Week 13 :) One moreeee!!

Field Experience:

This past week it was my last time being with my first graders in my host classroom. It was really sad because I have grown to become attached to these students. This particular week we didn't use any type of technology but I know down the road when they will continue to incorporate the technology into their learning.

Technical Skills:

A recently purchased a Macbook and I am getting used to the Apple product because I was so used to the PC's. I am grateful to be in this Edu315 class because we have learned so much new information on technology. I have a basic understanding of the mac computers now and hope to explore the other wonders of this great product soon!

Weekly Reading:

The reading that I recently used this week came from eschoolnews. It was about empowering education with video technologies. Many schools are using websites and videos to inform the parents/guardians of what their child is learning. It also lets them know what is happening in the school up to date. Sometimes parents/guardians are unaware of special events because the children either forget to or choose not to tell their parents. It is empowering because the usage of video is common especially with students playing video games so much and watching television, they have adapted to the usage of videos.

Week 12 - Almost done

Field Experience

During my field experience this week I got to see the children do their morning greeting as a whole school in the gymnasium. They had a power point for the whole school to see the news and announcements of the day. They showed whose birthday it was that day. The birthday students were allowed to go up and say a few words on the microphone. The power point also showed the words to the pledge of allegiance in case some children may have forgotten it. I think it is done every day of the school year so that it a key reminder of using technology each and every day with such a basic task.

Technical Skills

A technical skill that I learned about was a website that helps math teachers with different activities and games for students to use. The website is http://nlvm.usu.edu/

It is a great site for children of all ages to learn about the various mathematical topics. I would definitely use a site like this to help me better understand material but also to incorporate this mathematical technology to my future students. I would recommend it to parents as well so they can play and practice around this site with children as an extra activity at home.

Weekly Reading

In our Edu 373 class we read a book called An Ethic of Excellence by Ron Berger. He isn’t the prototypical teacher that believes in testing. He uses portfolios to view the progress of students. Throughout the book he never mentioned himself using technology which I found to be extremely weird because he is viewed as one of the most remarkable teachers in America today. I thought possibly he just didn’t fit that into the book because he bases his experience mainly on classroom management rather than specific topics. If I had to bet I would guess that once in a while he does incorporate technology into his classroom. This book is great I learned a lot about teaching and the positive and negatives of going into the teaching field. It is a job that won’t pay a lot of money but the reward for this job is like no other. It is something you cannot physically measure, but something that you can measure inside your heart.