children should learn how to be technologically literate, and learn how to use technology as a resource for learning. Teachers also should use technology as a way to add variety to the classroom. There is so much you can do involving technology! As a teacher there is so much software you can access to have in the classroom and also websites and resources that are available for free or low costs that can be incorporated into lessons as supplements.

Another benefit of technology is that it can be a good assessment tool for those students who do not produce well when it comes to taking a test or handing in written assignments. Students who do not feel comfortable working in a classroom may respond better to working in a classroom setting on a computer or if there are more interactive visuals.

One of the biggest lessons I will take from this class in regards to technology is to always have a back up plan or allow time and patience for things to go wrong! Technology is not always reliable. This can also be a challenge of using technology. If you have a whole lesson or activity planned around technology it can fail if you do not stay calm or have something else planned.

I have also learned that using technology as much as possible keeps your classroom interesting. Teachers should try to keep themselves knowledgeable about what resources are available to them and how to use those resources.

Digital Video Project

Overall, our video project went very well. We did not have a hard time using the equipment, editing, pulling music or any of they technological areas. I think thinking of the topic was the hardest part. We were surprised that our video made it to the full 90 seconds and that we actually had to cut video. We could have improved the use of effects and used more. If I had to do it again I would probably use a digital camera. It took us a while to figure out that we could cut out the video that was already on the tape that we did not record over. Every skill I learned in editing the video and audio was new to me. From this project I learned how to use Audacity and MovieMaker Live, as well as the music website. I also learned how to pair up the audio edited in Audacity with the video in MovieMaker.

Software skills

I am so glad I have this class! I've learned so many tricks that will not only be useful to me as a teacher but can also help me as a college student in programs that I have been using such as Microsoft Word, and also learned how to use programs such as Microsoft Publisher. For me the most beneficial thing about learning these tricks is the amount of time it can cut down on making something cute and readable (very important at the elementary level). Also, learning these shortcuts, makes it more likely that I will make things using these software, because I now I know that I don't have to make everything so difficult.

I LOVED the idea of making our projects into transparencies, even though the idea stressed me out at first. It was super easy and now I know how to do them. I thought the days of transparencies were over with new technology constantly emerging and with so many classrooms being equipped with ELMOs, but they are still a useful instructional tool, and easy to make.

These projects not only taught me how I can make life easier on myself as a teacher, but also taught me a way to create different things that I can use to communicate with parents (like the newsletter) and to communicate with my school community (like the flyer).

Resources, resources, resources!

Inspiration is definitely one program that I hope whatever school I work in has; and if not I would definitely request it! It is a good visual instruction tool as well as a great tool for teaching students how to organize ideas. I could incorporate it in my classroom in a few ways in my content area, but I think even more so in other subjects. In Spanish, I can see it being used to show the steps involved in conjugating a verb. It can also be used to compare and contrast the steps involved in conjugating an -AR verb versus an -ER or -IR verb. It can also show differences in conjugating a regular verb versus an irregular verb. Because it is a good organizational tool, and even has a specific "tree" style organizer, I can use it with students when introducing the vocabulary for "family" and have students create their own family tree. This can be a post-instructional assignment, and therefore I can use it as an assessment tool, checking the student's understanding. It can also be used as an organizational tool in the pre-writing phase of a written assignment or composition. Students can create a graphic organizer or an outline and convert one into the other.

In class I was introduced to some new web resources, and reminded of ones that had slipped my mind. I've always known about Rubistar and have used it in previous lesson plans. It is a very quick and easy way to create an assessment tool, as well as give directions for a project if you provide students with the rubric so that they know what they will be graded on. It gives them an idea of how they should present or do their assignment.

I also like United Streaming because it has a ton of resources, in pretty much any subject area. It is a great way to find supplemental videos for a lesson plan that you have already created, or find a video that has a lesson plan attached to it that you can adapt for your classroom. It is also a good website if you are at the end of a unit, week etc. and need to find something for those students who have finished everything or if you need to keep a few students while you work with others.

I think I will use these two a lot; Rubistar because it can help make grading fast and ways when you have four dozen students and United Streaming because it has so much content that you can almost ALWAYS use it.

Social bookmarking

The first time I heard of social bookmarking was a couple of weeks ago in class. Now that I know about it, I can definitely see the many ways that it can help me as a student now. The first thing that came to mind is that it could help me organize resources that I am thinking about using for a research paper or a portfolio. Personally, I know that I might start looking at websites and different sources, just to feel like I'm getting a head start. If I think I find something that I may be able to use, sometimes I'll leave the tab open on the computer or email the link to myself. Social bookmarking can help me save these pages with tags, in order to be organized and help me retain my sanity. :)

In an elementary school classroom, most likely upper elementary, I can see social bookmarking being applied in the same way. It is a good organizational tool. However, it doesn't have to only apply to research and projects. As students become more familiar with the Internet and kid-friendly websites, they may want to keep track of those pages that are good for educational games, or pages that they grow found of. Also, it can be used in as a self help technique. Teachers can ask students to identify something that they may be having trouble with and find good resources on the web that they may want to revisit for help. For example, in Spanish, if students want to bookmark websites that may help them with conjugations or online dictionaries, they may want to bookmark www.wordreference.com with tags like dictionary, Spanish, conjugation etc.

Blogs in the classroom!

At the elementary level there are many ways that a teacher could incorporate blogs into the class to make it more interesting! Although it may be difficult with the younger children who don't have a lot of skill in reading and writing, it can be used in the place of pencil and paper writing in the upper elementary grades. Knowing that many students will be more interested in work that involves technology or needs to be done on a computer, blogs can be used as a replacement to reaction and summary papers. Blogs often are made as a commentary, so giving students this practice and pairing it with school work will give them a look into the practical use of blogs while they are still completing assignments. In projects where the teacher is interested in the progress of a student or group, blogs can be used as a tool to record and comment on difficulties experienced or as a method to collaborate with other students and groups, as they will be able to share their thoughts through their blogs.

Technology has become a very successful tool in the classroom. For teachers, it serves as a compliment to lessons, another means of conveying a message, and, as in the above example, can be used to replaced what could be called "the traditional way of doing things", in order to better engage the students. For students, it serves as way to incorporate their interests (technology) and opinions, into their work. Students may also take more pride in their blog than they would written work because it is personalized by them. Students may also have an incentive to give a little more to their work if they know that their classmates and anyone with the web address to their blog can view their work.

It can also be a disadvantage for students or teachers who are not too technologically inclined. Blogs wouldn't work in a classroom where the students or teacher didn't have patience for figuring out how to create and edit a blog. It can also be disadvantageous for students who value that their work is kept private between them and the teacher. It can either be positive for that student, helping them break away from that and become comfortable with voicing their opinions and displaying their work, or it can create anxiety for that student.

As far as GoogleApps is concerned, I'm not a big fan. I am still in the phase of learning my way in and out of this software, so I think my opinion may have a lot to do with what I am familiar with, and therefore most comfortable with, which is Microsoft Office. I do, however, like that you can open the Google Presentation app, in Microsoft's Powerpoint, and edit the document. I also like the ability to share documents, but can also can control who can and can't see them. I don't really have anything bad to say about the program because I haven't had much experience using it, but I'm sure as I do I will build a solid preference and will have much more to say. :)