Final Post

Honestly I did not have a good start to this class.  I was frustrated and stressed to the max.  As time went by it did start to get a little better as the work load was lessened.  I did learn a lot of new information on integrating technology. However, many of these techy options I cannot utilize in my first grade classroom like many of the upper grades can.    I have enjoyed watching the various projects that my collegues have made.  This was probably the most interesting part of the course.  :)

Reflection on Collaborative Project

Working with Dawn, Barbara, and Jen was fun!  We all bring something different and informative to the table.  As an early childhood educator, I love hearing and seeing other educators thoughts and ideas.  We all took a different role to create our project using technology.  We created an Author Study using multimedia.  Our author is Jan Brett, a well known childrens author.  You can visit her website at http://www.janbrett.com/.

I loved creating this unit because I can use it in my current classroom with a few changes.  It was great working with these ladies!!

December 15th

Envision the role of social networking in the 21st century:

When thinking of social networking in the 21st century and what it may look like, I envision  many different pieces to the puzzle. 

*Virtual classrooms
*Students no longer having textbooks but instead having an IPAD or something very similiar.
*Communicating through Skype, blogs, wikis....etc
*I envision students being taught by other human beings from other countries
*Responding and interacting with multi-age children to enrich knowledge and vocabulary

Digital Divide:

The digital divide definitely exists in my school.  Even though we are a school of high technology and we are located in a more affluent community, there are a percentage of students/families that do not have access to technology.  Four years ago when we moved into our new building, we all had to create a personal website for our class and showcase it to the families.  We sent out surveys and questionnaires and the feedback was shocking.  There are so many people who just cannot afford technology; therefore cannot access certain informational websites.  
As far as I know, there have not been any accommodations done to rectify this as a district.  I know some teaches always make copies of documents that are uploaded to the websites to ensure that everyone receives the information.  It is hard for me to say this because I love the classroom setting and the daily interaction with children but part of me feels that this is also going to go away and students will only learn through primary sources.

 

I believe in all classroom settings today, we need to be using instructional strategies that are going to benefit all students.  Small group instruction and small cooperative groups are very beneficial to young learners.  I find being an educator of young children; these two instructional strategies work best.  When integrating technology into the daily learning, most children are more successful working collaboratively with other children.  This benefits the students with some experience with technology, as well as those students who have not been fortunate enough to have experienced technology.  In my classroom, I use the approach of team building and learning together.  During center time, children are paired up and are able to use the promethean board together to engage in academic learning.  I also have three of my higher level children, explore with various computer programs (TimeLine and Kidspiration).  They are intro level programs and very age appropriate for first grade.  I use it as another way to introduce the children to technology. 

As an educator in today’s “digital” world, it is my responsibility to integrate as much technology as I can into my students’ daily lives.   I have to realize that the transition from the old school of learning from a textbook has quickly turned.  Many schools across the nation are moving away from textbooks and lecturing and are incorporating various ways of technology to teach and communicate.  This is the way of the future and we as a nation need to find ways to quickly adapt to keep up and close the gap in so many areas of learning. 

Reflection of Instructional Model

I enjoyed doing my Instructional Model Project using the interactive phonics program Lexia.  I use this program in my first grade classroom every day and have seen wonderful progress in my students literacy skills.  I love how it is child friendly and it gives teachers many different assessment tools to use.  If districts have technology to be implemented into the classroom, I would highly recommend this program for struggling readers.  I enjoyed sharing this with the class, however, I am not so sure how helpful it was to any of my collegues..... 

December 8th

12/8/11


I believe in today’s educational world, it is the teacher’s responsibility to educate the students so they are able to explore the necessary primary sources that are age appropriate.  Depending on the grade level, children need to learn the correct skills to analyze and interpret online information.  I strongly believe that teachers need to begin this digital journey at the elementary level so the children will be prepared for their future.  Introducing simple online activities at the early age and building upon them will help students grow and strengthen their skills for more complex activities in the future.


 

Social networking….hmmm….I have a hard time answering this question.  My opinion may be different from many others.  When I think of social networking and I think of my current class of first graders, I am like “Whoa”…way to early.  Even upper elementary I feel is way too early to educate how to use social networks. I completely understand that our world is a “Digital World” and our students need to learn these skills and be able to communicate and navigate on the internet.  In addition, I am very apprehensive of young children entering the world of social networking because of all the negative “issues” or “actions” that have surfaced.  I personally, do not have a ton of trust in the “digital” world, but this is just my personal issue.  On the flip side, I am able to look past these issues at times and I understand that children need to learn to use a variety of path ways to navigate and utilize the web.  Our children of the future also need to develop critical, creative, and systematic thinking and reasoning skills. Students have access to immediate online information 24/7, and must be able to determine what is accurate, useful and essential in their learning (Richardson, 2010).  To go along with this, I do feel it is the educator’s responsibility to teach students how to use social networks effectively and safely.  I am just unsure of when the “right” time may be.

November 17th

*In today’s society there are an abundance of tools for students to use to share their work with the communities. Depending on the age and grade level of the students, these will affect the tool of choice. Being a teacher of first grade, I feel the best way to manage this opportunity would be to share on the teacher’s website so family members, other teachers, and community members can have access.  Classroom teachers could also create a classroom blog and share student’s work in this manner.  This would also leave the door open to people of the community to access. The list goes on and on in today’s digital world. 

*There are endless opportunities for teacher’s to enrich their students with authentic work and opportunities connected to technology in today’s world.  Depending on the grade level, the teacher can incorporate activities using Skype and Podcasts to help students get connected with other classrooms around the world.  These types of tools can be enriching to our children of the future, as well as confusing.  It is the educator’s job to teach the students the communication skills and cultural skills to take part in activities that revolve around technology.  Alan November mentions in his book Empowering Students with Technology that “As we connect our students to the world, we need to focus much more on our staff development on preparing teachers to help students manage relationships and cultural negotiation” (November, 2010).

*In my opinion, the most beneficial design for a teacher created website would be interactive.  I think it would be user friendly for children and adults.  It would have a place for blogging or a discussion forum.  It would also have a spot for posting work, helpful learning links, assignments and newsletters.  I think one of the most important pieces to a teacher created website is that it is capable of interacting with other colleagues.  In today’s education, collaboration is a vital piece to successful teaching and learning.

December 1

Blog 2:

·         What is the role of the teacher in helping students to make meaning of primary source?

One of the most imperative jobs of a teacher is to make sure he/she is teaching the students the correct tools to be successful in and out of the classroom.  I found Chapter 4 to be very interesting because as a young student, I was never taught the “right way” to navigate through the web.  Today’s world is like a “digital classroom” and if humans are not exposed to the right and wrong ways to analyze and interpret information, it could be challenging.  A teacher must model and explicitly teach the proper fundamentals on how you make meaning of these primary sources.  Lee Ann Potter makes a statement, “Primary source material was not generated with a grade level or textbook chapter in mind” (November, 2010).  Teachers have to teach their students strategies to think critically in today’s society.  Chapter 4 gives many examples about primary sources.  Alan November mentions that many students have not been taught to develop the strategies for thinking and evaluating primary sources (November, 2010).  This is why it is so critical for the teacher to be able to provide structure and direction to their students to help them make meaning of information they find on the web. 

• Explain the differences between blogs, wikis, and web based word processors.  Briefly identify one classroom activity for each type of tool.

Blog – Is an undefined space online for writing with no “rules”.  A blog is a website that can be ongoing and can be on any given topic. Many people use blogs to connect with others or just to organize their inner thoughts.  People can join a blog and chime in with their thoughts or it can be set to private.  A blog has multiple uses.  Example of Classroom Activity: 5^th grade teacher reads a chapter book as a read aloud.  Student’s blog their thoughts and responses to the story or teacher posts questions from the story and students have to blog their answers for an assignment.

Wiki – Is an on line collaboration tool that educators and students can use to interact with one another.  It basically is a tool to promote online conversations about topics.  A wiki can be ongoing to help generate ideas.  It is a space for multiple people to generate their thoughts and ideas.  Example of Classroom Activity: An elementary class that is studying graphs creates a wiki graph.  The Topic is “What is your favorite food?  Pizza, Chicken, or Fish.  The class posts this on the wiki and opens it up to anyone who would like to share their response.  The public can click “edit this page” and add answer, then save.  The classroom that is doing the graph can go back into the wiki periodically and check the results.

Google Docs - Is an easy-to-use online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that enables professionals and students to create, store and share instantly and securely, and collaborate online at any time. You can create new documents from scratch or upload existing documents.  There's no software to download, and all your work is stored safely online and can be accessed from any computer.  Google docs is free and you just need to sign up for a google account.  You can also share files and links.  Example of Classroom Activity: High school teacher could upload his/her assignments and rubrics so the students can access them at any time.

Reflection on Digital Story

I chose to do my digital story on a topic that was grade/age appropriate for my current first grade students. "Writing sentences in First Grade".   We spend an abundance of time teachng first graders how to write complete sentences that will eventually develop into short stories with a beginning, middle, and ending.  I teach writing sentences using the "Magic 3".  In my digital story, I showed examples of the magic three and the rules to follow.
I thought my story was age appropriate, it followed the rubric, and had a catchy tune that the five and six year olds like.  One thing I would like to do differently next time is use a different program to create. Such as Photo Story 3.  I used Windows Movie Maker and I found it to be very difficult to navigate and choppy. 

Blog Questions - 11/3/11

·         A weblog is essentially a live web diary that can be accessed on the spot through the internet.  There are various ways to blog.  Here are some examples: to create a blog to list helpful websites for a topic, to keep a personalized online diary to share inner thoughts with others or to create a dialogue about a topic, and to communicate with students or other professionals.  Blogs are interactive and often receive commentary back and forth from the viewers/followers.    There are also many other ways a weblog can be created.   Blogging is becoming the new way of communication of the 21^st century.

·         There are many teachers in the 21^st century that are implementing weblogs into learning and teaching.  Teachers may use weblogs as a pathway to gathering students’ knowledge and thoughts on a specific topic.  Teachers could create blogs that are linked to the lesson of the day and expect students to respond with their thoughts, reactions, or ideas.  This opens up a discussion with the other students.  This also may benefit the “quiet” student who doesn’t like to respond in class but may excel at blogging.  Blogging could also be informative to teachers to help share ideas with each other.  Sometimes the classroom may only allow a limited time for teaching and learning; therefore using a blog creates more time for students and teachers to interact informally and express their thoughts.  

·         In the district that I work in, we are allowed to post student work on the district website as long as their last names are not visible.  In addition, the individual schools ask the question each year in the registration packets that goes home at the beginning of the year.   The questions include our internet policy, our video policy and posting to the internet.  The parent decision is then input into PowerSchool.  The questions are pretty non-defining from my point of view, so I always question if it is ok to post work on the website.  

·         The new literacies are the new and improved technology tools that can be integrated into the K-12 classroom to enhance learning and teaching.  There are an abundance of ways to use these new literacies and teachers must educate themselves on these new tools to educate our children of the future.  We as teachers must be able to implement technology into creative ways that are age appropriate to help enhance learning success.   These new literacies are very effective if implemented the correct way and will help students identify questions, navigate the web to find answers, enhance critical thinking, evaluate and synthesize information, and help communicate with others.   Integrating technology into the classroom for teaching, learning, and parent/community communication is a vital piece of educational success. 

Two websites that I use often that support the new literacies in my first grade classroom are www.starfall.com and  http://mrsmcgowan.com/index.htm .  These are just two  and  I find these websites easy to navigate and also very child friendly.

My Introduction....

My name is Jennifer.  I am currently in my 7th year of teaching.  I taught Pre-K/K for 2 years, 3rd grade for 3 years, and I am in my 2nd year of teaching 1st grade.  I absolutely love 1st grade and believe that I have found my "niche". I find first grade to be very challenging, yet VERY rewarding!!  My goal for the course if to strengthen my technology skills and learn ways to apply the knowledge/skills into my classroom. 
My hobbies are reading, cooking, photography, and scrapbooking.  I love the ocean and spending as much time on/in the water. 

I'm here but not sure if I did this right....lol

Hello all.....just trying to see how this works....