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.

My first shot at an Animoto video

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

This Animoto video was so much fun to make!  When our professor gave this assignment to us as extra credit my first reaction was to shy away from it. I was a little scared of navigating a new program. I thought it was going to be difficult. It ended up being very simple to use. I chose my photos, and through the program chose a background for my video slideshow. Many of the backgrounds were for paying users and were really cool. It almost made me want to pay for it! There were some nice ones for free though. I uploaded the photos and then picked music to go along with it. I had the perfect song to go along with my video but did not have access to it on the computer I was on. I ended up picking a song from the choices that Animoto offered. The finished product was the video above.

Digital Collection

The digital collection was an interesting assignment for me. As I have said before I am not great with computers and that includes digital images. I have used digital images for a while on social networking sites but I previously had my best friend resize or crop any photos that needed to be fixed. This was my first experience resizing and changing the dpi on digital photos. I am glad to know that it is not as hard as I once believed it to be. I explored programs such as photoshop and picnik in order to resize my photos.  Screenshots and scanning were also new me. I have used screenshots since this assignment in other classes. I learned a lot from this assignment and will absolutely be using these new skills in my future classroom.

Wikis

Wikis are great ways for people to collaborate on a project or to compile information on a specific topic. I have enjoyed using wikis. I am used to meeting with a group to do a group project. Wikis make it easy for multiple people to work on the same activity or project without having to take time out of their day to meet with the entire group. It make collaboration as easy as getting online. Communicating about the project through the wiki is also very simple. There is a place to comment at the bottom of each page, so each member can explain why they did what they did or what they think about something on the page. Wikis are easy to navigate and easy to edit.  I will continue to use wikis in my schooling and possibly in my classroom.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is really interesting. It is so interactive and you can do a ton of cool things with the different tools and  applications. After hearing all of the presentations I decided to start using delicious. Most people have their own computers but I do not at the moment. Delicious is a great way to bookmark web pages and I can access them from any computer! Voicethread, which is the tool I did my presentation on, is something I will probably use in my classroom. It is a great way for children to work collaboratively and creatively on a project or presentation. Smilebox is also very neat. I have scrapbooked in the past on paper and now I have an opportunity to scrapbook online. This tool would be great for creating a scrapbook in the classroom of the children's artwork, projects, activities, or just the class in general. Web 2.0 tools are great and I can see myself learning more about them and using them in my life and in my future classroom.

Actually Evaluating a Web Page

I had the opportunity to use an evaluation tool to evaluate a web site that I could potentially use as a resource when I become a teacher. I will be working with some children with learning disabilities so I looked for a site that might be a useful resource on the topic. I found a site that looked very nice and seemed to be full of great information. From first glance I thought I would be checking the box for "highly recommend" at the end of my evaluation, but that was not the case. This site did not provide any contact information for the author and I was unable to find out if the organization behind the site was considered a leader on the topic or not.  I did recommend with reservations, however, because there were many publications with references and all that I believe would be a good resource.  This assigment helped me to be able to take a closer at web sites before I trust the author or the information provided.

Useful Tool for Evaluating Web Pages

http://library.duke.edu/services/instruction/libraryguide/evalwebpages.html

Here is a link to Duke University Library's website. It takes you straight to the page about evaluating web pages. I liked this site because it starts with a brief overview of the criteria one should look for in a credible web page. Authority, purpose, currency, objective, and support are the five overshadowing criteria. The author breaks down each of these criteria and gives the reader questions to consider as well as tips to use while evaluating a site. This evaluation tool would be helpful to anyone wanting or needing to know the credibility of a certain source. It is concise and easy to follow.

Technology

Technología, the title of my blog, is the Greek word from which technology is derived. Téchnē is an art, skill, or craft and –logía is the study of something. I chose this title because it fit with purpose of this blog. Over the next couple of months I will be studying and learning a new craft (for me anyway). In order to understand it fully I am posting exactly what I learn along the way. I am learning how to use technology and implement it in my future classroom.

I know and use basic computer skills in my daily life. I use email, facebook, search engines, etc., but I am not technologically savvy….yet. I feel comfortable using technology although I often need assistance figuring out how to do specific tasks. Once I have had a little guidance I can usually handle things on my own. I feel confident in my ability to learn and excited to do so, but I also feel a little worried because it is not something I am very familiar with.

I believe that the use of technology in the classroom can offer depth to group activities and give the children a fun and creative way to collaborate. Technology also offers many ways to organize school work including agendas, vocabulary lists, responses to class discussions, etc. Using technology in the classroom can also prepare children for the increasingly technological society that we live in. When I was in high school we used computers, but rarely. The generations to come will surely use technology more and more in their daily lives and introducing them to it early can only help them.

About Me

      My name is Carrie Sorensen. I am a senior in Child and Family Studies working on my Pre K- K teacher licensure at the University of Tennessee. I love children; this is the main reason I have chosen to be a teacher. It amazes me how eager children are to learn. They look at the world with so much curiosity and wonder. This helps me to look at the world with more wonder as well. My experience with children started in high school. I spent many weekends babysitting in my neighborhood. Once I started realizing my desire to work with children regularly I began working at Kiddie Kottage Learning Center in Farragut. I gained many great experiences there working with children ages 6 months to 9 years old. In school I took Apple Core, or Education 100, my sophomore year. During my junior year I volunteered for Head Start for a few weeks and also did lab work in the university’s Early Learning Center. I worked with 2 year old children as well as pre-schoolers.


      When I am not working or going to school you may see me riding my bike around. I love to bike. I spend many of my afternoons with my boyfriend, Adam. I also love to hang out with my dog, Sam, and my two chinchillas, Nacona and Yuki. Music is another passion of mine. I am currently attempting to learn to play the guitar and I often go to local shows to see bands play. Reading is another one of my favorite hobbies. I like to read books of all kind; fiction, non-fiction, biographies, mystery-thrillers, science fiction, etc. Although these are a few of my favorite things, I always like to take the chance of trying something new.