Technology in the Classroom

Using technology in the classroom is very beneficial. Our world that we live in now uses technology everyday, and it now must be incorporated into the classroom. Students will expect to use technology in their classroom because they use it everyday at home and at play. As a future teacher it is my job to teach students how to properly use and teach them the responsibilities of technology. Technology can make learning fun and interactive which will help students learn and will excite them to learn new things.

The benefits for teachers to use technology are endless. From making interactive lesson plans to teach to keep a grade book, technology is helpful in every area. Using technology, it will be easy to make corrections and add things onto current lesson plans. Technology will have its glitches, but it is important to teach students to use technology and take advantage of it. With technology and its glitches, teachers need to have backup plans when the current program or technology decides to not work. Students will be watching the teachers every move, so it is very important to look like you are in charge and have a plan. Students also will be able to use their own creativity to make projects/power points/blogs/etc when using technology in the classroom.

I learned a lot more than I expected from Ed Tech. I thought this class would revolve around how to use a Smart Board, but I learned many new tips and tools on how to use technology. I hope my future school district will have the types of technology and programs I used and learned in this class so I can teach students how to  use technology.

Copyright

I have observed many copyright laws being violated in school. My teachers have been breaking these copyright laws since I was in kindergarten to twelfth grade. Most of the copyright laws that were being broken was from showing a movie that was not for educational purposes and the teachers most likely did not get permission to show the movie. In some classes in middle and high school my teachers did not even make us use a works cited page to show our sources when writing a paper. Violations of copyright outside of school probably occurs more than inside of school. Many people download illegal movies and music off of the internet without permission. As teachers I believe it is our job to teach students about copyright laws. Since more and more people are downloading illegal things off of the internet it will be more common in the future. Students need to know that there are consequences for copyrighting other peoples work. Teachers need to explain to students that how would they like to feel if someone else stole their work without asking. There could probably be a lesson created just to teach students about copyright laws, teachers could play Jeopardy (like we did in class) or have students "steal" each others work and then discuss about their feelings afterward.

Good/Bad Electronic Portfolios

Good- http://sherlinjohn.info/
This portfolio is very pleasing to the eye. It shows the creaters personal identify and personality. The portfolio shows many examples of the creators work and they are easy to get to. The top of the portfolio has a little information about the creator which adds a nice personal touch.

Bad- http://poyileung.wordpress.com/
This portfolio is very dull. The background and the color of the font are similar and almost hard to read. It also has a lot of information on the side of the webpage and it is hard to find examples of work. Also there is a lot of information on the front of the page that I think does not add to the portfolio.

Classroom Scenario

Grade: 11
Area: English
Topic: Romeo and Juliet Video Scenes

Prior knowledge for making video projects the students would need to know how to work a video camera.  Also students would have to know the video making software on the computer to be able to upload it on YouTube. I would hold one class time for just going over how to work video cameras and how to use them properly. Another class period would be used to review and/or learn how to use the video software program. Students would have to sign out video cameras from the school.

A challenge a teacher would have to deal with is to make sure students did not do anything inappropriate on the video camera while filming. Before the filming began I would remind students the rules on what to shoot on their camera and guidelines. Another issue that might come up in making these videos are finding places for the students to shoot the video while in school. I would possibly have to reserve certain rooms in the schools for students to work in. Also I would not be able to watch over every group at the same time, so groups would be unsupervised during parts of the class period.

Before assigning the video project students would have read Romeo and Juliet. Students would also have seen clips from a movie on Romeo and Juliet. Students would know all characters, their roles, and most of the scenes. Students would be broken up into groups of 5. Each group would then be assigned a scene from Romeo and Juliet (Ex: the balcony scene). Students would decide among themselves who would play each part in the video (not all students have to have speaking parts in the video). The video would have to be 5 to 10 minutes long (depending on the scene). A rubric of what is going to be looked for in the video would be given out to each group. Some of the things that I would look for is that the characters are well defined in the video, you can clearly hear the characters in the video, it is within the time frame asked, and the scene makes sense and is not inappropriate. The timeline for this project would be broken into a week/week and a half. Students would be given 2 class periods to shoot the video, 2 class periods to put it on the computer and edit it. Then there will be one day of presentations of the videos to the whole class.

Video Project

I think my group video project turned out very well. The only problem we had was that we had a lot of information to put in our video and not enough time to lay it all out. We fixed this problem by cutting out some video and adding the speed up affect to our video. We could have improved by maybe actually using voices in our video, instead of just using text. For our topic of how to do laundry I would not change our approach to creating this video. I learned many skills from this project, including how to work a video camera, how to use a video making software, how to get free music links from the internet, and how to save videos on the computer to upload onto the internet. All of these skills I learned from this project will help me a lot in the future when I have my own classroom.

Interactive Whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards enhance teaching and learning in multiple ways. For example, it makes learning interactive for students in the classroom, which engages their minds and makes learning fun. The technology was somewhat difficult at first to learn, but after practice it got easier to understand. Some pros for using an interactive whiteboard are showing video clips, interactive learning, writing on the board and being able to erase it/fix it, and showing examples to students that are able to move and interact with students. Some cons for using them in the classroom are that the software on them can get out of date or break. It would be a pain if you planned a lesson on the whiteboard and then came into class the next day to find the interactive whiteboard broken. Some of the lessons I wrote in the past were about life cycles, adaptations, geometry, and counting. I could use some of the interactive activities that the Smartboard software has for practice for any of these lessons. For example, for the geometry lesson I could have many different shapes on the screen and then have different sections on the board where students have to place the shape that fits the best in the specific section. I don't think I would use the interactive whiteboard everyday in my classroom, but it is a good piece of technology to implement in certain lessons.

Software

I think it was very beneficial that we learned all of the software skills. The skills we learned are something that we will all use in teaching, whether it is in elementary or secondary school. Word and Publisher were probably the most helpful for me because I feel like when I become a teacher these are the ones I will use the most. I will be writing letters, newsletters, flyers, etc. to my students and their parents probably on a weekly basis. I didn't realize in Word how it was so much easier to make tables in order to make things line up equally. I also really liked learning how to make concept maps. The program that we learned to use is so much easier then just making it on Word. Making concept maps will help me plan my lessons and units for the class. It is such a good organizational tool. You can make anything from a teaching tool to an assessment for your students with these skills learned. Using a concept map would be a good example of an assessment to use for your students. Overall all the software skills learned will help out in the future when we all become teachers.