Smart board sighting....

Today was the first day I had ever seen a smart board!! We had a presentation today by a student who works in the TIES department in the College of Ed. She showed us the many possibilities of using a smart board in the classroom. It is SO cool. I think it is awesome to have a million sources in one unit (internet/white board/powerpoints). On these smart boards you are able to write with a "marker" but can change the writing to highlighting. I think this keeps thing organized and is just another way to incorporate technology into your teaching.

One thing I thought was a disadvantage of the bored is that only one person can write on it at once. This would make it impossible for more than one student to "go to the board" and post their answers. Students would have to go up one by one which can take up a lot of time.

Overall, I thought being introduced to the Smartboards today is essential to my future teaching. Smartboards are becoming more popular and soon they will be in the majority of classroom. Teachers are going to be expected to know how to use this technology.

Next year's internship!!

Recently I had received my placement information for next year. I have been placed in Gompers Elementary School in Detroit Public Schools. I was hesitant at first that there would be little technology being in the DPS but after doing some research I found out that they are building a brand new 20.5 million dollar building that will be open this September! This new building is guaranteed to have multiple technology resources. I can't wait to see what's included. Hopefully I will be able to incoporate some of the things I learned through this class in my lesson planning next year. Wish me luck!

http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/gomperspark031511.aspx

Smart Phones-- can they be used in classrooms?

I have heard that smart phones are a form of technology that can be used in the classroom. I guess I am just unsure how these can be a positive attribution. I would think that students would misuse the technology and use it for other purposes. Also, if a student wants to pull out there phone to look something up on the internet or use a calculator, do you?

Someone in my other class mentioned that there is a way to set up a poll/clicker questions and you just text your answer to the number to get accounted for. She said that many students liked this because they got to use their phones in school. I would definitely think that would be the case since so many are "addicted" to their phones.

Wikispace

I found wikispace easy to use. I had to explore around a little to find the different edit buttons, but once I did it was very simple to update. I think this would be a useful site if you had team teaching or were working with a Collaborating Teacher. In this case both of you could edit the pages. I think that it is great that they will show you the recent changes so you won't ever loose your documents. I thought the wiki for CEP 416 was a great site for our class since we were doing so much sharing of work. It makes so simple to just go to the site to see what is going on and post your own documents to share.

Unlike a blog or webbly, there is less creativity options. To me, a wiki seems more professional but not necessarily as "fun". All three of these types of websites make it easy to communicate amongst individuals all over. Blogs are usually more opinion base of the writers where others comments, webbly are more informative, and finally wikis allow multiple people to edit the pages. I see how each has their positive attributes.

Google Docs

I absolutely love Google docs. Before this assignment I had never been introduced to them.. crazy right? Now I have used them with multiple groups in my TE classes the past week.

For the classroom, I think these are great ways of getting in touch with your peers for group projects. It makes things so much easier instead of finding time to meet. I think this is a great new form of group work. Also, it is SO easy to build a powerpoint presentation. I think this should also be introduced to students because it is so fast and easy. Also, it is great if you are assigning a project that can be both worked on at home and at school. Finally, teachers can create documents that students can access to write on their opinions and information too.

I think the only downside of Google Docs is that you need to make sure you trust your students not to mess with anyone's work besides their own, since you can edit others information if the whole group has access to edit.

"Nerd Day"

Last week in my placement it was spirit week, so each kid was asked to dress up to school in differnt themes. The day I happened to be there was "nerd day". I was quite confused when some of the students in my classroom were wearing taped glasses, jeans that were too short with high white socks and suspenders. One little girl even had "NERD" written across her forehead. I was so confused until the principle wished the students a "happy nerd day" via loud speaker.

I was sort of bothered by all of this. This was promoting stereotypes to children as young as five years old. Why was this necessary? Only one girl in this class wore glasses on a regular basis. I wonder if she now feels like a "nerd" since nearly her whole class was poking fun of children with glasses. I suppose I just thought that there are plenty of other Spirit Day ideas that don't stereotype and can be just as fun.