304 Blogs

After teaching my technology lesson, I had the chance to observe a friend teach hers in a 5th grade classroom that opened my eyes to a deeper perspective of teaching with technology. Her lesson was phenomenal! She had the students using the school laptops to learn longitude and latitude by tracking hurricanes. I was extremely impressed with the entire thing. What I was most impressed with was how she handled everything. She did a wonderful job teaching the lesson. The students obviously had experience with computers, but the novelty of having laptops created a surge of excitement, along with some rather uncooperative and disruptive behavior. What did not help was the fact that her cooperating teacher skipped out on the whole thing, and was not there to help. I marveled at how she remained composed and kept going, despite the students' behavior and even through technological glitches. What I learned is that technology can be a wonderful tool for education, but the students have to be taught how to use it before expecting them to use it to learn any content. I now understand how necessary it is to also have the proper support in the classroom to monitor and facilitate learning with technology. It can be a powerful and effective tool, but only when these things are in place.

Today I was walking down the hall with my cooperating teacher when we ran into one of her former students. Haze, who is now in the third grade, had been in my teacher's first grade class two years ago. She ran up, said hello, and gave her a hug. My teacher had to set something down on the table in a nearby classroom, and while she was gone from the hall for just those few seconds, Haze turned to me (a complete stranger to her) and gave me the biggest hug I've ever recevied from a child. She was very friendly and had no hesitation in talking with me. She wore a constant smile and her eyes sparkled. She had a cute, fuzzy, white hat on, which almost completely hid the fact that she has no hair. Haze has cancer. And yet she is happy and radiates a rare and true joy to everyone in her midst, inspite of her suffering and the struggle of fighting for her life. My teacher shared a little bit about her, especially how much of a "trooper" she is and how she never complains. How could a third-grader experience such painful and disheartening circumstances and still be overflowing with love to share with others around her? Somehow my own struggles and challenges now seem so trivial. I'm ashamed to think I complained about the paper I have to write, or the parking space I couldn't find. Today I was amazed and deeply touched by a young girl who values what matters most- and who has the wisdom and courage to share it, even with a stranger, through a simple hello and generous hug. She is a great deal wiser then so many beyond her age, and I am thankful to her for reminding me of what is important in life, how we really should live, and how much of a gift each day truly is.

When December 1st rolled around you could see it in the classroom...it is the holiday season. And with the holiday season brings the end of the semester. I now have two semesters of my "Teaching with Technology" class under my belt and looking back (to do a little reflecting, as we as preservice teachers often do) I have learned so much from this whole experience.

I have seen, learned about, and created things that have brought ideas to life using technology that before could only be found in textbooks. It is amazing the resources that we, as teachers, have at our finger tips because of the internet. We are able to see all that others are doing, share ideas, which is becoming even more important in a world governed by standards that decide our worth, we need to be able to help one another! This semster alone I was introduced to the world of webquest, sites such as Elluminate (which is amazing by the way!), and most impressively the K-12 Online Conference. And although I could not particpate while the conference was ongoing, all the materials are still there avaliable for me to look at. I particularly find the work of John Pearce who comments on blogs and other web related activities for students, particularly his third graders. Which was interesting because I am placed in a third grade classroom and have some of those same concerns. I loved the way the students could rate how much they liked or disliked the bloging and other activities because I am always worried about how the student feels.

I have enjoyed these past two semesters, my eyes have been opened to a new world. I hope that I continue to look toward the world of technology and blogging especially in my own classroom. In a few months I will be a full time student teacher, it's a scary thought, but a good one at that because hopefully I can continue to use more technology in my classroom to create a unique learning environment that can fit all of my students! (reaching all learning types is one of the ways I have seen technology used most effectively) I just can't wait!

Right before the Thanksgiving break, I taught my technology lesson for my Implementation Project. I was really excited about this one because I knew it would be fun! I worked with my classmate, Emily, in developing the lesson, under the guidance of our cooperating teachers. The actual planning of the lesson proved to be somewhat difficult at first. After developing our first lesson, we quickly realized we had grossly overestimated the computer skills of most first-graders. Because I haven't had much experience teaching with technology (and unfortunately don't see it too often in the classrooms), I really didn't know what the students were capable of. Our cooperating teachers, as well as the computer teacher, advised us and really helped us develop a lesson that would both meet objectives of the curriculum and engage the students at an independent level.

We found a book called, "A Plump and Perky Turkey" by Teresa Bateman, and used it for the literature portion of the lesson. Our cooperating teachers had previously taught a unit on the different components of a story (i.e.- characters, setting, etc.), so this served as a review for them. They had not yet learned about the plot, or sequence of important events of a story, so this was the primary focus of our lesson. We developed a Kidspiration activity that would assess the students' comprehension of the material taught and which involved the students classifying the characters, different settings of the story, and the sequence of important events into their respective categories from a picture bank. This matched several first grade Technology and Language Arts standards (according to Virginia's Standards of Learning).

Overall, I think the lesson went very well! The students loved the story (as did their teachers!), and they seemed to grasp the concepts we taught. Some students had difficulty putting the events of the plot in order, but this was their first experience in doing anything like this. Most of them caught on quickly. What made me smile was how excited they were to be going to the computer lab for a language arts lesson!

This experience taught me that technology can be easily incorporated into "regular", conventional subjects. Before having this experience of planning a lesson with technology and actually teaching it, I thought using technology was a wonderful way of making lessons more interesting and I wanted to use it, but I sort of assumed that it would require a tremendous deal of effort and could only be applied to limited topics or subjects that catered to creativity and ingenuity. While some pieces of this may be true to a degree, I now truly see how technology can facilitate the learning of a concept even better than more conventional methods for a subject. Something as "normal" as a story in language arts can use technology and it didn't require a "computer geek" or "Teacher of the Year" to come up with it! I've been encouraged, and eagerly look forward to future opportunities to use technology in the classroom!

For my Social Studies Curriculum class, we were assigned to visit a museum and plan a lesson surrounding the student's visit. My third grade class goes to the Mariner's Museum (Newport News, VA) every spring, therefore I thought that I would visit this museum in preperation for my student teaching. -- one lesson plan down, many many more to go.

As I arrived at the museum, which was recently rennovated and absolutely beautiful, I was not sure what to expect inside. Of course I had gone online and did basic research on what I could find there. I knew the museum has various different exhibits all documenting maritime history, but I really had no idea what to expect.

I knew that I wanted my students to participate in the Age of Explorers docent-lead tour, but I needed more information on what the students would be learning in order plan my lesson. When I came up to the counter, two wonderful employees quickly came to my assistance. Each employee was also a teacher and worked at the museum on the weekend as a side job. They knew exactly what I needed and were very helpful. However they could tell me all about the museum but little about the tours offered. The education department was not avaliable on the weekends, but still I was led on a private tour of what my students would be seeing and other interesting parts of the museum. I left feeling very excited for my next visit, yet I still did not know too much about the program I was about to commit to.

I again looked online and this time I took my time to navigate through the website. It was AMAZING all of the information I found. The website is actually a huge resource of information on maritime history. It has many articles from its 1,750,000 item library avaliable online. I was able to find the entire curriculum that would be covered in the Age of Exploration tour. But most importantly I found activities and lesson plans that the museum recommends for students before or after their visits. The lessons could be used for almost any aged students and most were legitimate, but just needed to be personalized. It was great!

I think that it is great that a museum is catering to a larger audience (the student, teacher, and parent) by provided such a wealth of information online. In an age when time is so precious it was great to see so much information on the programs avaliable from anywhere with internet access. It also allowed those who are not able to travel to the Mariner's Museum to retrieve much of the information one would recieve from a tour-pictures, movies, and articles are avaliable. Maybe I am just behind the times, but I was and still am very impressed with how much we are able to learn through the internet, no longer do we have to travel to museums to learn the information, although I am still a full believer that nothing can be better than the in-person visit, but this allows those who can't to be that much closer!

K-12 Online Conferencing: Personal Professional Development
"Toward a System of Online Curriculum Development"

"Teachers are busy people," a quote from Robert Lucas and Kevin Driscal's podcast. The podcast I listened to basically summed up the generalization I have learned in my second semester of the School of Education. Even though I do not spend all my time in the classroom yet, I have already spent many hours planning lessons and preparing materials for my fifth grade class. Robert and Kevin's approach to sharing lessons online may become my new best friend as I transition to student teaching in the spring.

I also liked the quote that "it takes longer to find a quality lesson online than to plan one yourself." I couldn't agree more. I know I have it better than the teachers of the past because of my access to Google and all the education websites geared to help teachers. However, it is difficult to filter through what lessons are applicable in the classroom and which are less useful.

Giving teachers the opportunity to collaborate with a creative common license really captures the essence of what teaching is all about. Sharing ideas, tweaking them to your preference, and becoming reflective practicioners are key to creating good teachers. In the world of education, teaching is not a competition; it is a combined effort to prepare the youth of our society for the real world. Teachers main objective is to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to accomplish their goals and dreams, and teacher collaboration facilitates this unifed goal.

I plan to visit this site in the future and bookmark it as I prepare for the many upcoming lessons that I must plan and teach. Robert Lucas and Kevin Driscal have created an innovative approach to teaching that will help make the lives of teachers better throughout the world!

This past Saturday, I was skimming through "People" while working out. I noticed an article about something called "School on Wheels" and decided to see what it was all about. The article described a school for homeless children, founded by Agnes Stevens.

When I searched for more information on Agnes Stevens, a newsclip came up on YouTube.


This videoclip gave more information about her program and interviewed a few of the children that had been helped by her program. I'm in awe of this undertaking. I've seen the challenge teaching brings when in a structured classroom. Knowing that, I'm extremely impressed by the volunteers who run this program. It's wonderful to know that there are programs like this out there for students who easily "fall through the cracks" in public schools. Hopefully this is a program that will grow enough to branch out into other cities.

I was reading an article about a new teacher changing her classroom rules midway through the semester. She gave several reasons for the changes, and most of them were not as a direct result of what she had done. The main reason behind the changes included communication, the principal did not clearly share with her what classroom management support system the school had, then when she did learn what the school has the principal failed to include the fact that level of intervention was restricted to the principal or vice-principal.

This is a wonderful lesson for a new teacher, I will know to ask those questions of my first principal, I think Kunai-gurl was correct in a classroom management model must be adjusted to the students you are teaching, but I think there must also be a level of consistency. The principal could be more consistent in sharing the school’s policies with a new teacher, and the new teacher must be consistent in how she provided management rules in their classroom. I spent many years as a basketball official, and game management was always a significant issue, the players did not seem to mind a foul called on them as long as the same foul was called for the same infraction by the other team. All the problems for officials happen when a foul on one team is not a foul on the other for the same infraction. As I move from being a pre-service teacher to a full time one, I hope I can continue the consistency I have learned and bring it into my classroom.

I was reading articles on standardized tests, and I found this one on NCLB, as a football fan, and a pre-service teacher, I just had to add it to my Blog. Thanks to Liz Ditz for sharing it.

Did you see NCLB–The Football Version?

Author Unknown

l. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don’t like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.

I was reading Anne Davis’ article on High-stakes testing is one of our biggest obstacles to overcome!. I must say as a pre-service teacher I am concerned about the emphasis states are placing on test scores and not on the true quality of education, to evaluate a teacher on the test results of students is judging someone on a very small fraction of what they actually do. I think, in many cases, the willingness of courts to accept the opinion of a vocal misinformed parent over those of professional educators is a major part of the problem. I also think elected legislators who look at schools as cost centers, and not as necessary investments in the future of this country are also part of the big picture problem. What I have observed during my practicum is teachers are so much more than just educators. They are councilors, advisors, nurses, waiters, janitors, and almost any other job you can think of. I am looking forward to being all of these. The issue of standard tests being the only measure of the quality of education is one that must be addressed soon, the repercussions of failing to address the issue could potentially drive many great professionals out of teaching. What is a solution to the test issue? Is there a solution to this issue? These are questions out elected officials at the state level must answer.

I find it very interesting as to how teachers talk about what classrooms will look-like in the 21st century. I was in school in the sixties and early seventies, and the difference between what was available then, and what is available now we all know about; we can track the changes between before home computers and after home computers. I was reading Jeanne Simpson's article on I want to be part of a 21st century school (http://mathmusings.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-want-to-be-part-of-21st-century.html.) I found it interesting because with technology advancing in leaps and bounds I wonder if we really know what a classroom will look like in 20 or 30 years. We are just beginning to touch what technology can do right now as schools ride the technology wave, where will they end up? Can we use science fiction to help us predict what may change? With computers becoming more prevalent, will textbooks become obsolete and just, as laptops are a requirement here will there be a laptop on every desk in a first grade class? Will holographic images of a historic site replace a field trip? Will keyboarding replace handwriting? What skills will be lost as technology advances? With all these unanswered questions, I am looking forward to becoming a full time professional teacher and teaching in a 21st century classroom.

On my "Proofreading with Podcasts" blog, I noticed that the link was not right. It should work now.

Implementation Project

Today I conducted my implementation project with my fifth grade students for my teaching with technology course. My lesson was designed to revisit concepts of absolute location using longitude and latitude. I used Hurricane Katrina data for my students to plot coordinates on a PowerPoint template I created.

I can begin by saying that my directions were clear and the lesson started out great! I reviewed concepts of longitude and latitude, and I even made my students perform a longitude and latitude dance to help them remember the direction of the lines. The students were engaged and excited. I had strategically planned partners for the students to minimize problems in the classroom, and I even had a few colleagues observe and help with my lesson.

Using the laptops was exciting for students, and they enthusiastically tackled the task. However, nothing can prepare a student teacher for the laptops that shut down in the lesson, the students who won't share the computers, and the overwhelming noise of the classroom. I am still an advocate for technology in the classroom, but I feel that individual use of technology must begin only when clear behavioral control have been established and asserted by the teacher in charge. I did everything I could to constantly redirect student attention to me, but the laptops were very distracting for the students.

Even though the lesson did not produce beautiful products for me to present, I can without a doubt, say that students were "learning." The most successful aspect of my unit was the review of longitude and latitude before the plotting of data points. One of my colleagues told me that she saw one of the students doing the longitude and latitude dance quietly to himself during the lesson, to help remind him the distinction between both lines. And, although technical difficulties impeded the progress, I saw engaged students who were working collaboratively.

My perfectionist tendencies will continue to be my best and worst enemy, especially as I prepare for next semester. It's disappointing when I teach a lesson that doesn't meet my expectations, but our mistakes and imperfections can provide a valuable learning experience for the future. I now know my students respond positively to technology, but I have to establish behavioral control in the classroom before I can implement some of the activities I have in store.

A few weeks ago in my Social Studies Seminar my professor praised Google Earth. Directly after class I downloaded it on my computer and was intrigued. I immediately looked up my house, the college, all the places I have stayed on vacation, my friends' homes, and gosh everything even our elementary school! Lets just say I played and I loved it! I decided to use Google Earth in a unit lesson on Greece and Rome, I thought it would be a great way to show relative location by first looking at our school, then Greece and the following day of study Rome. My professor loved my lesson and I can't wait to implement it in the schools.

Earlier this evening I was just browsing other blogs and came across Rob Lucas' blog which questioned the effectiveness of programs like Google Earth. I had similar thoughts when I first looked at it in class, like how effective would it be in the classroom? would students really understand what it was showing? but then after I found myself completely intrigued for more than an hour I knew it would be "cool" and I think that student's could learn not only relative geography but students can even see the topography of areas, and understand the natural resources surrounding the studied location. (like rivers-water, forests-lumber, etc) I'm glad that someone else sees how Google Earth stands out above others as a interesting and possibly great learning tool in the classroom!

So I last wrote about my upcoming Webquest on Explorers....and I know that I expressed my worries about how my students would respond. Well, it turns out that my Webquest was definitely a learning experience.

My students had just finished 2 hours of county-wide testing and I was hoping that the Explorer's Webquest would be a great "fun" activity after sitting for such a long time. But...what I didn't consider was their behavior after sitting straight for 2 hours, lets just say it was just plain awful! Luckily we were able to do our lesson in the computer lab itself other wise I think laptops in the classroom would have been more chaotic. Although behavior was not great and my lesson did not achieve as much as I wanted I thought it was a great inquiry based learning activity that allowed my third graders to work in cooperative groups, which sadly because of standardized testing does not happen much. I hope that this will remind me how much the students' enjoyed working together! It was a "learning experience" at best and challenged my authority and teaching ability for that matter, but I know that using technology in a new manner really did make the student's excited about the material. And that is enough for me to keep trying!

I came across Chris Craft's blog today and hope that you all will take a moment to look at what he is doing with his students. In short, his class in South Carolina is communicating with a class of students in Lima, Peru via Skype. This sounds like such an excellent way to help students communicate with students in other parts of the world and learn about other cultures, traditions, etc. I would love to do something like this with my students next semester when I am a full-time student teacher. Anyway, with my 25 page paper looming over my head, I do not have time at the moment to write more, but I encourage you all to check out Chris' blog.

Also, if you are unfamiliar with Skype, take a look at it. I became addicted to it when I was studying abroad last year. It's such a great way to communicate with people all over the world for free or at really low cost. The quality is just as good as a landline and all you need is a microphone and headset.

I recently read a blog about the importance of others commenting and reading the material we blog about (click here). Although I couldn't agree more about the importance of feedback, I also wonder about students who are not comfortable sharing their work. This blog mentioned that the teacher is often the only person reading elementary school students' journals. When I was a kid, I personally liked the fact that my teacher was the only person reading my work.

In contrast, blogging allows students to read each other's work and receive valuable comments. While this is extremely important, I wonder about the students who might not want what they write to be publicized. Journaling may be a personal time for students to reflect and share thoughts they may otherwise not want to. While I love the idea of sharing and agree that it spreads new ideas, how do we accomodate those students who prefer to keep their writing to themselves? Yes, these students should learn how to share some of their work, but respecting their privacy is also important. I am particularly concerned about one of my students who is already having many self-esteem issues and family problems, who I think would be much more likely to share his feelings in a personal journal, as opposed to a public blog. Should we give students the opportunity to do both personal journals in class, as well as blog? If so, would doing both take up too much time?

One of our assignments throughout the semester has been to maintain a blog about our pre-service teaching experiences. Prof. Nussbaum-Beach has also encouraged us to get our students blogging. Thus far, I have been somewhat skeptical on the idea, as it seems logistically challenging to implement. However, the more I maintain my own blog, the more benefits I come across to blogging. The main aspect of blogging that I find increasingly exciting is receiving comments from other educators across the nation. Although this has not happened very often, the times that it has happened has motivated me to write again. Furthermore, other educators' comments have led me to new ideas.

With that said, I think the excitement I receive from other educators' feedback, could also be very motivating for students. Initially, I thought that students may not care who is reading their blog. However, I find myself checking my blog just to see if I received comments. I can only imagine that elementary-aged students would be ten times more excited to receive comments!

Unfortunately, my cooperating teacher did not seem very keen on the idea of blogging with our third graders. However, perhaps I can warm her up to the idea by providing her with student examples of blogging...

Just this year, my university did away with its language learning lab (where TVs, computers, tape and CD players were housed). In part, the deletion was because they needed more offices. But more symbolically, the deletion was representative of the realization that such a “center” for technology is a concept that is no longer functional. With the initiative started with the class of 2009 that every student have a laptop upon entering, it seems that my university is shifting its conceptual framework of technology. Technology, rather than being a tool that we sometimes use, is now something that is fully integrated into the university experience. And not just with email or AIM—but the underlying expectation of eliminating the language lab is that students and professors will interact with technology inside and outside of the classroom, regularly. And I think too that this shift allows more freedom from the often rigid academic point-of-view—no longer are specially-created materials the only valid resources that we should look towards. Because in eliminating access to the lab, and all of the special software that was available there, it seems to me that it was more of a green-light to use any material that you can find a way to bring to the classroom. In the absence of those already-prepared materials, professors and TAs such as myself are forced to look for other resources to help us teach foreign language—resources that, shockingly, might be better and more interesting that what we were using. The best thing about all the stuff on the web is that it provides authentic and varied learning opportunities for foreign language learners. More than just an encounter with the spoken and written language, material on the web provides a better and more authentic cultural slice than any other resource.

The wealth of textbook-like information could really replace a textbook. About.com’s site on French language offers excellent explanations, whereas the textbook explanation is often too complicated and unclear. It’s helpful to have the resource to offer students several different explanations of a concept until they find one that makes the most sense.

Students can investigate French towns and cities by exploring the websites of the tourism offices and playing with interactive maps. Often there are also videos and recordings, which allow students to hear spoken French in an authentic context.

Surprisingly, YouTube is also a decent resource—a search of “Bob l’Eponge” reveals a couple of Sponge Bob episodes in French. Having students watch an episode and complete a viewing guide would help with comprehension, and might also be good for an extra-credit assignment. And while the dialogue is very fast in the episodes, the characters are such that they repeat the same words and phrases over and over. Students (college students!) were also, in general, enthusiastic about watching Sponge Bob in French.

My favorite website for French is the Easy French Podcast (www.podcastfrancaisfacile.com). The author picks topics related to culture, grammar, or even vocabulary that are germane to beginning French students. On the website, one can access all of this podcasts which are sorted by topic. Both the audio and written text is available. In the audio text, the author (a native French speaker) reads the passage twice, first slowly, and second at normal speed. It helps students to practice their comprehension while also hearing the rapidity of standard French. In class, they would be great as dictations (a favorite exercise of French teachers everywhere). In my class, we used one passage on food to talk about the differences between American and French meals. As we were listening, we also completed a fill-in-the-blank of vocabulary words and the partitive. Students practiced their listening and also had to apply some grammar and spelling skills. More than any textbook exercise, such a lesson allows students to see the grammar rules as they function in actual French.

Science experiments + Blogging = Formula for Success

I stumbled across a blog the other day by Joseph Hartman about a neat science experiment that uses a blog to record student progress. Unfortunately I couldn't comment on his blog because it's restricted to team members, but I still thought it was worthwhile to share his work.

The assignment invovled students picking a experiment topic and then blogging daily to record progress and observations. So often as teachers we want to create and plan elaborate projects for our students, but we have a difficult time checking student progress and ensuring that they are not throwing the project together at last minute. If students had the opportunity and obligation to blog about their science experiment, they would be excited to see their progress and that of their classmates. I think Hartman really captured the essenence of using a blog when he wrote: "The unique properties of blogs is thus taken advantage of by allowing the outside world to see exactly what steps each student has taken in their experiment recreation (not to mention the students themselves having access to this information) which enables the audience to then judge the validity of the recreation almost immediately after each step has been taken (rather than after the entire experiment has been concluded)."

I also think this would be a neat addition to a science fair. Students could read up on their classmates blogs before attending the fair, and maybe even be required to prepare a few questions for certain students about their project.

Next semester when I teach a unit about the scientific method, my students are responsible for creating their own experiment. Maybe I will incorporate the blogging component to my project!