Chapter 12

I can relate to learning outcome 12.1 because I have found myself to be one of those teachers who is reluctant to incorporate technology into my lesson plans. One of the main reasons being because I am not comfortable with my ability to use it properly. The other day while teaching a 4th grade math lesson I needed to move the smart board page up to refer back to something I had written down earlier on in the lesson. I could not figure out how to even move the paper up and one my students need to come up and assist me. To me, that is super embarrassing and I would have much rather not used the Smart Board at all.

Another thing I found interesting within this chapter was that technology should not be used as a reward or punishment for students. I had always experienced technology throughout my schooling to be something we were given only if we earned it. It was never just part of our daily routines. The teacher would also take away a promised technology based lesson if we misbehaved. That is definitely not the outlook you want your students to have on technology use in the classroom.

Last week during my student teaching the Smart Board stopped working and refused to turn on. My cooperating teacher told me she refused to call the technology help because they were unable to help her with an issue the last time and she did not want to let the school know because they would upset. She tried to work on fixing the issue herself and in the meantime felt completed at lost on how to make her lesson work without it. They had no other place in their room to use to write things down. Eventually she was able to fix the smart board on her own but so much educational time was wasted. That is one of my biggest fears with using technology in the classroom because eventually you become to reliant on it that once it stops working you would not know how to continue.

 

Chapter 11

Throughout my own student journey, especially in high school I loathed taking tests and being assessed. Personally, I am just not a good “test-taker.” I actually almost didn’t get into St. John’s because my math score on my SAT was so low. Thankgoodness I was able to take the ACT where you do not get penalized for leaving a question blank and I made up for the bad score I got on my SAT and now here I am, almost done with my Bachelor’s degree and my first year of graduate school. Clearly I can confidently say I am not lacking in smarts. I agree with learning outcome 11.1 that student’s should be graded on the work being completed rather than the test scores achieved. They at least tried and should be acknowledged for that. Technology is defiantly a great tool for assessment because it allows students to display real-world learning in dynamic ways.

Chapter 10

As an ESL teacher for an after school program I definitely agree that technology supports learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students.

The chapter states the importance of using technology as a way to overcome language barriers. There will come in a time in your teaching career that you will have a student who speaks a language you are completely unfamiliar with. Technology allows for you to translate in minutes. It also allows for you to communicate with parents who may feel uncomfortable trying to communicate out loud.

Technology opens up roads for students to showcase all their talents that they may not have been able to do without the aide for technology.

It also allows for you to assess what your students do and do not know with the use of online quizzes. Majority of the students who do not speak english as a first language are unlikely to volunteer to share out their responses. This is a way to get everyone to share without having to single a student out.

Chapter 4

• The one thing that has been instilled in me during my educational career is that everything you teach should be assessed. T
• There are many different ways to assess your students work both informally and formally. 
• Technology offers many different ways of assessing students formally with immediate results. One way we learned to informally assess our students is by asking them to show a thumbs down signal if they did not understand something. 
• The problem with this method is that some students may say they understand the topic and really don't. Teachers resort to this method because they need a quick way to know if they can move on to another part of the lesson or not. 
• Technology tools like Kahoot and socratic are a quick way to assess students on actual content with immediate results. 
• Another great tool technology offers is a safe place to store student work without having to worry that it would get lost or ruin. This could especially come in handy during a parent-teacher conference when a parent is asking why their child's score is so low. You can pull up quiz results, lessons and student work samples from an online portfolio. 

Chapter 9

Being that I am still not the most "Tech-savy" teacher I tend to find myself always leaning towards using the document camera instead of the actual smart board. I love that I am able to take hard copies of text and have them be projected onto the screen to share with my class. I also love that the students are able to see me doing something "live." One thing I love using the document camera for is math. I used it for a lesson the other day to model how to use manipulatives to solve addition problems. Although the smart board has a section for manipulatives I found it better to show to the students how to do it with a hands-on activity. To physically have to count and move the manipulatives around has them grasp a better understanding of the topic.

I am so a big fan of using YouTube (when appropriate) to show videos to my class. I usually use a YouTube video as a launch to a new topic we are learning to get students engaged and excited about a new topic.


This chapter also touched up digital storytelling. I had taken an education class my junior year that was called "Writing in the classroom." This class opened up my eyes to show that they are so many more ways to expressive ourselves in writing without actually have to use words to do so. We were asked to make a digital story of a our choice. I was trying to find the link to it but my partner had deleted it so it won't let me access the drop box! It was on tattoos and how they are a way of expressing meaning without words.

Chapter 3

Being that I am new to teaching I am still testing out what approaches I like most and which I find to be the most effective. I am constantly comparing how I was taught growing up to how I want to teach moving forward. Being in the classroom now during my student teaching has shown me how teaching has moved away from being "teacher-centered" and is now leaning towards being "student-centered." One of the staff developers I work with during my after school teaching job told me how important it is for students to self-evaluate themselves and their own work. The text defines this as a form of metacognition. If a student is able to evaluate their own work they are able to see first hand what they did wrong, what they are missing and how they can improve it for the future. Being self-aware is a big thing for student's in today's world!

I, as both a teacher and a student, am a big supporter in using the internet as a major resource if and only if it is done properly. Children need to learn that not everything on the internet is going to be accurate or helpful and they need to be shown the correct way to weed out what isn't and isn't a proper resource. The major benefit of the internet is that students are able to access information without constantly needing answers or constant direction from a teacher. Their are so many interactive websites and games that can help promote critical thinking and problem solving skills. I remember when I was in school we would play "Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?" It was such a fun game that promoted problem solving and content area studies at the same time and I as a student didn't even realize because I was having fun.

As a teacher I am finding the internet to be an awesome way to collaborate and connect with other teachers. Whether it be reading their blogs, glancing at sample lessons or even visiting teacherspayteachers.com to find cute and inventive ideas to incorporate into an another wise boring lesson! It is the quickest way to keep up to date with what is going on in the world of education. It is also a way to communicate with students, parents and other community members alike.


One thing I've learned throughout my ED TPA certification expierence is how important inquiry-based learning is. All any scorer on this exam portfolio wants to see is that you are engaging your students in activities that help promote learning and collaboration in the forms of differentiation, group work and partner work.  

Chapter 8

In the beginning of this chapter I was able to connect immediately during the portion that discussed electronic communication between teachers and students. After being a student for majority of my life and now diving into the role of teacher, I am able to see this kind've communication from both angles. 

I didn't start emailing my teachers until I was in college. I appreciated the fact that I could get in contact with them and get a response although it was often asynchronous. Some of my teachers were "cool" enough to let us text or call them if it was something that required a synchronous, or immediate, response. 

The one tool I have found beneficial as both a student and teacher is having access to all my school work online. At St. John's, we use blackboard. This is a website that allows for us to upcoming assignments, grades and gives us links to lessons done previously to help us refresh our memories. At P.S.30, the students, administration, parents and teachers have access to the schools website portal. This allows for teachers to post homework, important due dates and reminders. Parent's and students are able to access this information so that they are no miscommunications on what is expected of them. In my opinion, this is a great idea!

When I first started reading this chapter I had no idea what a "wiki" was. The only familiarity I had with the word was the website "Wikipedia".  After reading, I am came to the conclusion that they are the same thing. A wiki is a website or blog space hat is collaboratively edited and maintained by a group of people. It was after reading this that I realized that all of the websites that start with "Wiki" had this very thing in common. 

Using a Wikitext in your classroom as an educational tool is a way to enhance learning through the use of technology.  You can start a Wikitext for any topic you are choosing to have your students learn about. You can give them access to the text and allow them to post a link to any resource they found relative to the topic. This allows students to share ideas with each other. This also gives the teacher an opportunity to post things that she wants her students to also take a look at it to enhance their learning of a topic. 

Wiki's can be useful in the classroom for many things but you need to be sure to use them properly! Guidelines must be set up for how you want to see their wiki used and constructed. You must also be sure to explain to students that plagiarism is always a NO GO!  Teachers must also be checking students wiki's and giving them feedback and grades so that the student is held accountable for what they are putting into it and on it.