Prompt #5

Prompt#5: Discuss what role you believe technology will play in shaping the classroom of tomorrow, and describe how you will keep your technology knowledge base and skill set up to date as a classroom teacher.

I think technology will play a major role in shaping the classroom of tomorrow. Digital textbooks are starting to become popular already and I feel that in the future schools will move from paper textbooks to online textbooks. I am sure that when I am a teacher I will have to go to different workshops and conferences to keep my skills up to date and to learn how to use the best pract for technology. Right now I am in a classroom that frequently uses a smartboard and it has been a huge learning experience for me because I have never used one before. I am starting to create my lessons for novice on a smartboard and during my teachers plan period I practice giving my lesson while having students interact with the smartboard. I am open to learning different types of technology and programs in my lessons because I think that they will help keep my students engaged.

Prompt #4

Prompt #4: Review the ISTE Standards for Teachers and discuss how you plan to integrate technology in your classroom in order to enhance the teaching and learning process and achieve the five educational standards identified by ISTE for teachers.

I plan to use technology in my classroom when students are researching information. I also plan on using technology when I am teaching my students new information whether it be history, spelling, math, or science. I think it is important to use technology during math because then you are not just doing math problems on the board. Using technology for math forces you to do something different that the normal instruction out of a math book. The computer has different sources that can make things easier for children to understand. An example of this is atoms because there are so many websites that have models of atoms that break it down and make ite easier for student's to learn. I think technology will help with promoting citizenship and responsibility because you can easily find different resources to show students how other people live. There are also many different ways you can use digital tools to assess students while having students assess themselves. Having check points on power points would help students manage where they are supposed to be at and seeing if they comprehend the information.

Prompt #3

Prompt #3- Review the ISTE Standards for Students and describe how you can apply the current use/role techonolgy plays in the day-to-day life of students (to include social networking) in your classroom to help achieve the six educational standards identified by ISTE for students.

Giving the students different options on how to do projects or presentations will help the students achieve some of the standards of ISTE. If students are not limited to using just power point or just microsoft word it is allowing them to think outside of the box and helps them problem solve which are two standards of the ISTE. When I am a teacher I hope that I will have a smartboard in my classroom because then I feel like I can have interactive and engaging lectures. I do not want to limit technology in just my lectures but I would use it to do presentations like webquests infront of the whole class and all the students would be able to see what was going on. I think that computers and smartboards when used the correct way and not over used are great tools that engage kids in learning. Student's get excited and want to go up to the smartboards and draw on them or high light things. I am not really sure how I would include social networking in my classroom. I know that when I am a teacher I will use blogger.com for students because I like that you can follow your other classmates posts.

Prompt #2

Prompt#2- Identify how technology has been used in classes you have taken as a student, at all levels from elementary through college- providing examples of efficacious and inefficacious use of technology.

When I was a student in elementary and middle school technology really was not used that often. We would have to take acclerated reading tests on them but other than that the teachers did not really use them a lot in the classroom for instruction. It was not until highschool that teachers were really using computers. I used the computer for an advanced reading class that had a program that the teacher would use that took you through different stages to help you learn better ways to read faster, which was helpful. Power points were also being used for lectures that teachers were giving. This was both a good and bad thing because it would be easier to take notes, but other times teachers would read directly word for word off of the power point. I think it made class a lot more boring because the teachers would do that and not use any other way of instruction in their classes. In college a lot of teachers only lecture using power points and it is hard for students to learn because it is so monotonous and you have listen to it for the whole class period. When we had to create a webquest in ETE 353 I thought this was a very good way of using technology because there are so many different things that you could include to have students do rather than just having them read notes off of a power point.

Prompt #1

Prompt #1: Discuss the role technology has played in each of the following periods of your life: as an elementary student, in middle/school/high school, and in your adult life.

In elementary school we had computer lab class once a week. In this class I learned how to type and use different Microsoft Word programs. When I first started typing I did not like it because they would put a box over our hands so we would not look down at the keys. I would rarely use my computer to complete my homework in elementary school. There were a lot of math and reading programs and games that I played on the computer during elementary school. An example of this was Math Blaster, I used this program to practice my addition and subtraction skills and had fun while doing it!

Middle school is when I really started using technology. In 7th and 8th grade I was enrolled with a technology class with the media teacher. I loved this class because we learned to use a videocameras, microphones, teleprompters, green screens, and different audio visual equipment to put on the morning announcements. It was a lot of fun learning how to use this equipment because we were allowed to use it for projects that we were doing in other classes. I used a computer for most of my homework and papers. I knew how to use powerpoint but we did not really have a lot of projects where we needed to use computers to present. During this time I learned how to use Microsoft Excel. Sometimes I would go to work with my mom and she would have me put numbers in to Excel and do different types of spread sheets for her.

In highschool I used the computer a lot for homework, presentations, and to look up information. I also used the computer for networking which is something I never did before.

As an adult I use the computer to research things, to keep track of my banking, and for all of my classes. Last year a girl spilled water on my computer and I was without it for a month. This month was extremely hard because for me to access a computer I would have to go to the library. I watch tv on my computer and check my mail constantly and this incident really made me realize how dependent I am on technology.

When I am a teacher I am going to use technology in my classroom because I think that it helps get students engaged. When I was in elementary school computers were not as popular as they are today and teachers were still using them in their classrooms for different activities and projects. I think that the internet is a very useful tool to have which is why I am going to incorporate it into my lesson plans.

Journal Article- May

This journal article was about fractions in a fifth grade classroom. It talked a lot about math specialists and how they are working hard with teachers, students, and administrators about math curriculum. The teacher was teaching her students about how parts of a fraction are equal sizes using pattern blocks and multilink cubes. It is called the funky cookie activity because it uses all the shapes to represent a whole. The students would separate the multilinks into groups to see the relationship parts of a fraction to the whole part of an object. After doing this activity the students understood that all of the parts were equal. The specialists work very hard to cooperate with the teachers to give them the best activities for students to be particpating in.

I thought that this was a very interesting article about how teachers work with specialists. When reading I expected that there would be more information about the students and the activity. The article went into a lot of detail about the specialists and how they are creating different lessons and activities for teachers that they work with to give to students. It was interesting learning about this because when I am a teacher I would like to work with a math specialist in my classroom. I am not very strong in math and I think that having a specialist would really benefit me when I am teaching math. Overall, I thought that this was a very informative article and I learned a lot about how to teach fractions.

Ellington, A., & Whitenack, J. (2010). Fractions and the funky cookie. Teaching Children Mathematics. 16 (9), 532.

Manipulative Blog

1. How do you hold all children accountable when you're using manipulatives for an activity?

All children can be hold accountable by giving them their own manipulatives to have in front of them. When children need to get manipulatives you can have them come up to the class by groups or seating and have students take all of the manipulatives for their group. At the end of the activity you can have students put away their manipulatives. If students have their own manipulatives and the teacher tells them to put away their manipulative they have the responsibility of putting their manipulative away. By having this procedure and expectations in the classroom the teacher is holding all students accountable.

2. Why do people say not hands on they now say hands on minds on?

I think that people have changed the saying because before when they would say hands on students would just be playing with the manipulatives. It is important that students have their minds on so that they are understanding the concepts that the teacher is trying to get across. In order for teachers to do this I think they should allow the students some times to get used to the manipulatives before they start teaching because if you do not let the students play around with the manipulatives, the whole time you are trying to teach the students will be playing with them and not listening to the points you are trying to make.

3. How do process standards fit with the manipulatives?

The manipulatives connect with all of the process standards. They stand for representation because each manipulative is representing some kind of concept. When students use manipulatives they are using communication whether it is with other students or the teacher. It does not have to even be verbal they might be writing something about a manipulative. Students are consistently making connections when using manipulatives, they might be learning new concepts and connecting it to prior knowledge. Teachers can also use manipulatives to reason and proof. The manipulatives could be used to prove a theory or new concept that a teacher is teaching in class. The manipulatives also could be used to problem solve. An example of this is that chippies could be used to represent an equation and they have to solve the problem using the chippies.