Shari's Blog

10/3/05 Student Interviews

2005-10-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

How neat to see kids so excited about something they did in school!! It was also great to see their enthusiasm and pride when they shared their projects with us. Learning was truely a worthwhile experience for them. Because of their experiences with technology, they seem fearless to any technology challenges they may face in the future. I enjoyed listening to the suggestions they had for their present teachers on how their classes could benefit with the use of technology. I think it's great that Gary seems so receptive to try some of their suggestions. We need more teachers to take that step. The "Techno-Idol" movie was great! I'm glad they received recognition for all their hard work. No one will ever be able to take their experiences away from them. I also applaud you, Katie, for taking the time and interest in these kids to give them a great start in the world of technology.

Class 9/19/05 & Article Summary "Multimedia Projects: An Effective Use of Technology as a Tool in Elementary Education"

2005-09-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

In class this week we were introduced to the process of making imovies. The examples that were shown were really interesting. What a powerful piece of media for kids to make! We were then given work time to develop our movie concept.

Article - "All learning is self-taught" Wow! What a powerful statement! How true it is. I think about the way I learn as an adult. I learn by doing. In classes we are given the tools to help us become better educators but unless we apply them and experiment with them the concepts are usually lost. Why don't we teach what we know works? I think we get so bogged down with curriculum, assessments, and standards we are responsible for that the idea of letting kids do creative, meaningful projects is just too far fetched. They would take too much of our valuable time!!! This article tends to prove this theory wrong.

More meaninful assignments, working with others, and teachers as motivators rather than leaders seem to be successful tools for storing information int students' long-term memory.
This does make sense. Students will put more effort into things they care about. In most careers co-workers work together, why not let students. We don't sit at our own desk and do all of our work ourselves. We learn from others! My students sit at tables in groups. Other teachers ask me about cheating. They are in second grade how much cheating can they really do. If they can learn something from their neighbor I am all for it. And if teachers are good motivators the students will want to continue learning!

I was amazed at the project they did with grades 1-3. I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet, but it does give me the incentive to get my 2nd graders more involved in doing projects on the computer rather than just using the computer for learning games.

Class 912/05

2005-09-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Inspiration/Kidspiration software is a great tool for teaching kids how to organize their thoughts. We learned how to link like ideas and how to change a web into outline form. I think Kidspiration will let me make Venn diagrams to let kids compare and contrast things we learn in science like insects & spiders; and in reading characters from stories; etc. Making webs will also help us with starting places for writing activities. The Photoshop elements is a lot of fun to sit and mess with. A person could lose track of time creating with this. We learned how to transpose someones head onto or into something else with the little magnetic lasso tool. Layering was something else we did. This is a pretty advanced program. It does so much it's hard to remember how to do everything. I have used the Microsoft Picture It and it works for me when putting pictures on my webpage and I am comfortabel using it. I need to mess with Photoshop when I have more time to sit and try different things. After all we learn by doing!

Class 9/5/05

2005-09-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

I thought the article "PowerPoint Poisons" shared some good pointers for using PowerPoint. I have been to presentations where the presenter reads from the screen. Not very interesting! It makes sense to make sure the students spend more time on the content of their presentations than on the bells and whistles!! I've typically thought sharing information for a presentation was the main purpose for PowerPoint. After learning how to effectively use the action buttons, hyperlinks, and inserts to help create "loop" presentations rather than "straight" presentations I can forsee many ways PowerPoint can be a useful tool in my classroom. Math fact and sight word practice, science reviews, even simple webquests are ways I intend to use it. I also like the idea of putting PowerPoints I create on my web page so students can view them at home. It can be a very interactive tool!

Class 8/29/05

2005-09-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

During this class session we discussed ways SMART boards and palms could be used in the classroom. The palms are an amazing piece of technology. I didn't realize all the capabilities a palm had. I'm not real sure if they would be a type of technology I would use in my 2nd grade class but I think it's great for the upper elementary, junior/senior high students to learn how to use this tool. The SMART board information intrigued me more. I've used the SMART board but I discoverd more ways to implement it in to my lesson plans by visiting the Smart Tech website. I have revisited this site a few times this past week and found some lessons I will use in my own classroom.

Technology Integration as a Transforming Teaching Strategy - response

2005-08-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

From my own experiences I agree with so many points that were made in this article. Technology can be a beneficial instructional tool but educators need to understand technology integration more completely.
In our own system we have had the "one-shot workshops" where teachers have not had additional time to reflect and collaborate with other teachers. Therefore, the majority of our staff have not taken the time to learn about technology on their own. So, technology is not passed on to students.
I have taken the time to incorporate some new technology into my classroom but I know there is more I can do. Also, as I learn more I would be willing to share with others.

First Class 8/22/05

2005-08-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

In class we each created a blog of our own. I just read about blogs in the Sunday World Herald about 2 weeks ago. I now have a better understanding of what they are and how they can be used. I think this is a good way to have discussions about certain topics on the net. It was interesting to view some of the other blogs.