Final Blog

My lesson was designed to promote community and friendship in my classroom. I applied my lesson to the communication arts grade level expectation:
2. Develop and apply effective skills and strategies to analyze and evaluate oral and visual
media
A. Media Messages
5th grade: Analyze messages conveyed in various media (e.g., videos, pictures, web-
sites, artwork, plays and/or news programs)

The main aspect of the lesson was to read a book about friendship and talk about the various aspects of friendship. Then the students brainstormed examples and talked about examples from the book. We also watched “hipposodes” on the Owen and Mzee website which were student created paper character cartoons. These cartoons showed several acts of friendship between Owen and Mzee and were great brainstorming times for the students to come up with their own scenarios.
After reading the book and watching the student created cartoons, the students were excited to talk about ways they could apply friendship in the classroom. To extend the lesson further, in the following weeks, we kept updated on Owen and Mzee’s progress through the Park’s blog. The blog allowed the students to stay connected and added in another piece of technology. Although this lesson did not allow the students to use the technology when it was convenient for them and to enhance their own personal learning, it was still beneficial. Due to the constraints of technology in my classroom, achieving the transforming uses portion of Grappling’s technology Spectrum was not possible. However, the students were still able to learn and complete an activity that could only be accomplished through technology, but was not for the sake of technology.

blogging once again...

I am very unlucky when it comes to posting on my blog! That pretty much sums up my technology savvy. I was locked out again and it claimed it did not recognize my email address. I was finally able to log in again, thank goodness! While on my job hunt, I am realizing I have been extremely lucky with having a smart board and interwrite and two student computers in my room. I am constantly amazed by how many schools do not have these items in the classrooms. Since I am not in an economically wealthy school district, I wondered why they have these items and other more prominent districts did not. After more thorough questioning in my building, I realized there were a couple of specific teachers that brought this technology to my school in order to create more teaching and learning opportunities for everyone.
I realized as I was reviewing with my students for MAP testing that I have become rather dependent on teaching using my smart board. For example, I was reviewing math using a jeopardy game in powerpoint on my smart board with my class. They absolutely loved it. I started thinking about how much work I would have to do to reproduce this game by hand using paper and a large wall without my projector and smart board. I just wouldn't do it because it would be so time consuming. I just hope I have the same advantages in whatever school I end up in.

viewing videos

My projector and smartboard have made showing videos and clips so much better than pulling in the old TV on a rolling cart! I can't even imagine going back to doing that after having a projector and using my computer. I have searched for pertinent video clips using united streaming and it is amazing the amount of information at my disposal. I figured out how to search by GLEs and narrow it to specific topics within a GLE. It simplified the search process and helped narrow the search results. Then showing the clip using a projector allows all the students to easily see the video without having to move their chairs. It is very convenient.

I have found an issue with my interwrite. This issue is remembering to plug it in at night to allow it to charge and be ready to go during the day. Three times I have forgotten to do this and it isn't usable when I go to use it. Remembering to keep it charged is a problem I need to work on! Our school has said they will offer training courses in using the interwrite to allow teachers to become more proficient. However, it's been over three months and I still haven't heard anything.
There is a teacher in the district who is apparently very well-versed in using an interwrite and she had multiple teachers in her room observing her use of the interwrite as a learning tool. Observing another teacher using it in action in the classroom is a good way to see how it can actually be utiluzed in the classroom. There is a big difference between using a learning tool in a presentation with all adults compared to using it in a classroom of 10 year olds. I look forward to learning more about using this tool in my classroom to engage my students. I think it will be beneficial to their learning.

Finally!!!

I have been trying to log into my blog all month and I finally was able to email the site and get it fixed today! I am still utilizing the interwrite most days. The students love being able to use it and I have them show their work, particularly in math, using it during lessons.

I was able to transfer several activities my students were going to have to do into my smart notebook program and model exactly what I wanted the students to do as they were doing it in class. This has really helped with student understanding and made my explanations more easily understood.

It is nice being able to prepare lessons in advance using the smart board and not having to draw them out on the chalk board or on chart paper. It helps our days to go more smoothly.

Interwrite All Day

I used my Interwrite all day on Thursday!!! I charged it overnight and just jumped right in using it. I need to look at those online tutorials in order to figure out more than just the basics. However, the students really enjoyed the sight I made walking around the classroom using it. It kept them more engaged than me just writing on the smartboard. I was able to use it as a bargaining tool in order to get them to pay attention. During our morning work the students' attention was focused on the board and I was able to call on individual students to use the Interwrite to share their thinking. This allowed the students to still be learning from each other and paying attention to their classmates' thinking.
I am looking forward to becoming more adept at using it and showing the students how to use it.

December

December came a lot faster than I anticipated! Common assessments are finally finished and graded. My projector bulb was out for four weeks! That made me really aware of the technology department in a not so good way. However, now the bulb is replaced and my projector is back up and running. I didn't feel like I used utilized it all that much until I didn't have it to use anymore. I had short video clips about atoms I wanted the students to watch and then I realized I couldn't do all sorts of things I had already planned. Now I can get back on track. I still haven't tried out my interwrite yet either. I couldn't with my projector not working. Now I have to figure out how to use the interwrite before they take my smart board away! I have heard that interwrites are easier for students to use and I am looking forward to being able to involve the students. My fellows partner has used her interwrite all year and I will be asking her for some pointers.