Integrating Voice Threads into the Classroom!

I recently discovered a new technology based educational resource that I can use to promote the learning of students.   VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in five different ways- using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Voicethreads can also be shared with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too. A VoiceThread is a new set of digital story tools. It has great potential in teaching and learning.   I feel that a VoiceThread can be used in the classroom as an alternative means of instruction that promotes simulating and engaging learning activities while integrating technology into the classroom.  

Field observation week two!

This week was my second week at Parker elementary school!  Unfortunately, Monday the school was closed due to Columbus day so I wasn't able to observe but I did get to see my first graders on Wednesday! This week the nerves were not so bad....I was very comfortable this time around. As the day progressed I was starting to get the feel of activities that took place throughout the day. This past observation I sat in on writing work shop where kids were taught the format of a letter, a note, and a short story.  The students were given the option to pick between the three and an illustration needed to be included.  I sat with a few students and found that most kids had no trouble vocalizing what they wanted to write for their stories but I found that had an extremely had time translating the words onto paper.  Most students drew the illustrations before attempting to write their stories, letters, lists.  I feel that in order to make this writing workshop more beneficial to students they should be required to do the actual writing before making an illustration. I feel most kids use the allotted class time to draw and don't get to write a single sentence.   After Writers workshop students were assigned classroom jobs that consisted of a line leader, book shelf organizer, paper passer outter and etc. Something as little as classroom jobs really got excited the kids and they felt honored to be able to help around the classroom.  The kids had music today where they played various types of drums during class.  Overall, week two went great! I'm looking forward to next week!

iLearn

For this weeks educational post I want to inform all my followers on a great website titled "iLearn." i Learn is a website that was designed to educate teachers with different ways they can integrate the use of ipad into their classrooms. Within this website are many resources that help teachers find ways to in which they can promote the use of technology into their classrooms as educational tools.  For example, the use of an I pad in classes will allow for students to access interactive and content based apps, looks up ideas and find answers to a magnitude of questions, access and read a wealth of books and magazines, view, discuss, and critique videos and podcasts created by universities and educational providers, create dozen of art projects and multimedia projects and many more! I feel instead of trying to ban the use of technology in schools they should promote the use of technology for educational use only in schools.  I feel the ipad has so many educational applications and tools to offer students of this new generation that it would be a shame to put it to waste.  I pose this question to my viewers...do you think the use of iPads in the classroom would be more beneficial and or more of a distraction in the classroom?

Initial Host Classroom Observation! 1st Graders!

 When I first entered the building I was worried about where my classroom was, who I was going to run into on my way to the main office/ classroom. The main office ended up being directly to the right after entering the building and I didn’t end up running into anyone when going to my teachers classroom.  That was a relief, but then came the anticipation and anxiety before entering the classroom.  Upon entering the classroom for the first time I had a little anxiety because I had no idea what to expect on my first day.  I was pretty nervous but at the same time so excited to meet my host teacher and my first graders.  I wasn’t sure if I was suppose to walk in and introduce myself to the class and teacher and have them stop what they were doing or come in and quietly and wait until I was introduced.  When I walked in, Mrs. Cross (my host teacher), was reading a story the class so I walked in and quietly took a seat.  Immediately all the kids grew interested in whom I was, what I was doing in their class and gave waves! After an hour being in my classroom, I met my teacher and all of the students and greeted with a warm welcome.  The feelings of anxiety and nervousness started to fade away and feelings of happiness and reassurance began to kick in.  After only an hour I was feeling great about the decision I made three years ago to become a teacher.  I felt like this was my calling and what I was meant to do in life.  I quickly caught on to the kids names and could identify who was potentially a trouble maker, who wouldn’t be a problem.  I ended up having a great first day of observation and became very comfortable with engaging and interacting with the students in the class.  I immediately jumped in to help with activities and loved every second of it.

Teacher Interaction:

  The teacher throughout the day was very engaged with the students.  During activities such as read alouds she was constantly asking guiding and interactive questions to get the students involved.  I noticed a pattern that after asking or posing a question to the class she would wait a good amount of time before calling on someone to give a response to a question.  When I came time for students to go back to their seats I noticed she would walk around and help students that were struggling with the task at hand.  A good deal of interaction between the teacher and certain students was discipline related.  I noticed there were a few students who were consistently being asked to sit on the reading carpet with their hineys on the group and hands in their laps.  Two students were asked to sit in the thinking chair which is her way of removing the distracting students away from the whole group and have them come up with a plan before entering the discussion again.  I was surprised by how much of the interaction between the teacher and the students were more geared to following the rules and discipline than compared to the teaching of academics.

When doing an activity after a read aloud two students were assigned to draw an illustration that reflected the themes in the book.  I noticed that each pair of students worked fairly efficiently and demonstrated good communication when trying to pick something to draw.  There was a good amount of collaboration done before the drawing began for the most part students worked well.  There were some groups that did get a little distracted and were giggling and laughing here and there but for the most part, interaction between students was very educational effective in completing the task at hand. After I asked one group a guided question to help them think of something to draw I got responses from students that demonstrated they understood and comprehended the themes in which the book was trying to articulate. I noticed in some groups that one child was more vocal over another.  I feel some of the more outgoing kids were quick to talk while those who seemed to have a more timid personality were shy to talk.  I feel a good way to get all students to talk is to ask engaging questions to both students and allow them enough time to each give a response.  I noticed regardless of personality all the kids had something they wanted to vocalize but some were just not given the opportunity or the time to talk.

                Some of the curricular content that was being discussed on my first day was on phonics and more specifically the focus on learning and understand vowels. In a group effort my teacher asked students to name the give different vowels.  In addition, Mrs. Cross had asked students to sound out each vowel.  For visual learners she incorporated a pretty cute sheet that linked a vowel to picture and the first sounds of that picture was the vowel that was chosen.  After the initial teaching of vowels students were asked to report back to their seats and highlight all of the vowels in each one of their classmates name a way of assessing their knowledge on vowels.  It seemed as if students had a better understanding of vowels when all together in a whole group.  Individually some students struggled to identify and list the five vowels in the alphabet.  However, there were some students who showed they did have a good understanding of the five vowels by finishing the work sheet pretty quickly and with ease. If I could teach this content, I would use the same idea of introducing the vowels to the students in a group but as far as assessment I would use differentiated instruction to accommodate students of all learning abilities.  This way the kids who were strong with vowels would be more challenged and not spend some time doing nothing while others were struggling.  

Smart Board Technology!

With the increasing demands on teachers to integrate technology into classrooms, what better way to do it than with a smart board? The smart board  is an interactive board that allows teachers to engage students in a new, fun and exciting way. With SMART Boards, students become more attentive and active learners in class. SMART Boards allow visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners to be more focused and engaged on the lesson that is being taught. The use of smart boards in the classroom allows teachers to meet the National Educational Technology Standards and appeals heavily on the Native learners in today's society. Below I'm going to make a list of all of the ways smart board technology can be used in the classroom: 

• Save lessons to present to students who were absent
• Create video files to teach a software application, a lesson, or as a review to be posted to the server or web. Example- How to create a graph in Excel or hoe to burn a projects to cds
• Use the built in maps to teach continents, oceans, countries, or states and capitals.
• Present presentations created by student or teacher
• Have students create e-folios including samples of their work and narration
• Digital storytelling
• Teach whole group computer or keyboarding skills
• Brainstorming
• Take notes directly into PowerPoint presentations
• Reinforce skills by using on-line interactive web sites
• Creating a project calendar
• Teach editing skills using editing marks
• Use in the 6 trait writing process
• Use highlighter tool to highlight nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
• Use it with Kidspiration or Inspiration
• Teaching students how to navigate the Internet
• Illustrate and write a book as a class. Use the record feature to narrate the text.
• Use the Interwrite software to create lessons in advance at home or at school. Then save them for future use or to be shared with other teachers
• Diagramming activities
• Teaching steps to a math problem.
• Have students share projects during Parent/Teacher/Student conferences
• Graphics and charts with ESL learners and special ed students.
• Teaching vocabulary
• Electronic Word Wall
• End each day by having students write one thing that they learned

The amount of ways one can integrate a smart board into the classroom seems endless!  I did some research and found that the cheapest smart board can be purchased for about $1,000 and get as expensive as $6,000! Smart board technology doesn't come cheap, however, there are many teachers that will tell you how worth it they are.  


Below I'm going to post a few links of personal anecdotal accounts of how smart board technology have improved teaching and learning in these teachers classrooms: 
Dr. Mary Ann Bell
Bobbi Adrian
Check it out

Last but not least I want to show you video on smart boards and how this 5th grade teacher uses a smart board in her classroom :) Enjoy

National Educational Technology Standards

As technology dramatically changes in today's society, we as future educators need to keeps up the times and be able to demonstrate certain skills and behaviors of digital- age professors.  The NETS other wise knows as the National Educational Technology Standards are the blue prints that today's educators must abide by in order to provide a learning environment that takes students beyond the walls of their classrooms and into a world of endless opportunities. The NETS focus on the learning and teaching throughout the entire educational system and is broken down in standards for students at all levels as well as for teachers and administrators.  The National Educational Technology Standards for students focuses on the skills and knowledge students need to learn and be able to perform effectively in this new up and coming digital world. The NETS for teachers consist of guidelines and blueprints of a variety of skills and knowledge they will need to be able to teach and incorporate into classrooms to allow for students to work and live in an increasingly connected digital society.  Last but not least, the NETS for administrators lists the skills and expectations for school administrators.  Some of these expectations include a more technological infused learning environment that supports digital age learning.

The following links provide the NETS for students, teachers, and administrators.
Teacher National Educational Technology Standards
Student National Educational Technology Standards
Administration National Educational Technology Standards

Weekly Reading: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

 According to Marc Prensky(2001) , “ Today’s students have no just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as had happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place.  One might even call it’s a “Singularity”- an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20t century” (Prensky, 2001).  Prenskys idea of singularity gives me the extra boost in motivation to set out and find and learn more technological learning tools and systems.  With today’s students- K-through college, research has shown they have been exposed to and grown up with new technologies.  Prensky (2001) states, “They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age” (Prensky, 2001).  As a result, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.  Thankfully, I as a future educator have time to adapt, evolve and implement new ways to presenting, teaching and passing on material to what Prensky call these new “digital natives”.  


Below is a link to Prenskys Article on Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants 
http://edu315.wikispaces.com/file/view/Prensky+-+Digital+Natives%2C+Digital+Immigrants+-+Part1.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001). On the horizon. (5

 ed., Vol. 9). MCB University Press