Technology Inventory

For the technology inventory, I interviewed Mrs. Chatterly, a first grade teacher. In her classroom, she has a TV, DVD player, VCR and CD/Casette player. They also have a computer lab that the students go to once a week and there is a laptop the teachers have access to if they want to do power points.

Mrs. Chatterly wishes she had laptops for the students in the classroom so they would be able to play math and reading games on them and also learn keyboarding and write stories.

The last question I asked her dealt with how comfortable she felt with technology and if she would like to learn more and use it in the classroom more often. She responded that she does not feel very comfortable with technology at all. She tried taking a 3 day technology class, but is 56 and says she got lost. She says she would like to take more classes in the future and would like to use more technology in her classroom.

PLE

I thought this blog was a good idea because often I'm sitting in class and something comes up and I think 'I want to remember that,' but I never do write it down or anything, because I know if I do it's just going to get lost anyway. So the PLE was nice to have somewhere to record these things.

The only bad thing is I don't have access to a computer at all times of the day and during all my classes, so I didn't get to use this for other classes. I think in the future I'm just going to take a notebook with me to my classes and use it in place of the PLE.

Internet Watching Assignment

I watched a couple of the Webcast videos and a couple of the Netsmartz videos and all 6 parts of the Frontline PBS reports. I had a difficult time watching these videos, especially the PBS ones because they were real stories. The stories were very disturbing. But I don't think I've ever fully realized the reality of these things before. It's pretty scary. After watching these videos, there is no way we will ever have a computer in a private space. It will be in a high-traffic area. And I definitely want to teach my children the reality of these things.

I remember chatting online a couple of times when I was younger, but I knew that I should never give out any personal information. Still though, it's possible that I could have left enough clues. That scares me. I'm glad I never really got into it.

I watched 60 minutes total.

Internet Reading Assignment

The article I chose to read was "Leave it Alone" by H. Burke Peterson.

I feel like I learned so much from these articles. I honestly didn't think I'd get out of them as much as I did. I think the biggest thing I learned is that pornography isn't the only addictive thing on or about the internet. The internet itself can be addicting, or playing games, etc. So, these are things we need to be careful of as well.

I think when I have my own children before allowing them to just get on the internet and do whatever they want, we'll have a family home evening lesson about internet and internet safety and we'll establish some rules as a family. Also, we'll get some sort of protection against pop-ups and dangerous websites.

I feel like what I have learned can help me to have a positive influence on my family and friends because I know the internet isn't bad. It can do a lot of good, we just have to be smart about it and use good judgement. But it can be used for good!

11-20-08

We did first grade, standard 5. We're using Star Fall.com and we're using the activity "learn to read." The children can use this activity to learn blending, which is a key feature to learning to read.

The next activity is for second grade mathematics. The standard I chose was #1. I wanted to find a way to teach fractions, so I went to mathforum.org/mathtools/. Then under "all courses" I selected Math 2. Then I went to "fraction topics" and to "real life fractions" and then you do the activities and click next to go to the next one!

Early Connections (Nov. 13)

In other classes I have been learning a lot about the importance of the way you set up your classroom in the primary grades. I knew it was useful for emergent literacy, but apparently it's important for technology as well. Some things to take into consideration when setting up your technology equipment would be to put the equipment somewhere the students can easily access it, but it's also good to put it somewhere against a wall so children don't trip over the wires, etc. Also, you want to put it away from the windows to avoid glares, and you want to put it somewhere that students are able to work together, but it needs to be in a place that it won't be too distracting to others in the class.

The article also talked about how using computers and other sources of technology can enhance communication and gives them opportunities to develop their language. The author of this article argues that children should always be able to work collaboratively on computers because this gives them the chance to share their ideas with each other, talk about what they're doing and assist each other.


The laptops were pretty neat. We would be able to use these laptops in the classroom much more easily because this way it would be easier to have one for each child, so you could use it much more often . I was thinking it might be fun to use the chat as a sort of classroom discussion...I'm not sure exactly how this would work but I think it could work for those who finished their assignments early or something. Also, there was internet which has obvious implications for the classroom. These are the two things we spent most of our time exploring.



IDEAS:
Digital Camera:
Take pictures of everything that starts with the letter A
Scavenger Hunt: A sign that has to do with safety, someone you can run to if you're scared and someone is chasing you, or something...

First thing to do when teaching them how to use a digital camera:
where the buttons are they'll need
Then help them make a plan first! This will help them stay focused and on task


How we used the digital camera: Kindergarten content standard 1, objective 1: Identify ways people look different.
We took pictures of different colors of hair. You could also do tall, short, eye color, etc. and each child could take two pictures in groups of say 4.

Google Earth Virtual Tour

I watched Hollie Bieri's and Aleisha Boehm's virtual tours. I thought doing time zones for this project was a creative and fun idea! This would really help kids visualize the difference in the time zones. Aleisha's tour was quite informative and I learned a lot. I especially enjoyed one of the videos she had linked. It was quite dramatic, but it really gave me a feel for just how bad WWII was. This is what I learned!

Google Earth

Well, before today I actually knew nothing about Google Earth, so I was pretty excited! My Mom is a Geography teacher, so I actually called her up and told her about this hoping she might be able to use it in her classroom (she tries to use technology as much as possible because it seems to keep her kids engaged better than other methods she's tried). One thing I was thinking of to use this for though, was teaching habitats to children and where in the world they might find them. I am very interested in habitats and think they are quite fun to learn about, but I think it's difficult for children to get a grasp on them since some habitats are foreign to them and they aren't anything they've had experience with before. So Google Earth could provide a fun, interactive and hands-on approach to finding out more about habitats!

Viewing of 3 other projects

I think what I learned most from watching is that you can really make these videos as good as you want. Just a little creativity goes a long ways! I thought one of the videos went a little long and I didn't think it was quite as creative as some of the others (still enjoyable though!) But some of the videos I really enjoyed watching and it seemed like the people who made them had a lot of fun with them and took the time to make their videos nice! I can definitely see how this could be a great learning tool in the classroom! I plan on teaching younger grades, and I was thinking this might be a fun thing for the younger grades to do as a class and we could possibly make up our own play and take pictures then make a video. Then for third grade, this would make a great book report! Book reports can really be a drag sometimes, but this would definitely be a fun alternative to the regular old book report. (I watched Esther Stewart's, Michelle Carlston's, and Hollie Bieri's).

Alphabet rap!

Here's our video!

Week 5 Reflection

I'm really excited about the digital storytelling assignment. This is definitely something I could see myself using in my classroom, and I think it's a great alternative to the regular old book reports.

Digital Story Telling

Sept. 25

It was quite interesting to view some of the other science activities that were done. One of the other groups I read about actually did the same topic as our group, but did it slightly different, and I thought it was a great idea. We used the digital microscope to view different nonliving and living organsims such as dirt and grass, but they used only leaves and examined dead and live leaves under the microscope. I thought it was interesting how we had taken the same materials and the same standard, yet created completely different lessons!

Science Activity

Welcome to Tech Savvy Teacher! Today we are going to learn about using a digital microscope to get up-close and personal to observe living and non-living characteristics in various things we found right outside! The standard we chose was third grade science, standard two, objective one, letters a and b, which is identifying the characteristics of living and non-living things.
The first thing to do with the students is to introduce them to the characteristics of living and non-living things, and help them become familiar with these characteristics. Characteristics of living things might include: breathing, ability to reproduce, movement, growth, etc. Non-living characteristics might include things such as: stationary, non-breathing, not able to reproduce, etc. To introduce this topic, you might first begin a discussion and have a worksheet with a column for living things next to a column for non-living things where they could write down some of the characteristics of living and non-living in these columns. Underneath these columns, you could have a column for examples of things that are living and some of their characteristics. The students could fill this column out while you project magnified living organisms, such as grass. With the grass projected, you could talk about some of its characteristics, such as its roots and talk about how this is how it gets its nutrients. After this, you could send the children out on their own to find non-living things, which they could bring in the class. You could go around the class and discuss a few of the items, while projecting them and talking about their characteristics.
Using the digital microscope, the teacher is better able to project the small item she is talking about, and the students have an opportunity to develop their skills in observation.

9-20

In class this week we discovered a lot of different kinds of technology you can use in your classroom, such as a program on astrology. This was my favorite one.

9-11

Today I learned about the Good books website.  That was a lot of fun.  I sent an e-mail out to a few friends and family members when I signed up, and I found out that my sister-in-law is already signed up for it, and she'd like to do something like this with the whole family!  I'm excited.

Hello

Hi,

My name is Heidi.  I'm taking a technology class, so I created this blog for the class.