TPTE 486: The Class as a Whole

Theory and Practice in Teacher Education 486
When I first walked into the classroom and laid my eyes on the room full of Macintosh computers I was scared and intimidated. Technology has never been my strong point. I originally thought I was going to struggle my way through this class. That was not the case. I learned so much and enjoyed it immensely. Wikis and all of the Web 2.0 tools will be very valuable as I integrate technology into my classroom. These tools open up many opportunities for learning in interactive and interesting ways. I am excited to implement them into my class and help the children learn through various mediums. I personally see much worth in collaborative and interactive work. I never imagined that using technology could help me to encourage the students in cooperative and collaborative projects and activities.

Images are an important aspect of learning for young children. The skills I developed related to digital images in this class will help me to incorporate them into my lessons and into my classroom. The work we have done with digital images has showed me how the students can use digital images to deepen their understanding and encourage learning. The scavenger hunt was one of my favorite activities and I can see myself using it with my students.
The diagram program, Inspiration, and Excel were both skills that I am happy to have learned. Both of these I can see myself using in and out of the classroom.

I do not believe that I would have been able to adequately integrate technology into my classroom without the help of this class. TPTE 486 had helped me to change my opinions about technology and change my reservations about using it for myself and for my class.

Classroom Website

The final project in TPTE 486 is creating a classroom website. I will definitely be using this in my classroom. This is a great way to keep parents up to date on the activities and projects we are doing in class. This also offers a space for parents and students to share with me how they feel about specific aspects of the class. It is also provides me with the option of sharing information about myself so the students and families can get to know me better. I will embed or link my blog to the classroom website. My blog would show the ideas and reflections I have for the class. I would like to have a section for the students on my website as well. In this section I would allow the students to decide for themselves what they would like to include in their section. The class website offers so many opportunities to create a community of learners that includes the students and their families.

Blogging

Yes, I am writing a blog post about blogging. This has been my first experience blogging. At first I was not excited about blogging. I was open to it but not thrilled. My attitude has changed through the course of 486. I really see the value in it. Since my introduction to blogging I have found many blogs written by teachers and for teachers that are informative and interesting. It is nice to read about others experiences. I have found this to be the case for our class blogs as well. It is interesting to see how differently everyone in the class approaches certain assignments and projects. I will incorporate a blog into my classroom website once I have my own classroom. I believe that this will be a good way to share what has been going on in the class and for parents to be able to comment and share their opinion.

iMovie - A Greedy and Ambitious Cow

This iMovie was one of the most difficult projects for me so far, but I was able to navigate the program and come out with a finished movie. I did have fun doing this assignment but it was challenging for me. There were a few points where I got aggravated and had to take a deep breath before continuing. iMovie would be great to use in the classroom. It is not something that my students will be able to use, but I can use the program to develop movies for lessons, activities, and just for fun. One of my peers, Kayla, did her movie on classroom rules. I thought this was a great way to engage the children in learning about classroom rules. My movie was an illustration of a children’s poem.  I believe that the children would enjoy watching a video like this.  It is a different medium than they are probably used to when it comes to literacy activities but that fact could help hook them into the activity and make it more fun.  

Interactive Language Arts Worksheet

The interactive language arts worksheet that I created was one of my favorite projects. I used the Excel program to create it. I think this is a great way to interest students in completing worksheets. Worksheets were never my favorite activity in school and I believe this interactive worksheet on the computer will give students more motivation to complete it. As a teacher, I would try to use these in place of paper worksheets as much as possible. It saves on paper and I believe it would be more fun for the students. I am glad that I was given the opportunity to learn at least the basics of Excel. I can see myself using it to record grades, create worksheets, and I can also use it now in my work at a real estate company as well.

Insect Body Parts: A diagram made with Inspiration

Using the inspiration program was a lot of fun. The program was fairly easy to navigate and offered many options for personalizing each project completed on it. I chose to do my Inspiration project on insect body parts. I felt that this was a good topic to do on Inspiration because it offered easy linking between topics, such as the three specific parts of an insect. I do not believe it would be appropriate for the children to use this in a preschool classroom but the children in a Kindergarten classroom could possibly use it. As the teacher, I could use Inspiration program to map out and explain specific topics in a new and interesting ways. I could incorporate these diagrams into lessons and activities in almost any subject.

Color Scavenger Hunt

Create a free picture slideshow The color scavenger hunt is something that I will definitely be using in my future classroom. I was absent from class the day that this assignment was assigned. Originally, we were to work in groups in order to complete the assignment. I wish I had the opportunity to work with a group on this and share ideas about how to present and use this type of thing in the classroom. I completed the assignment on my own and did not have any problems. I am sure that young children would be capable of capturing digital images for a scavenger hunt.  I will be working with young children who would benefit greatly from this type of assignment, whether it is about colors, shapes, or even bugs. It would give them the opportunity to work with digital images while learning basic skills. It is an active lesson where they children would have the freedom to move around the room or school. This is a project that could be done as a class, in small groups, or individually. I completed my color scavenger hunt and proceeded to put the pictures into a Smilebox presentation.  Smilebox was easy and fun to use. They offer many themes and blank presentations as well. I’m not sure that young children would be able to navigate this image site but there are many other options for displaying the images online, or printed out.