Overall Experience With The Class

In this course I learned a lot about the practical utilization of technology in the classroom. In the modern era technology is an important part of life and students are both familiar with and accustomed to it. I enjoyed learning how to use different programs to create lessons and other resources for classroom use. It really caused me to think outside the box about how I could use various technologies in my elementary classroom one day. One of the things I am most passionate about as a future educator is making learning fun for my students. Technology,when utilized correctly, can create a classroom environment that is,informative, exciting, and interactive.

My biggest concern from this class is that I will not have the time or freedom to reproduce some of these activities. Several of the projects took me upwards of six hours including class time. I hope that now that I am more familiar with the programs this won't be an issue but it still worries me. Technology is constantly changing and developing so I am concerned that I won’t be able to keep up.

My favorite activity was probably the digital story. I feel like these are more attention grabbing than power points and can be used before or after teaching a lesson. Mine was on volcanoes for a science lesson for 5^th graders but I think that digital stories could be used for virtually every subject and grade. I’m really interested to try and make a book walk for emergent readers in the earlier grades or ELL students I may have. Overall I am really glad I learned this technology and I am excited to use it in my work with students.
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Chapter 1

I learned from this chapter is that whiteboard strength's is really its interactivity and it's the teacher's responsibility to utilize it correctly and the learning environment. They're different type of white board companies from what we learned in class they are fairly similar but there's Promethean board's, Smart Boards and Mimos.Teacher's are responsible for combining whiteboard use with good instructional practices. I really liked the bullet pointed list of features that help in the classroom such as: highlighting, coloring, updating importing pictures, shared reading. The research told us about how they could help with teaching lessons but also increase motivation and participation in collaboration (Glover Et al). I thought it was interesting that it said that there was a little success using IWB's in the classroom on lower performing students. If I was having issues with the student I would definitely try to modify my plans to make it work for them as well. 

I like the listed the features of the board that are linked to achievement such as student response systems, graphics, videos, and reinforcing properties. I have used response systems in my classes before and I think that they work really well and kids really like them and it keeps them more involved and more alert when working. In the gallery pictures it pointed out that the student responses give students a voice who might not normally speak out. I believe it's really important to meet students where they are sometimes and develop them through building their confidence so this is a great resource. It's interesting because they're also studies that say the IWB's are ineffective but I would be curious to see how those teachers are utilizing them versus the teachers when it was found effective.

 I really like that it pointed out some of the instructional challenges and made the point that just because you're technologically proficient doesn't mean that you're using the board correctly in the class. Dr. O'Bannon made the point in class in the book reinforced it.using your interactive whiteboard as a projector is a great disservice to the features and the potential uses. It's important that teachers practice and are trying to thoroughly understand these so they have confidence when they take them into the classroom. The last section of the chapter talks about how effective teacher training can conquer most of the challenges associated with whiteboards. And active whiteboards are a now widely used resource and it's important that people know how to use them and use them effectively so they get the most out of the experience.

Digital Stories

The University of Houston site really highlights some of the advantages of using digital storytelling in the class room.It discusses how digital stories are similar to regular stories in the sense that they both contain a main idea but digital stories utilize multimedia udio, photos, and video. The website points out that digital stories in a learning enviorment are normally short, from 2 to 10 minutes but are great at capturing the attention and interest of the students.

About a teacher blog

 I chose Ms. Cassidy's blog to evaluate. Ms. Cassidy is an elementary school teacher in Canada. There are several aspects of this blog that make it so successful. The teacher provides insight into each individual students learning. This can be a great resource for parents to see what their child is doing in class and how they are progressing. I also really like how she describes the lessons and activities done in the class. For example, she doesn't just show a picture of the "whisper phones" she actually describes how they help with blending and fluency.

She also uses media in a lot of different ways. On her page she utilizes pictures, gadgets, videos, and links to other classroom blogs. Her students seem to have a very good understanding of how technology works and can use it exceptionally well for 6 year olds because she implements technology into many different aspects of her classroom. I think this blog really highlights how useful a blog can be for a teacher.

One of my favorite things she does is utilize social media. One the right side you can find a link to her twitter account that she has the students tweet from. I think this teaches them a good lesson not only about using the internet for mass communication but also doing it safely and correctly. Her use of tags also makes it easy to use her site to find specific parts of the blog to utilize. If you want some ideas about colors just hit the tag colors and you have ideas. Her exposing her students to so much common technology really sets them up for success in school and throughout life. I believe that it may even influence how hard they try on their work because they know it will be shared.

About Me and My Class Expectations

This blog is going to be used in my course on Integrating Technology in a classroom at the University of Tennessee. My name is Elizabeth and I am a senior at UT and set on track to graduate in the spring and begin my internship year next fall. I love kids and have enjoyed working with them in several different capacities over the years. I am so excited to get my own classroom one day and start utilizing all I have learned. One struggle of mine is definitely technology so learning how to use it in my classroom will be incredibly helpful.

The main thing I want from this class is to learn practical and beneficial applications of technology in my future elementary classroom. As Technology becomes more and more important in the world I believe it is essential that student start building basic knowledge of it at  a young age. I want to be able to teach my students to use it effectively and responsibly. I have used Microsoft computers most of my life and had previously very limited exposure to Apple technology other than my Iphone. I hope to learn to better work Apple products. I really like the idea of smartboard technology with elementary students so I hope to master that in this course.