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.

Technology in the Classroom #4

I participated in Read Across America at another elementary school in the Erlanger district. I was in various classrooms and was surprised by the technology. My practicum is also in the Erlanger district but this school is way more advanced. There is a smart board in nearly every room. The teachers were using it to show videos from their computers and have books read from the Internet. The students loved it and it was a great background addition while the children worked on other assignments.

Technology in the Classroom #3

Yesterday in my practicum my student's special was computer lab. I have never seen that done before. When I was in school we had art, music, and gym for specials. Computer lab was something we got to do every so often. I like how this school has it has a special. This way the students get more expereince with the computers and the teacher does not have to take more time out of her day for it. It seems to work very well and the students love going to the computer lab.