Lesson Plan Blog

This week we finished up our digital stories and started writing our technology lesson plans. The two technologies I chose to use in my classroom are pod casts and google sites. The reason why I chose to use these two technologies are because I want to have an easy way, educational and fun way to relay information. I feel that the students would benefit from using the information they learn in using these technologies.
In preparing my lesson plans I had to do a lot of thinking to figure out just what I wanted the students to do, achieve and learn from using these technologies. It was more of an informative lesson for myself while writing these lesson plans. It was much harder than I had anticipated. I feel that once I have finished my lesson plans they will be pretty good and I will want to take them into my classroom. I hope the school I am teaching in will have the ability to allow me to incorporate these technologies in my classroom.
Once I have my lesson plans written I hope to put them into use in my classroom. I will have my students listen to a podcast by me once a week and require them to complete their assignments by pod casting me back. I will also have my student get onto my google site to check for upcoming events in our classroom and also teach them ways to create their own google site to display their different achievements and artwork they have turned into our class. I think this will be a fun way to allow them to be more technology aware and learn dynamics of communication and social networking.

Digital Story 3

This week we learned and worked more on our digital stories. I have been using the photo story program to do my digital story. Photo story is really a great application because it helps you step by step add things to your slide show. I really like how photo story has everything you need to make a cool slide show but it is so easy to use. My group and I put in our pictures, added photo effects, enhanced the movement and added text all in one class period. Things are moving along we just need to add our narration and put the final touches on everything. I think it will be great.
Digital story are really great, they can be used so many different way and help people understand using a visual and auditory stimuli to relay instruction or information. Recently in our field work I kept thinking of all the cool ways to use digital stories to help relay information. They are so fun and entertaining. I think it would be really awesome if you had the time to create a digital story for a subject that is a little bland. For instance if you took division and made a digital story about the process of division, it would be so cool! Students would learn so much from it because it is visual and if there was a song that went along with it they would remember the song. It would be awesome.
In my teaching I will use digital stories to help relay information for my students. I think they are awesome. Maybe I could come up with a really cool one to help students learn about math, like in my example above. I just think it would be so cool to help students learn information in a fun entertaining lesson such as a digital story. They would learn so much more if they could visualize it, internalize it and be able to use it. Using textbooks to relay information just doesn't do anything, especially in toady's society. Students need to be stimulated visually, auditory, and hands on. I think that with a digital story students will get sucked in and engage more with it. I think it would be great for the classroom.

Field Week 4

This was a my final week of Field. Although my partner and I did not have lesson plans to teach to the class we participated in helping our supervising teacher with some lesson plans of his own. For our very last day in the class the students were having colonial days. I was assigned to teach the students how to tie and quilt a blanket that we would be donating to the Children's hospital. During the lesson I noticed one of the students becoming very emotional. He had heard some negative comments from another student about a recent death in his family, which made him emotional and begin to name call. Soon our quilting lesson turned into a discussion about name calling, feelings and appropriate language and social behavior. This was such a great experience fore me, at first I was unsure of how to handle the situation but slowly things came together and I felt that things progressed along and many lessons were learned, including the one I learned.
As far as technology goes I noticed that in one of the classroom they had a smart board. Since I had only ever seen them on TV I thought it would be excited to learn how to use one and see it in action. AWESOME! I think that every classroom should have one, students could learn so quickly and be entertained so easily with the smart board. I know that they are very expensive but if every school in America bought one for every classroom, couldn't they be made in bulk and then the price would go down? I think we should try it because they are AWESOME!

field week 3

Well we finished up our lessons. Field has been a great experience and I have learned so much. I started out thinking that the teacher and the students in this 5th grade class ran by some strange rules, yet I finally get it. Giving students the freedom to be who they are going to be and guiding by example and expectations does actually work. I would have never guessed. Some fun things that I learned this week are that students are so advanced in technology these days. I would not be surprised if in the next couple of years a lap top computer is added to the list of supplies that students need for school. The students in this class already use computers at least two times a day to help them with testing, typing, language arts, math and social studies and then some of them come in on their lunch break to surf the web and catch up on current event. It is incredible and so advanced, we have come so far!

Field Week 2

This week was a bit more stressful. We were preparing our next two lessons and I came down with a horrible flu/cold. But despite all the stress of being sick and trying to ignore it our lessons were great! One thing that I did realize very quickly was that it was a lot more work to put our lesson plan into action for all 29 of our 5th graders than it was to just write the lessons. We decided that for our Guided Inquiry lesson we were going to have our students in pairs research a historical character from the Revolutionary War and present their character in a Wax Museum we would be doing at a later date. The idea itself seems awesome and simple but when it came down to it I realized that you can't just leave the research to the 5th graders they will need and outline, predetermined information and a pre-written biography to go off of. So I spent most of the week putting together information for biographies on 15 historical characters. It was a bit overwhelming but I sure did learn a lot!
We had our final evaluation on and Friday and from our first evaluation to this one I could really tell that we had come a long way and was pretty proud to show our evaluator how far we had come. The feedback that we were given this week was just to make sure we always have a game plan of what is suppose to happen, what should happen and what we can have the students do next. We found out in our lesson that some students finish much faster than other and we should always have the next transition set for those fast finishers. This was good for us to realize and prepare for. Overall, it was a pretty good week in the classroom. My partner and I have really learned a lot and are so grateful for the experience.

Field Week 1

This week I started my field experience. I really like the students, teacher and class that I am working with. Some the most interesting things that I have noticed is the teaching style of this 5th grade class. The teacher really feels that students need their space to be who they are so he allows them to stand up, stand on their chairs, stretch, wander and speak openly during his instruction. I thought at first that this was going to get very out of hand but he has developed this complete respect and control of his class. All he has to say is "Ready or not" and all the students instantly reply "we shall be taught" and quiet down and focus on what he has to stay despite their wandering or movement. It have been very cool to watch.
My partner and I started our teacher on Friday. We were both a little nervous about how it was going to go for us since we were teaching a movement lesson and 5th graders can get a bit out of hand if asked to do movement but over all it was awesome! The one thing that we notices could have gone smoother is if we had given full, complete, step by step instructions on everything we were doing, how loud they were allowed to be and what was expected of them and what would be expected for them not to do. I think we forgot that 5th graders especially try to find ways and loop holes to bend the rules! ;)
We had a great week!

My beliefs : PDP #3

After watching and reading the information about how technology has helped benefit students through the years I absolutely think that we need technology in our schools. Schools need to have better funding to help provide for technology and ways to teach teachers about up to date technology. So much could be accomplished if teachers knew and used technology more. Students could chose to want to take tests like in Harrison High School were taking a test was more like playing a game show or how social networks and texting could help students stay on top of their homework and their ambishions to learn. Technology is vital for our future generations and so it is vital that we as teachers learn technology and incorporate it into our classrooms.

Lessons Learned : PDP #2

I loved learning about all the different ways that technology could be used in the classroom or school setting. My favorite and most memorable thing was the article and video about Harrison High School and how in every classroom they had different ways to use technology. I loved the way they took their cheer squad and figured out that by using the different technology tools they had access to they could figure out the right appropriate exercise regimen to use to help them stay fit, not over worked and the appropriate way to help them do their stunts perfectly. That is amazing that you could figure out what your body needs and is trying to tell you through a computer and machines. Amazing!

Strength & Weaknesses : PDP #1

1. What were your strength/weaknesses according to the UNI survey and NET Standards?
My weakness when it comes to technology is using the new up to date programs such as power points presentations, spreadsheets, excel programs like this stump me. I have tried to watch and learn but until I readily implement them into my daily routine I am not sure I will learn them.
In my classroom I plan to learn and utilize such programs to help me keep organized and present information that is organized and easily understood for my students.
I plan to also take some online tutorials from word and apple to help me learn about their programs and how to use them. Some other ways I think that would help me learn about such programs is watching you tube videos and listening to pod casts.

Digital Story 2/ Did you know Video reflection

This week we learned about the different programs we could use to make our digital story.
I think that Windows Movie Maker might the be easiest and most familiar for me to use. My group prepared our topic, story board and script. It was pretty interesting and worth it to do things step by step. Now all we need to do is just insert our pictures, add the audio and narration and we should be pretty set for our next class session.
I think that making a digital story would be a great way to express information for students and an easy way for students to grasp the information. The digital stories not only relay information but they are fun to watch and full of exciting sounds and easy to understand narrations. I also think it is beneficial to have the narration along with the pictures because I think that our minds tend to correlate the two and it is easy for us to store the information if we have both the visual and audio remembrance.
In my class I know that I will use the digital stories. I can see it being very beneficial especially for subjects such as Social Studies or Science for students to have both the visual and audio narrations for the subjects. I think they are great, I enjoy them and I know that my students will also.

Did you know? reflection
I have seen this video a couple of times and a couple of different variations for this video. Every time I see it, I still feel overwhelmed but the statistics. It is so amazing how rapidly people are learning, using and spreading technology. Children at young ages and older people all involved doing the same things, using the same Internet, connecting and helping technology spread like a weed. Amazing!

Digital Story 1/ Nasa Digital Story Video

This week we learned what a digital story was and view several examples of the digital stories. The digital stories look fun and I am excited to learn how to make them. I really liked the examples because it showed a broad spectrum of what can be done and how easy and fun it would be to make and share with students to start out a lesson. I found myself getting really excited while I watched the examples of the digital stories and then realized that I would not be learning the lesson and was a bit disappointed. Yet, it made me excited to do these with my students, I can see it really sparking their interests.
With the digital stories I can see the teacher presenting a basic exciting digital story to help capture students attention and intrigue them for the up coming lessons. The digital stories help convey information that students really get absorbed in. I think that the different dynamics of the digital story really help. I like that each digital story has a layer of sound effects, music, pictures, movies and narration. I really think it is vital to have all the layers to help really give your digital story that "wow" factor that sucks the students in.
I plan on using digital stories probably about 3 times during the year. I would probably use them to really intrigue the students to want to learn on lessons that might usually be less excited. Perhaps I could use a digital story to suck my 5Th graders into the Revolutionary War. This is such a broad subject and History can be boring if it isn't presented the right way. I think a digital story with lots of sound effects, pictures and music would really help the students want to grasp onto the subject.

NASA Digital Story Reflection:
This digital story was really fun and informative. It not only had great pictures to view but the narrator really supplied the digital story with information that was easily understood and interesting. I also really like the way the different sound effects were implicated into the digital story. My favorite part about this digital story was that he had the actually recording of President Kennedy's speech to America. It was fun and great to watch!

Weekly Reflection: 50 states and capitols (Cartoon Song) Video Reflection

This week we had fall break so we didn't have class. My group and I finished up our web quest and prepared it for our presentation. In my other classes we have been busy preparing lessons for our field work and learning about curriculum and how to teach it. This semester has become much harder than I had ever imagined. I feel stressed out every night and overwhelmed by the pile of homework that needs to be completed nightly. I also have learned so much as well, I love all of my classes and I am so glad to be in the program but I really wish we had more time to complete our tasks or less tasks to be completed. I suppose we can't do a whole lot about it all though. I just have to keep telling myself to keep truckin' along and that one day I'll be through it all and be in my own classroom teaching. That will be awesome!

This week for my video reflection I went to TeacherTube.com and looked for a fun educational video I would use in my class. I came across a video of the Animaniacs singing a song about the 50 states and their capitols and thought it was awesome. I would use this song and video in my class to help my 5th grade students learn the 50 states along with the capitols. I think the sing is catchy and easy to learn and the video is awesom because it shows the states, where they are located in American and where in each state the capitol is located. I was a great video that I think 5th grade students would really enjoy and learn from.

Webquest final/ School of Rock

This week we worked on our final touches of our web quest. Through this process I have really learned how to use web sites, research and patience to create a fun activity to help students learn about a subject. The web quest so far has proved to be the hardest thing for me to create in our class. Although, I have really enhanced my skills at using Power point, which I am grateful for because we will use it frequently in my teaching career.
With the web quest skills I have learn, I think it will be great to create many fun adventurous activities for my students to use to learn a new subject and to help their research. Students will really be engaged and want to grasp their content if learning was made fun through web quests. Students seem to want to learn more with visual and audio examples and web quests are a great way for students to experience research through a visual and audio experience.
In my teaching I will use web quests probably once every four to five months. I don't want to over use the web quest because student may get burned out on them. I want it to be a treat and so I would spread out the use of the web quest to keep students excited. I think it would really be a fun and engaging activity for my students to use. Web quests are great!

School of Rock Reflection:
School of Rock is a great way to teach students different key concepts. I love this video on Nouns, it is so catchy and the song sticks in your head. Students will have the song stuck in their head and inevitably remember all the important things about a noun. I know for myself after watching school of rock I often come away singing and remember the lesson they taught. I still remember exactly how a bill gets past and now the concept of a noun.

Webquest part II/ We didn't start the fire video

We again worked on our web quest this week. We had a better understanding of our web quest lay out but still needed to figure out how to make all our podcast, video links etc work in power point. This was a very interesting and pretty are concept to grasp for me. I am also having a bit of trouble learning to use the new power point application, having to evolve from the program I learned on is proving to be harder than I had imagined.
I do feel that it was good for me to be challenged to learn and forced to move forward. I will need to stay up to date in technology as a teacher and be able to relate with my students to the changes we will see every year as we evolve with technology.
Once again I think that the web quests will be fun for the students to learn and explore. It also will be fun for the teachers to learn as they set them up and research what their student will need to be learning about. Our web quest is centered for Kindergarten students and I have been really excited as I have been going through and finding things for our future students to be learning about. I has been a good refresher and educational for me.
I hope to be able to set up web quest like this for my future kindergartners. I think it will be a good way for them to learn to use the computer but also stimulating educationally for them to learn about the different concepts that could be created in a web quest. They learn how to navigate through the power point but also how to organize and learn about their curriculum.

Video reflection:
First of all, I love Billy Joel! I love this video because it shows how over time everything in the world has changed and how people have changed and adapted to the change. The world is forever going to be changing, in technology, state laws, political thought, racism. It is amazing to look back and think wow, it really wasn't that long ago that we never thought we would have a black President and today we do. Some people still resist the change but it is monumental and awesome! I think that if the video continued to today it would show how far we have come as a people accepting one another and how far we've come in technology...surface computing?!?!

Web quest/ Surface Computing Video

Web quests
This week we learned what a web quest is and how it can be used in the classroom. The web quest assignments seem interesting to me. I remembered doing them in high school and wondered how it could be used with Elementary students. I realized quickly that Elementary students would probably find it more useful and fun than I did in High School. A web quest is a way to research a topic using the internet, it can be very fun and interactive if put together right. We are going to use power point presentations to put our web quests together making it interactive and easy to navigate for our students. It should be fun.
We wrote our outline for our grades in our groups this week. This proved to be a hard thing for my group because we had so many ideas and we wanted to incorporate them all into one web quest for our students but decided it could be too much information. It was good to sit down and write out the outline in a story board form because we would see exactly what would work and what needed to happen to move onto the next tasks.
I would use web quests in my classroom as more of an exciting new game. I plan to teach younger grades and I can really see that age group getting into the web quest like it was a game. I think implementing it as a game or activity would help them really get engaged. It would be a fun, interactive activity to help them learn new subject matter and even navigate through the internet and the slides of the power points. Technology is here and we will need to help our students learn how to use it even at the earliest in Kindergarten.

Surface Computing
I love this! I have been interesting in this sort of technology and totally mystified by it for the last couple of years. You can see the new touch screens on television shows such as NCIS and I truly didn't believe it was possible when I first saw it. I thought that it was a made up, photoshopped device they used for the show. But it is real, Awesome! Can you imagine how innovated this will make our schools? If every class had hands on technology like this, super quick, super techonology, we could teach fast, engaging material! Awesome!

Podcast/Vidcast/Why students should blog

This week we learned how to set up pod cast and vid cast. This is a new element for me because I have only listened and watched these casts. I did not have the slightest clue as to what would be needed to set something like this up or have any kind of technology to produce it. I soon learned that there are a couple of technological tools I have used to help me produce them. I have an IPOD, I sort of know how to put things on it and I also have a basic knowledge of tracking and using garage band. I do not however know how to create a vid cast but I recently bought a camera that implied it would download straight to YouTube. We will see how well that goes.

I think this type of technology is great! I think it really will create an easier, fun way for students to check in with their teachers and the current happenings in the classroom. Not only would the technologies be good for instructions in their class but great for teachers to pass information on to their administration and other teachers in their school about what is going on in their class and instruction on how to do it in another classroom.

I can see myself using these technologies in my classroom for students to reference when at home if they are unsure of what is expected for their assignments or if they were absent that day. I also think I would be a good way for other teachers to reference my lesson and see hands on what is needed to teach to their students. I think it would be a great and easy way to pass information and see or hear exact instruction on information.


Why let our students blog? reflection:
I think the video was great and true. We should allow students to blog because it develops literacy, communication, empowerment, encouragement, reflection, and a basic knowledge of learning and social skills. Students can own something for themselves and share/communicate to others their feeling, thoughts, reflections on school, personal or environmental effects on their world. They also can collaborate with other students to create projects and assignments. It is a good thing as along as you can keep it structure and introduce to students what is appropriate for the internet and what should be kept in their at home journals.

Everything Google (presentation)/ Intro to Web 2.0

Learning about google presentations is quite interesting. It is quite similar to power point but a little easier I would say. I am still trying to figure the jist of it out but I can understand why it would be useful. I think that as a teacher or an administrator it would be a good way to collaborate with other teachers to create a presentation or slide show to post on the website for students and parents to see. It is a fun and entertaining way to pass information on such as the classroom rules or information about recent field trips or events in the classroom.

The introduction to web 2.0 video was interesting. I have to say though when I first saw the video I was amazed at how many of the applications I am currently using. I would like to think of myself as an up to date person on technology but I really just recently started using these applications. Also, most of the applications are similar and I don't know how I got sucked into using all of them, twitter, blogging, face book, my space, websites, web zines etc.. It really does take up a lot of time trying to keep them all updated and reading everyone else's to see what is going on...sometimes I wish I wasn't so interested in all of it. Yet, it is what brings me enjoyment through out the day so I guess it is OK.

Everything Google/ Mr. Duey Video

Everything Google!
What I learned this week is more about google docs. I had a really hard time the first run through this class with google docs. So I decided that I would really get acquanted with the program this time around. I have found it much easier to use, I really like the new "draw" tool they have added. It is so much easier to place and coordinate images into your docs! I think google docs are a great way to work on projects with your team. Especially when everyone is on their own schedules and unable to meet face to face.
Another thing I really have learned to enjoy to use is blogs. Blogs are a great way to get imformation out. I can see myself using blogs to communicate with my students or even as a whole class to communicate to those who want to know what we're up to. It is easy to post pictures and write your message. It is also fun for others to read and view.

Mr. Duey
I love this video not only because it makes me laugh but because it is so informative. The song always gets stuck in my head and it really is fun. I truely believe that you can make learning so much fun by integrating songs and arts into your lessons. Mr. Duey does a great job of making something hard to understand and pretty boring to learn about fun. He teaches you how to do fractions with his fun song. You won't forget it!

My Ideal Classroom

My hope for my ideal classroom is to create a positive learning place for students to be enriched not only in their learning but also in their personal growth as students and human beings. Visually my kindergarten classroom will be filled with bright colors everywhere! It would be divided into different sections, a spot for circle time, reading time and an arts/work area. In circle time, I would have the children meet in front of a bulletin board to discuss, plan and learn comfortably on a soft rug. Reading time would be set apart by small bookshelves filled with fun, adventurous books. There would be pillows and blankets for the children to get comfortable and involved in their reading. The arts/work area would be filled with tables and shelves with art supplies, puzzles, works, and projects. The kids would be surrounded by fun things to do so that they would love to come to arts/work time.
If I could have my say I would ask that class rosters be cut down to eight to ten children. I know that children's learning is enhanced in smaller groups. They can focus better and enrich their learning skills when they aren't over-crowded in the classroom. I also think there is a better teacher/student dynamic when the teacher can spend more one on one time with every student, every day. I would also hope to be able to teach the curriculum the way I would like. I would teach each student based on their ability and also implicated a hands on learning approach. I feel that students at the kindergarten age learn better when they can see, feel and explore rather than just being told how each thing and letter come together.
I also feel it would also be beneficial to have at least one volunteer in each session, to help with the ratios and learning. Another thing that would be great to have is a big enough budget to get all the supplies and materials needed to teach in a Kindergarten classroom. There are a lot of supplies that are needed for my hands on teaching approach and I will need the available budget to get this done.
My goal by the end of the school year will be to have my students enriched with the correct curriculum but also that they will know more than just the curriculum. I hope they will have learned a lot about themselves and the other children, how to get along in society, respect, love, service and honor. I feel that having taught with hands on learning they will know more about the subject curriculum and be able to learn more having more in their schema.