Reflection #16: My Beliefs

I have developed many beliefs about integrating technology into the classroom. I feel that this class was a good class to help me decide where I stand with technology. I love technology! I want my students to love technology! I love learning new things about technology. I have learned to be patient with technology. In the past I have struggled with patience and technology! I am patient with everything else but technology and this class has helped me to do better with that struggle. I am really excited to include technology in my future classroom. With field experience we used some type of technology with every lesson whether it was just a projector or if it was the Smart Board or the ELMO. I really want to be able to teach my students about technology. After reading the New WWW article for this assignment I want to create a ClassAct Portal for my students, even though I don't have any right now. I want to have a good influence of technology on my students. The future generations that I am going to be teaching are going to know much more about technology than I do. If we don't do something about how much they know and use that knowledge to engage them in the classroom then we won't get through to them and they wont become the students we all know they can be. I look forward to using the skills that my students have acquired without even realizing they have done it to the best of my teaching ability! I want to have a positive influence on my students! I want them to love technology as much as I do. We as teachers need to do all we can do to make our students learn all they can, if that means letting them use their technological abilities in the classroom, why not do it? I know I will!

Reflection #15: Lessons Learned

I really enjoyed reading these articles and watching these videos! I learned a ton of valuable information from each one of them that i will try to take to heart! I really enjoyed the millennial generation video. I feel that the predictions about technology that the students came up with are pretty accurate. I also enjoyed the New WWW article. I had never realized that our world was like that. One part that I especially liked in it was the section A Better Approach for Education and A Strategy for All Teachers in All Schools. I feel that we as teachers need to develop a ClassAct Portal. I love that this article tells/shows you how to build a ClassAct Portal. I also really enjoyed reading and learning about the shorthand that we use now days and ones that the author feels we should use. I didn't like the article of PowerPoints that talks about Tools for Change. I couldn't follow it and wasn't sure what it was trying to say. If i knew what it was saying or talking about I might like it a lot better and understand it a lot more. With the High Tech Learning article i wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with it. I feel there needs to be more instruction on what to do to understand what its trying to say or what you're trying to have us learn from this website. I really liked the article about why we should integrate technology into the curriculum. I liked the part in this that said "Technology also changes the way teachers teach, offering educators effective ways to reach different types of learners and assess student understanding through multiple means." I learned many lessons and gained some beliefs about what i think about technology in the classroom. This class was very helpful in teaching me about technology and what it means to me!

Reflection #14: Strengths and Weaknesses

My scores from the UNI survey were, starting with the lowest and the one in need to work on most, not being aware of any adaptive assistive devices for students with special needs. I rated it at pre-novice. I was novice in multiple areas including: demonstrating awareness of uses of computers and computing technology in business, industry, and society; using audio/visual resources (audiotapes, videos or slides) to access information and analyze the authority, accuracy, currency, and relevance; using video conferencing such as the Iowa Communications Network (ICN) to communicate with others; using databases to collect, organize, and analyze data and produce meaningful reports to aid in problem solving; using graphic organizer software to display information graphically for brainstorming or decision-making sessions; and using instructional software to support student learning and professional review sources to match software to the needs of learners in the special education or regular classroom. The rest of the survey questions i was an apprentice. I didn't feel like i was able to put practitioner or expert because i haven't designed authentic learning activities for my students or reflected on and made educated decisions in determining the effectiveness of those activities. I feel like I didn't have many strengths with this survey. I feel like i could improve in everything that this survey described. With the NET standards I feel that my weaknesses are that i don't use technology to enhance productivity and professional practice. I also feel that i don't understand the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in PK-12 schools. My strengths with the NET standards would have to include demonstrating a sound understanding of technology operations and concepts as well as  planning and designing effective learning environments and experiences supported by technology. I feel that my strongest point would have to be to implement curriculum plans that include methods and strategies for applying technology to maximize student learning. The goals i want to accomplish as a beginning teacher would have to include becoming aware and using (if applicable) of any adaptive assistive devices for students with special needs. I want to have my classroom one that has all students. If I have students with special needs I want to have all the options and things to make their learning experience one they will never forget and make the most of! This website, http://www.rehabtool.com/at.html , has multiple options for assistive technology and learning about the different products and things related to special needs and adaptive assistive devices. My second goal i want to accomplish as a beginning teacher is to understand the. I want to be able to teach technology and things but I don't want to be scared that I will run into ethical or legal problems. I want to understand all that I need to so i won't have to worry! This website and video has a lot on what i want to learn for this goal! http://www.truth-it.net/ethical_issues_in_education.html  

Reflection #13: Digital Story Reflection

At Vineyard Elementary School there were a lot of students who were from low income families. We had a lot of students who moved in and out frequently. There were 33 students in the class that we taught and our cooperating teacher was Mr. Zac Eagar. Our relationship with Mr. Eagar was really good. He debriefed with us after every lesson and sincerely wanted us to succeed. He gave us goals after every lesson to do better at that thing for the next day. He really liked our digital story. He felt that the students enjoyed it as well and that it was a good change to what they were used to. He felt that the lesson, Utah’s Geography, went really well also. He thought that the students were thoroughly interested in learning about the geography of Utah. The training session went awesome. He is very technology skilled and would succeed easily in doing a digital story of his own for whatever topic he chose. He was very excited to see our digital story and to create one of his own. We feel like the service-learning experience was very good. We felt that we contributed to the community in a good way while developing a better understanding of Utah’s geography. We feel like we know much more about the geography than we did before the lesson. We think that Mr. Eagar gained a better understanding that the kids need a greater variety of lessons taught. The students get used to the same way a teacher teaches and they get bored. As a teacher you need to be full of ideas to keep the students engaged. We gained a lot of knowledge of content and what to do for classroom management. Mr. Eagar told us, “You have mastered the science of teaching, now you need to master the art of teaching.” This field experience was definitely worth it. We learned so much about teaching and what it means to be a teacher. We will take all that we learned and use it in our future classrooms.

Reflection #12: Field Experience

This week was very interesting. We finished up teaching our lesson plans and got to watch our cooperating teacher teach social studies. What an eye opening experience. During our lessons i thought the kids were pretty decent having good behavior for the most part. I mean they weren't perfect angels but they weren't perfect demons either. I felt accomplished with how things turned out and then i saw how the students behaved while our teacher taught and all of that accomplishment went down the drain. The students were horrible during our teaching compared to when he taught. I know i should still feel some sort of accomplishment in itself; i do feel accomplished in a lot of different ways but not so much in classroom management anymore. The technology that i experienced while in field work was totally awesome! I never thought that there would be that much to learn about technology that i didn't already know. I saw my cooperating teacher use the smart board for many different types of things and think that if i were to try it again i feel i would do well with it. I love learning about technology! I just brightens my day! I definitely want to continue learning about the new technologies and how they have evolved. It will be very interesting to see if in my field work next semester there will be smart boards and Elmo projectors and the different types of technologies that there were in this field experience. I also wonder if there is this technology how much i will use it with the younger grades compared to the older ones. I enjoyed every minute of my field experience! i cant believe it has come to an end. I am kind of sad that i wont be seeing the students anymore. I am also sad that i wont be learning from my cooperating teacher everyday. I definitely learned something new everyday! I will be taking so much to heart from what i learned. One thing i will always remember from this field experience is "You have mastered the science of teaching, you just need to master the art of teaching." I plan to use this saying throughout my whole teaching career because you can always learn something new and put what you have learned into play! I can't wait until i have started teaching and can put this saying into action!

Reflection #11: Field Experience

This week has been a very interesting week. Our digital story went really well. The students loved it. Our cooperating teacher did also. All of the technology we have experienced in field has been so surprising. My favorite part probably has to be seeing our teacher use the smart board. We used the smart board when doing a power point presentation and it is really neat how you can just tap the board and it will go to the next slide instead of sitting at your computer having to move to the next slide. We tried to use the smart board the way its supposed to be used but it backfired on us. Im glad to know that they actually work and can be used for great things when you know how to use them. I also love that our teacher uses a microphone. Sometimes it can be a little much but overall i have loved seeing him use it. We have an awesome cooperating teacher. I have learned so much from him about teaching as well as technology. I never knew there was that much to learn. Our lessons ended up going pretty well although i would change a few things in each one were i to teach them again. I am very grateful to have had them go that well. I am grateful that i had a great partner. I hope i was as much help to her as she was to me. Without her im not sure where i would be. After every lesson we debrief with our teacher and he helps us understand what we could do better and change and how to become better teachers. His words are always "You have mastered the science of teaching, now you just need to master the art of teaching." I think these words are so wise. I have tried to take them to heart and master the art of teaching, it hasnt been that easy, but atleast i am trying. I cant wait to become a teacher!!

Reflection #10: Field Experience

Field experience has been great so far. I have mostly observed but have taught twice so far. The elementary school i am in, Vineyard Elementary, has smart boards in each room as well as Elmo projectors. I have enjoyed watching the different technology techniques that my cooperating teacher has used. He uses a microphone everyday while teaching. He uses the Elmo multiple times a day, uses the smart board as a projecting surface everyday, and he also uses the smart board when is applicable. My first day of teaching i got to use the smart board as more than a projecting surface. I actually used the program. It was interesting. I didn't like it very much but i think that is because i am not used to it nor do i really know how to use it. In a way i suppose you could say that i am scared of it. I also used the Elmo during my lesson. I really like the Elmo projector. it is a lot more accessible than a regular projector. I love using this technology! I cant wait to use these types of technologies as a teacher and have my students benefit from it! We show our digital story tomorrow and i cant wait to see what the students think! :)

Reflection #9: Digital Story

These past few weeks we have been learning about digital stories and have been asked to come up with a digital story to show in our classroom for field experience. We have the topic of 4th grade Utah Geography. We are coming up with an awesome digital story. I am excited to get it finished and polished and let people view it. Digital stories are a great way to introduce different types of topics and do different things with. You can make a digital story with almost anything that you can find information and pictures on. I can use digital stories in my different classes and in my future classes for the program. Digital stories are an easy way to make something interesting and get peoples attention and minds thinking about those different things. This technology can make life much easier or more difficult. If you are a perfectionist like i am, coming up with the perfect digital story can take forever! It will most likely cause much stress as well. This technology can be very helpful to my colleagues and partners for field. Like I said you can make things more interesting by making your topic into a digital story and using the technology we have been provided by many different sources. My future students will be able to have a hay day with this technology. I look forward to teaching my students how to make digital stories and letting them go at it and see what they come up with. I can be a much more influential teacher by using digital stories in my future classroom. This technology is so fun and i cant wait to be able to make different kinds of digital stories to teach my curriculum in the future. I am way excited to start field and use the smart board at my school and learn more about the technology that they use!

Reflection #8: Creative Commons

This week we learned about Creative Commons and Copyright and Digital Citizenship. The assignment we were asked to perform this week was to take a half an hour and come up with research on the topic we were assigned. I was assigned Digital Citizenship and Creative Content. I learned a lot with this topic and researching it. I signed up for the free instructional program. There are a lot of different scenarios that you could give to your students to figure out and learn about Digital Citizenship and Creative Content. I'm not sure how i could use the information i collected on my topic in my life today as a student. If i was a teacher right now i would help my students understand what it is and go in depth about it. This technology is really cool and i wouldn't mind learning even more about it and the other topics that were assigned. I didn't learn very much on the other topics that were given out to the rest of my group. I have skimmed through the research we have all done on the Google Doc, but i don't understand a lot of it and i haven't had much time to do some research for myself. I am excited about this information for my future students to learn. i will need to do a lot more research myself if i expect my students to get anything out of what i am trying to teach them about these topics. For this information to change my current schema i need to do more research and understand Creative Commons and Copyright for myself. Once i understand all of this information and feel good about teaching it my future students will get a lot out of it and i feel like they would have a good time with it and would obey the different laws that are out there for copyright. If our students don't know the laws than how can we expect them to obey those laws?

Reflection #7: Digital Story

This week we learned about digital stories. I personally am excited for this assignment. I think that we can make or break a topic using digital stories. In our partnerships we are assigned a topic by our cooperating teacher. My partnership hasn't gotten a topic yet but i am excited to find out what that topic is. I will be able to use the information that i learned about digital stories to help me in my classes and also in my future classroom. I will be able to introduce topics in a variety of ways and make those topics interesting to my students. Having this knowledge of digital stories will help me with many of my assignments and different things in my life today. Having this information in my schema now i will be able to do different things with computers. I will be able to assign my students digital stories. My students will be able to collaborate with each other and do digital story assignments together and teach each other about different subjects. I am excited to be able to teach my students about digital stories and have them teach me different things also. I cant wait to be able to know my topic and make a digital story for field and introduce new topics in an interesting way to our students. I look forward to doing this in my future classroom as well!

Reflection #6: Vidcast Week 2

What is War? Viscast

5^th grade Social Studies Standard 2 Objective 2

We chose to do this topic because we thought our students should learn about war and learn about the Revolutionary War. Students will learn about war and a little about why war is going on and that we are still involved in wars today and will be in the future. They will also learn some about our troops and soldiers fighting for our freedom today.

This podcast connects to INTASC standard number 2 A and C. We demonstrated knowledge of content as well as designed and articulated our instruction and aligned it with the Utah Core Curriculum standards.

Some of the draw backs to using this vidcast in my classroom would be that it might not be age appropriate or that there is too much information and it might get a little old after a while.

I would love to use this series in my future classroom but I would make it more to my standards and personality than compromising with my partner because I am really picky. I would use this vidcast for an introduction to war and freedom and help my students understand and engage and connect it to their lives.

Reflection #5: Vidcasts

This week our assignment is to create a vidcast or an enhanced podcast. I really loved playing around with this assignment and using the different technologies. I really like photo story 3. i love how it is in steps. it makes things really simple and easy to use. i am really excited about this program. i have downloaded the free version on my computer at home and i am excited to be able to use it in my other classes or just for personal use. i will be able to make videos and things for my roommates, family, or even for me personally. This program will be easy to use to make some of our lesson plans for field more technological and interesting to engage the students. It will be easy to use as a partnership and not be confused on what we are doing and different things. This program will be really easy for my future students to be able to make their own videos. I can come up with different types of assignments for my students to use this program and others like it. We will be able to make different types of vidcasts as colleagues as well. I am way excited to be able to work with my colleagues and have fun with programs of this sort. I am excited to be able to use these programs in the future and new technologies of the same type that they will come up with in the future. I love this type of technology and creativity. It doesn't help that i am a perfectionist tho :) but i love it anyway and cant wait to make the best of it in the future!!

Reflection #4: Podcasts

For the assignment this week we had to come up with a PSA, Public Service Announcement. I had a lot of fun doing this assignment. We did an announcement on a Book Drive and it was fun to use the different tools to record an audio message. We ended up using Garage Band on the Mac and it turned out really good. I am really impressed with the technology that we have today. It makes life so much easier sometimes!! I could use this technology and information in some of my classes today. I think the reason we do/learn things like this is to make our lives easier in the future. Without this class I wouldn't know half the stuff about computers and technology that i do now. I feel as though without this class i would be lost and not know about google docs and google sites and about all the things we are learning in this class. I would be like my great grandma and not know how to even turn the computer on (okay maybe not that far, but close). I am excited to use this information and technology in my classroom. It will be a great addition to my websites and even my lesson plans. I can even have my own students make a podcast and see what they will come up with. I cant wait to be able to make all sorts of podcasts and things. It makes me even more excited for my future as a teacher! I love learning about technology and how it will help my classroom grow and adapt and be engaging. It will help me become an even better teacher!

Reflection #3: Google Sites

I learned a lot about google sites this week. For our assignment we had to create and include items on our own google site. I really enjoyed this assignment. Putting the google site together was a lot of fun. I will use it in my classes today and use a lot of the information that i put onto my site. I think we are doing this assignment because technology is becoming bigger and bigger in our classrooms. With the google site you can upload items and assignments and have announcements and things so the parents can be involved if they want to be. A lot of times parents don't want to take the time to contact the teacher or the school to find out what their student missed or whats going on at the school, with the google site option the parents can look up all of that information if they want from anywhere that has an Internet connection. i have learned a great deal by doing this assignment. If i as a teacher do all of this to help out my parents and students then i can become a better teacher and have more input from my students parents. We as colleagues can use google sites as well to collaborate on different things as needs be. I really love that option! I can use this technology and make a different google site if i wanted to because i now have that option. I can give my students assignments on my site that they have to do at home. It can be games, interactives, virtual field trips, or all sorts of different things..the options are endless. I am excited for my options as a future teacher! With this type of technology and the technology that is yet to be created, we as teachers will have so many options that we wont know what to do with ourselves! I LOVE IT!!!

EDEL 3250: Reflection #2: Google Docs

This weeks class we learned more about google docs. I remember using them last year in our intro computer tech class. I thought they were pretty neat but to be honest with you i never used them after i was done with the class. I am excited to use them again and be able to collaborate with my class and the partners i have for assignments. Google docs has definitely been beneficial these first few weeks of school. A couple of my classmates put together a contact list of everyone in our cohort and a calendar of things that are due for each class. I am so glad they did this otherwise i would be stressed out to the MAX!!! I am so excited to be able to use this in my future classroom with my future colleagues. It will make life so much easier!! I am looking forward to learning more about the programs that google has to offer. i really like the calendar and the i google application. it makes things more interesting. I can only imagine what they will come up with in the future that will be even better for my students! I plan to include tons of technology in my class room when i begin teaching. I cant wait to start getting started with the future! I love the idea of technology in my future class room. I can only imagine what the future of technology will bring to students and what they will be able to do with it. This day in age if you don't know how to use a computer you are pretty much out of the loop. More and more people, no matter what age, are having to figure out what technology is about. I am glad that i have learned about it at the age i have because otherwise i wouldn't know anything and technology is the way of life now days. I just want the future to be here already!! :)

EDEL 3250: Reflection #: Goals/Expectations/Fears

My goals for Instructional Media EDEL 3250 include some of the following: becoming better at using technology, become a better student and future teacher because of technology, be able to teach using technology fundamentals, love the technology, and use technology enough that i will know where to find things and what i am using. Some of my goals for the education program itself are becoming a teacher that my students can look up to and feel safe around. I want to be a teacher that has had an impact on a student and 20 years down the road that student can look back and be thankful for the teacher that i was. I want to be able to care for each student as an individual and love them for who they are.

Some fears that i have are that i will be inadequate. That i wont have an impact on my students. That i will be the mean, ornery, grouchy teacher that no one likes. I'm afraid that my students wont love me. I'm afraid that i will fail them. There are many more but i don't want to get too in depth.

I am very grateful to be in the program and look forward to graduating and having my class and students. I know i have quite a few fears, but what is happiness if you don't have fears? Why let fears rule your life? You have to take risks if you want to get better at anything and love life!

EDEL 4540: Reflection 1: Teaching In, Through, With, & About the Arts

I have taken a few arts classes in my school years. My most recent experience with art would be from high school and my 3 years of college. I loved art classes when i was in elementary although i wasn't very good at it. I had teachers who would integrate art into my assignments. One assignment i remember in particular was in the fourth grade. We researched about mountain men and i was assigned Jim Bridger. We were to write about their life and draw a picture of what they looked like. This was one of my favorite assignments as a child. I took an interior design class in high school through UVU (UVSC at the time) and i absolutely loved the class. I would really love to incorporate arts in my class room. I learned a lot in the few chapters of the book so far and i cant wait to learn more! One of my favorites was that you cant Google new problems, because if they are new problems then there aren't any solutions yet. My future students are going to be the ones to come up with those solutions so i cant be the kind of teacher to squash their ideas. I need and have to be the kind of teacher who uses lots of arts in my classroom. My teachers loved art when i was in school. I think that is one reason i loved art so much when i was younger. They have had a lot of influence on my life and why i want to become a teacher.  I need to love the arts like they did in order to incorporate them into my classroom. I need to learn a lot more about art in order to be able to integrate the arts effectively into my future classroom. I am so excited for this class and to learn so much about art and bring my childhood love of art back to life!!!