Exist Slip Week 12

This week I learned about the importance of using consistent techniques so the students have a familiar activity that they can fully participate in without having to question what the expectations are.  I also learned about the R's of relevance, rigor, and relationships.  I agree with these three and will work to achieve these in the future.  This brings me to my next point that was brought up in class about whether I am just saying I will use technology in my classroom or if I actually will.  It will be easier to carry this out realizing that I can use other resources and can work together with other teachers to enhance my lessons.

Exist Slip Week 11

These week I learned about some of the benefits of using tools such as scribble in the classroom, instead of using face to face interaction.  I liked the idea of how all the students need to discuss about the ideas and not just the same people who normally do in groups.  This also ties into the question mentioned about whether or not I will be an innovative teacher.  I do have a lot of ideas that I want to carrying out and with all the information I'm learning there are new tools I would like to try.

Interactive Whiteboard Reflection

I feel that I exerted quite a bit of energy on this assignment.  I spent time looking at examples on Smartboard Exchange and playing with the various tools that are provided in notebook.  It was somewhat difficult figuring out how the different tools worked and which ones would be the most beneficial for my lesson.  The peer reviews were useful with determining which tools were developmentally appropriate and taking time to lock everything in place.

Designing and sharing my interactive whiteboard lesson will impact my future teaching because I learned how the Smartboard can create more problem-based lessons.  The students will be more motivated to learn because these lessons are more hands-on and fun.  By sharing all these lessons with my peers, I can build a great resource for myself.  In the future it maybe beneficial to use some of these lessons, depending on the grade level I teach.  It was also a good way to learn about new tools, what works good, and what doesn't.

Rethinking education in a technological world

This chapter was all about rethinking how our education system is set up.  We need to rethink what learning is, what is important to learn, how to motivate students, the role of government, students’ future careers, and how to prepare them for the future.  Learning is becoming life-long and we need to teach students how to continuously find new information.  This is important because information is changing so much lately and as soon as we teach a topic, many aspects will probably be changed already.  This brings up the topic of what is important to teach.  I feel that it is important to teach students the basic subjects, but the way, in which, we teach them should be altered.  We should have students solve large problems or complete projects that involve them learning about the various subjects.  This information should be integrated into the project so that the students are learning how to apply this knowledge, instead of just memorizing it.  I think this would also be helpful in motivating students.  Kids will be more excited to solve these meaningful tasks, instead of completely boring worksheets.  I also feel that by completing these large projects, educators can grade students differently.  Instead, of the usual grades, we could begin to use written assessments or some other form that is geared away from grades.  This would help remove the competition between students and help them focus on competing with themselves.  They can work on beating personal goals and improving their own knowledge.  This would increase their motivation too because, not only do students like to obtain goals, but their learning would become more intrinsic. Students often get stressed out about earning high grades and their interest in learning the material decreases.  When students learn to just learn they will be more rewarded.

                As a future teacher, I will put this knowledge and rethinking into consideration.  I will create lesson plans that allow for problem-based learning.  Although, I can create great lessons, I can’t necessarily avoid grading.  The government has a big part in education and schools have to comply in order to obtain support and money.  This is the topic on rethinking government in education.  Even though, it may be nice for education to regain power from the state, the government is gaining more and more of a power hold on schools.  They can help provide equal opportunities for all students by providing this public institution and supplying technologies, along with other necessities.  Not everyone may be able to finance individualized education or afford to stay home and home school.  The school system is important to provide social interactions, along with all the extracurricular activities it can offer.  I feel that the foundation of the educational system that was formed years back is a strong platform.  We just need to reform some of the bricks that can help the educational system become the most effective.

Contemporary Issues Podcast Reflection

Creating a podcast was a little difficult at first.  It wasn’t hard finding an article and writing a script, but actually figuring out how to create a podcast was more challenging.  It took me a little while to figure out how to move the various tracks and export it as an mp3.  After I watched some tutorials on Lynda.com, these tasks became fairly simply.  If I knew all the features and how to work with audacity, it would be fun to create podcast and the actual writing a script would become the most challenging and longest task to complete.

                Creating and sharing a podcast with my peers, impacts my future teaching because I became more aware of the potential it can have in the classroom.  My students or I could use podcast to create lessons or projects and share them with each other.  This would be effective because it is more interactive and more fun to develop and listen to.  In this technological era, sharing information is becoming more interactive, as such, because we are using our voices, videos, pictures and other tools that can enhance the quality of our products.  The more engaged we can keep our audience the more they will think about our message and understand our viewpoints or concerns.   

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/education/09ipod.html?pagewanted=2

Exist Slip Week 10

This week I became more aware about the capabilities of scratch and the interactive white board.  I learned about how to make sprites moveable, how to make it more reusable, and that directions or text should be on the screen for twice the amount of time it takes me to read it.  I also took away the importance of representing myself in a professional manner.  I need to complete my projects to the best of my ability including, correct spelling and grammar.

What does it all mean? Chapter 9

This chapter sums up the idea that we need to see the potential in technology, if not totally except it into education.  For example, the chapter mentioned how many parents are hesitant to letting their kids play video games.  They fail to see the possibilities these games have in developing critical thinking and communication skills.  Parents need to begin to be more optimistic about technology and how it can be helpful.  If we can get kids to play educational type games and remove all the violent ones, many positive outcomes can occur.  Another reason parents maybe be hesitant in using video games is because their kids won’t be getting as much exercise.  I think this is an important issue to address, especially because obesity is on the rise.  As much as we stress students learning about technology, I think we need to just as much, if not more, stress the importance of exercise.  It would be neat if we could continue to develop more active games such as the Wi to get kids moving, learning, and gaming.  I also think that parents need to become more involved to understand this potential, which can help quicken the change.  They should be learning how to use all the technology or programs their kids are for a couple of reasons.   One, it would be a good relationship builder and two, it can help the parents keep track of what the kids are doing for safety reasons.   

As a future teacher, I will need to continue to understand and explore more deeply all of the possible uses of technology.  It will be interesting to see how much things will change in the upcoming years regarding education and student dynamics.  The way students interact and present information or ideas to others may drastically affect who and how they grow up to be.  What values will they learn and how will their respect for others grow or change?  Will they be better critical thinkers and communicators?  So many unanswered questions that I feel in time will unravel, but they all point back to the same source of change – technology.  One topic that was brought up in the chapter was about how kids can develop their interests and become more encouraged to learn about it because they can communicate with people who have similar interest.   I think this is very beneficial because it is one way students can take pride in the things they like and can be proud of who they are.  They can develop their self-esteem from different sources, besides just the classroom.  This is powerful because with the pop culture and kids just wanting to fit in, their communication and friendships with people of similar interest can decrease the cases of depression.  I feel that because they have this one place where they fit in, their self-esteem may rise and they will be motivated to learn and come to school.