My idea for today

To have the French teacher say simple commands such as: please, thank you, you're welcom, sit down, be quiet, etc. To teach to my non french learning students so that they feel apart of the French imerssion aspect in our school.

Reflections Chapter 7 Blue Book

Chapter 7

            This chapter talks a lot about sharing and working with your colleagues. Being able to get along and learn about technology from your teammates. Using your more technological teammates as an advantage for you to learn the technology and apply it to class.

            I have gone through both the advantage of your teammates knowing technology and the disadvantages of your teammates not knowing technology. It is kind of frustrating when your teammates don’t want to learn technology at all. They have dug their feet in and just given up. This is so frustrating to me because to me in todays world you have to have a basic knowledge of technology. Some advantages to are that some of my teammates know different software that they can help me learn and vice versa. It really is a team effort when we are all sharing ideas with each other. I use class dojo in my class to keep my students on task and it works great. When they hear the buzz they know they need to check what they are doing. When they hear the ding they know they are closer to getting a warm fuzzy.

Reflections Chapter 5 Blue Book

Chapter 5

            In this chapter there were two main themes. The first part of the chapter talks about how willing children are to help one another . They are quick learners and are able to help their peers learn new software. The second part talks about how children help their family members and older people in society to learn how to use the technology.

            When I go to computer lab with my class I use the buddy system. If I am helping a student and I know some of my students know how to log on or find what they are looking for I will ask them to help their neighbors. It is definitely a team effort. I actually enjoy the fact that some of my students know how to use technology. If I don’t know how something works every now and again someone does and can show me. This doesn’t happen often, but on certain websites, such as starfall, my students have shown me different games you can do when I only knew about the one.

Reflections Chapter 4 Blue Book

Chapter 4

            Four starts off talking about all the concerns and complications that come with using technology in the classroom. It discusses everything that is frustrating about it. Then it talks about how the teachers adopted new technology and were able to problem solve for themselves. It helped teachers to keep children from cheating or illegally downloading material and learning to trouble shoot their technical problems. Lastly, the chapter goes over how teachers have adapted or embraced it and used it to their advantage in the classroom such as IEPs, grades, and spreadsheets.

            Teaching a younger grade I can totally relate to all the frustrations at the beginning of the chapter. When my students started school they didn’t know how to turn a computer on or off. They can barely type in their names and passcodes. This is truly frustrating because a helper or I have to go around and help them type in their usernames and passwords. Then when you are done helping with that you have to show them how to double click on the Internet icon to get to the educational games. It is one of the most frustrating forty-five minutes of my week. I don’t really have to deal with my students cheating or illegally downloading anything. They are too young to understand any of that. The computer does become a distraction in my class when one child is on it working .The others want to hoover around them and watch. For example, one of my students is ELL so the ELL teacher wants her to work on a special computer program for a certain amount of time a day. When she does this the other students think it is unfair she gets to play on the computer everyday and they don’t. They then all stand behind her and try to watch. This becomes extremely annoying when you are trying to get the rest of your class to do their work. If they were older and could understand why she has to use the computer it would be easier, but because we are young the computer becomes an annoying distraction.

Reflections Chapter 2 Blue Book

Chapter 2

            A lot of chapter two is about teachers having to change their old mindsets and ways to purposefully figure out how to add technology into their classrooms and everyday routines. It seems to drive them a little nuts at first having to get use to a new environment, but when they see all of the good coming from the children and how much they are learning they become happier about it. Some of the teachers said it was hard for them to use the computers because they felt guilty like they were not teaching.

            Chapter two was interesting to me. The teachers who felt guilty like they weren’t really teaching made me think how I use technology as an aid. I use it as something to enhance what I am teaching, to make learning more fun. I like to even use the district’s webpage that has books and videos like Magic School Bus on it. I think about how the Magic School Bus made me more interested in learning Science than my teacher babbling on about it in class. The website also has videos that explain and show things better than I can. For example this past week my students watched a video about Martin Luther King Jr. The video was more interesting and got the kids talking about him way more than any story I read to them. We live in a technology based world. Students act like they are ADD if what we are showing/teaching them is not in their face exciting. This fact about children has made me  take a step back in the way I use some technology. I have my students practice reading the weekly story at the board on most days, but at least once a week we sit in a circle and practice reading it from the actual big book. You have to have a good combo of old school teaching and new school teaching. It’s a balance that I haven’t quite mastered yet, but I am working towards.

Reflections Chapter 1 Blue Book

-->

Chapter 1

Chapter one is about the integration of technology into classrooms. Chapter one talks a lot about the ACOT or The Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Project. This was started in 1985 where Apple computers began showing how having technology in the classroom will change the way teachers teach and how children will learn. ACOT staff went into a few schools trying to show how technology was basically going to change our lives.  ACOT was showing how technology in the classroom would aid in learning, not replace any other tool of curriculum.

This was a great idea or start off point for integrating computers into the classroom. I do use technology everyday. I do daily routines like going over the calendar and playing educational games. Teachers are at a greater advantage today than in 1985 because so many people have created good educational websites that can be used and are easy to use. In my classroom I have a bunch of technology I don’t know how to use because no one really has the time to teach me and I don’t have hours of time to just play around and learn it. It ends up being kind of wasted because we have people who come in for an hour and say here do this, this, and this, but they don’t really show us. I have some technology background but the technology they use in the schools seems to be pretty non-user friendly. I just want to use it as an aid in teaching and if it takes me forty-five minutes to figure out how to turn it on and it only takes me two seconds to open the book at this point I’ll just open the book. Which is sad because technology has so many different aspects that can be useful.