Technology in the Classroom #10

Yesterday in my practicum I noticed a new piece of technology in the classroom I am in. It was a document camera which I have seen used before especially on campus. I think it is a great form of technology. Not everything you will need to show to the class can be accessed on the computer so it is nice to have the document camera. She used it to show the new seating arrangement she made up for the class so they could move into it. Granted a document camera can be hard to get use to especially when trying to align the paper but it is a great tool!

Technology in the Classroom #9

Today in my EDS class I learned about a different form of technology that is used in schools. We were learning about visual impairments. We were on the subject of brail and learned about a special printer. Apparently, most schools have a special printer that print out handouts and what not in brail. I never knew there were things like this in a regular school. I thought they were only in special schools. I think having them in regular schools is a great thing. It is very possible to come across a blind student in a classroom so you would need to be able to make all assignments available in brail. I am curious to learn about other technology like this.

Technology in the Classroom #8

I learned about many tools today that I can use in the classroom someday. The National Library of Virtual Manipulative's is a great website to have your students do hands on activities. There is mind42 where students can do brainstorming and organizing for writing papers. Just doing graphic organizers on papers can get old so doing it in this way can offer new experiences for the students. Spelling city is a great website that I would love to share with children. It is a great way to extra practice in with spelling words. Spelling words are a big part of elementary school so this will be a great tool for me when I teach. Finally, I discovered google for educators. This is a site on google for educators that gives teachers ideas on activities and tools to use in their classroom.
Learning about all of these tools will make technology be more prevalent in my classroom but not be repetitive. I think it is important to someday introduce a variety of technology in my classroom!

Technology in the Classroom #7

This week in my practicum I saw the negative side of using technology in the classroom. My cooperating teacher had prepared a PowerPoint at home and emailed it to her school account so she could use it that day in a lesson. The PowerPoint she sent was missing slides she had made at home and wouldn't play correctly. She had to remake some slides but still had the problem with presentation not playing correctly. She tried it on another computer and ended up having to copy and paste the whole thing into a new presentation. That did the trick but she had no backup so if it didn't work she would of had to make it up as she went. Technology is great but its not always reliable. As teacher you need to always have backup and plan days ahead incase something you do at home doesn't work at school.

Technology in the Classroom #6

Today in my practicum technology was used a lot. The students watched another video from Brain Pop that was projected from the computer on to the board. Some students were on the computers on a program called compass. I am not exactly sure what it is but from what I could see they were playing math related skill games. A camera was used today because my cooperating teacher is going through KTIP and has to record a lesson. During this lesson she used excel to make a pie graph of an experiment the class was doing, this was also projected onto the board. She followed with a PowerPoint. I really enjoyed seeing so much technology being used. The students seemed to be more interested in this lesson than any other one I have observed. Even though she used a lot of technology she did it in a way that was not overwhelming to the students which is very important.

Technology in the Classroom #5

In my first practicum after spring break I saw a new form of technology being used in the classroom. The teacher was showing a video she found on the Internet to the class through the projector. The class doesn't have a smart board or a pull down screen so the video was just projected onto the regular white board. The teacher apparently uses this website a lot because the students were very familiar with how the process worked; a short, fun video followed by a quiz. This website is www.brainpop.com. It has tons of videos to explain topics that are taught in the classroom everyday. I feel that it is a great resource and I am glad I was introduced to it.