Scenario

As an a future educator I believe I have many different strengths, those of which include knowing how to explain a concept in several different ways for multiple different learning styles, being well prepared and organized for classes, having a deep knowledge and being enthused with my subject matter, and being technologically savvy. I believe these are important traits to already have developed since I will need to keep growing in these areas even though I feel like they are my strong attributes. My weaknesses that will be worked on throughout my career and as a person are extreme patience with students, classroom management skills, and too high of expectations for the students or creating too high of objectives for them to reach. I have noticed my patience wavers with students when I explain something to the best of my ability and they do not put in the effort to understand. This being said, I do recognize this trait and work on it everyday when I tutor people at Kansas State University. I know that since I start to lack patience with some of them, and they are university students, that I most likely will have the same issues with high school students.
Even though patience is a problem right now I know I will be much more patient in 3-5 years when I am actually a teacher and have had that time as a tutor to work on the trait. In 3-5 years I plan to be teaching in a high need school in the Kansas City, Kansas area or suburbs. I come from a rural town but believe I have the demeanor that will allow me to succeed with these students and hopefully inspire them like my teachers inspired me. I am already working towards this goal by being a Noyce Scholar and attending conferences discussing the topics of high need schools. I am also going to start volunteering at many different schools in the Manhattan, Kansas area and during a summer, hopefully, introduce myself to a high need school in Kansas City and help there so I am able to properly adjust to the environment before being a full-time teacher there. I hope that this will give me great experience and network me with the principals in the area so I am able to teach there. Teaching in a high need school would mean trying to catch the students attention in many different ways and with many different methods.
One of the easiest methods is using technology. In an age where toddlers are already playing video games and using interactive technology to read, it is no wonder that students get bored in a traditional classroom setting where minimum amount of technology is used. I will try to implement any technology into my classroom because I believe it is one of the best ways to teach and for students to learn. It can help students with special needs see the visual aspects of a lesson, or if they are dyslexic or slow readers there are voice to speech options to help these students. Besides helping students with special needs it also allows me to deliver lessons in new and fun ways. One way that I am really excited to use technology in the classroom is using simulations for students to learn the scientific method with or delve deeper into a subject area. This simulation would allow for all learning styles and multiple subject matters to be incorporated. Even though I am very excited to use this technology I have never actually used it in my current life. Learning how this new technology works could be a challenge but there are many things I would do to be a successful at it.
I would fist start out by seeing if there are any tutorials on the Internet that I could watch that would give me a heads up on what I am about to use and the problems I could run into. If I did not have this I would run through the program myself several times to understand how it works and explore the many possibilities it has for me. These strategies for learning about simulation technology could also be used to use any software application or program. If I was still having issues with this, I might even as my brother who is very technology-able or one of my students who loves technology because I know every class has one. If all of these strategies fail, I will call the company or go to the website and ask for any help from the creators that I can get.
I know that the use of new technology for teaches is very challenging since I was in a school that had one-to-one Mac laptops for the students. Even though some of my teachers had issues implementing new tools, I still loved the ease that computers brought to my schooling. This early start with laptops and technology in the classroom has made me very technologically savvy and has greatly improved my learning and education. I am able to do things with technology that books and a library could not have provided me with. Technology has been an essential part of my education.
I do not know what I would do without technology since it is so influential in my life. I believe that the students I will be teaching feel the same way, so if I see a faculty member in my school not integrating technology into their classroom I will be inclined to give them a few helpful tools and hints that they could use in their classroom. Digital story telling through photos and recordings would be one of the easiest ways for students to use technology since they will all have it on their cell phones. It is a simple way to use resources that students already have and use frequently. If a faculty member does not enjoy that idea I would also encourage them to use iPads because, like with any technology, you are able to block sites and monitor the students behavior from a remote location. It keeps the kids safe on the internet and the teachers nerves under control. Once this control is established teachers would be able to assign students any sort of internet based project.
One of my favorite projects uses Prezi, an online, very interesting presenting tool. One of my other favorite tools is Wall Wisher that is basically just a giant wall of sticky notes. These tools could be used for students to give feedback to the teacher and also to create a very interesting project to present to the class. Science teachers are all about project based learning (PBL) nowadays and this is a simple way to start incorporating PBL into the classroom. It has been proven to help many students learn material better and faster. I would use these sites when discussing elements so students could pick one element and share how this element affects their peers lives everyday and the type of impact it has in the chemical world. Students could also use this site to post a short presentation at a home project they did and share it with me and their peers. As you can see, there are endless possibilities to integrate these tools in the classroom and I am only discussing two resources. The internet has 1x10E100 resources that I could use in my classroom and plan on doing so.
I am very excited to use these resources in my classroom and to be an educator. There is nothing that makes me more excited then introducing young minds to technology, scientific discoveries, and helping them to become the new leading minds in the field of science. I know that teaching is the right field for me and that I will succeed in being an educator.

My WOW Moment

My wow moment was when I learned about my skills on the computer and skills when it comes to using internet resources. I realized that I am decently competent when it comes to using technology and usually do not need any explanation on how certain tools work. I am the exploring type when it comes to figuring out how tools and resources work. I prefer this type of learning instead of watching a presentation or reading a PDF about how to make these items work correctly. I had an idea that this might have been part of my learning style, but was never for sure because I am also a book learner and can get much of my information from books and be able to implement it. That is why it surprised me when I did not like reading the information to learn and instead preferred the hands on style. This wow moment was coupled with a wow moment that I could create my own personal website successfully and have it be aesthetically pleasing while including all of the material and helpful information it needed to. I thought it would be a little more difficult for me to understand how the layouts worked and the tools I was able to embed onto my site. It gives me confidence as a future educator to be able to use sites that I might not understand and still be successful in using them and being able to help others with them. I am very proud of myself for my website, but still know there is plenty of work I must do on it so it is ready to be reviewed by my future employers.

My website

Podcast favorite: Tech Chick Tips

Tech Chick Tips is by far my favorite podcast to listen to. Not only do these ladies offer tons of resources for educators to use, they also have funny banter and keep the Podcast short and sweet. Other Podcasts I have listened to have began to drag on after the first 30 minutes of listening to the topic. Now, do not get me wrong, these other Podcasts were interesting but it is hard to sit still and listen to somebody talk for an hour when there are other pressing items on my agenda. This is why I love Tech Chick Tips. I load them onto my iPod and can listen to their whole cast in the time it takes me to walk to class. I am able to do things successfully at once. My favorite podcast of these ladies was the very first one I listened to about the National Science Foundation (NSF). I loved that they found a site that related Olympic Sports to science in a fun and educational way in the classroom. Many of my students will be participating in some sort of sport or possibly enjoy watching sports and this is a very easy way to relate my content to their lives. It was an eyeopener for how easy it is to find useful resources to use in my classroom. I was very excited to get into a classroom and use this website. Besides only using NSF for the Olympic sports relation, I know that it has much more to offer to science educators. The NSF has excellent lab books, project based learning books, and instruction by inquiry books for teachers to use. I have seen these books at a conference I attended and was very pleased with how helpful these materials were. I hear from most teachers that coming up with labs that are cheap, easy, and appropriate is very hard especially with the budget cuts happening in many school districts. So, by now, you should see why I love Tech Chick Tips, they appeal to my nerdy side.

Semester Favorites: Prezi and Google Docs

My favorites of the semester are........drumroll please..........Prezi and Google Docs.

My Prezi Creation

Prezi was an amazing alternative to the regular boring power point presentation that most teachers and professors still stick to today. My class used this resource when we were discussing Challenged Based Learning (CBL) and it opened my eyes, as a future science teacher, to the possibilities that created in my classroom. I could do project on water conservation, recycling, and anything that improved the way we live today and could reduce the use of natural resources. This type of project would be a HOTS style of learning because it would make students think about their impact on their own world and on their classmates lives. Besides inspirational projects, I could also use it for basic lessons and projects with the students. It is much more interesting than any power point I have ever seen. I enjoyed the fact that YouTube videos are embedded straight onto the presentation instead of having to open in another window and wait for that connectivity to start. To me all of these things make it an excellent presentation resource. This brings me to my next resource Google Docs.

Example of a form

I love love love Google Docs. I have used it before for spreadsheets and the basic document, but I never knew about the form feature or the drawing feature it offered. Once I learned about these helpful applications offered by Google Docs I have used these features in many of my classes. In another course of mine we created book strategies and I used the drawing tool to create a map. It was much easier than using my other documents to create a visual map. I have also used the form application multiple times this semester. It is a great way to create a short quiz or exit pass for students in my classroom. Besides the teacher aspect of this resource, I could see my students really enjoying it. The sharing feature allows for students to still meet and collaborate on a project without the hassle of finding a mutual time to meet outside of school or in school. I still have this problem of deciding on times to meet with members of my group and this feature of the documents eliminates that problem. I will definitely keep using this throughout my schooling and in my classroom.

Podcast Reflection #12: Learning in Hand: Project Based Learning

Learning in Hand
Project based learning (PBL) is a very important in a classroom. Students answer an essential/driving question that is unique to them so the teacher receives a large variety of answers. This shows the different types of thinking of the individual's in the classroom. Besides creating a great question for students to answer it is important to include parameters for the project. This means having the students include specific information without influencing the answer they will produce. It is a way to get the students to delve deeper into the subject area and cover the standards that need to be covered while the students are still exploring and, hopefully, enjoying the subject manner. I really liked the idea of creating a pre-rubric for the students, but then presenting it in front of the class and having the students help add areas and help decide on the amount of points each area is worth. This is great, because as the podcast said, it allows students to take more responsibility for the project. It also helps the students understand the goals of the project. Another beneficial rubric method was having the students review each others work before the teacher actually receives it. This allows for a good review and room to improve before the teacher actually gets their hands on it. Using this project based learning style on iPods and iPads is a great idea because of all the free apps students are allowed to us and that are extremely helpful in creating the project. Creating word webs, taking notes, taking pictures, and recording sound are all capabilities that these new devices have that would have only been able to use on computers before. It allows for the students' projects to travel along with them and when they get that brilliant idea they can record it right away. As a pre-service science teacher I have heard many great benefits of project based learning and have a feeling I will love using PBL in my classroom. Projects are a very important part of the science curriculum and really help students to understand the material in depth instead of a brief overview that students receive from worksheets. It also allows them to enjoy the subject matter so I will be an advocate of PBL in my future classroom.

Challenge Based Learning

Challenged Based Learning 

Challenged based learning is a great way to bring real issues into the classroom and have the students come up with ideas to solve these problems.  The problems my students would solve would be related to science due to the fact that I am going to be a science teacher. There are several different ways to use this challenge based learning method in the science classroom. Students could create projects over the use of non-renewable resources and the multiple different ways of reducing the use of these resources. Students could also do projects dealing with the health of people and create short 5-10 minute ways for people to keep healthy everyday. The possibilities for the use of challenged based learning in the classroom are endless. Students also seem to enjoy this interactive learning style. A video done by Australian students shows the enjoyment that students can get by this type of learning (video below). I think that what students can create from these projects could change the world in significant ways. It is amazing to think that short video projects created by the young minds of our students could do so much. I hope that when I implement this teaching method into my classroom that my students enjoy it just as much.

Podcast Reflection #11: NPR Education; 1) School Budget ABCs: Ads Plus Bus Equal Cash 2) Pressure Mounts To Ax Teacher Seniority Rules 3) The Way You Learned Math Is So Old School 4) Miami's Education Success Story

 The first part of the podcast discusses advertising on the sides of buses. From the information presented in the podcast I would not be comfortable taking a side on the issue. From the teaching standpoint I can see where the extra money from the advertisements would be an excellent help to fund the school and activities. It would be helpful but I am always hesitant for big businesses to get involved with funding because I feel like they would use that leverage in some ways. But other than that the podcast mentioned that the students cannot remember what are on the sides of the buses so, currently, it is not affecting them. I am hoping for more studies in various areas of the country to be done. Besides the advertising on the bus issue this podcast discussed the issues of mathematics. Many parents are figuring out that they are not able to help their children in math anymore because of the way math is being taught. This is not a good scenario for the student or the parent. This has happened due to the fact of the creation of calculators that do the arithmetic for you. Students know how to use calculators very well but struggle with the paper and pencil method. This latter method is not widely used anymore and has become somewhat obsolete in the real world. A mathematician that was on the show said that the math taught now is not so much memorization as it was before but an understanding of the number system, but still advocates for students learning their multiplication tables as we did in the old days. From his perspective, the best way to do this is to memorize it rhetorically. I agree with this statement because it becomes very hard for students to do all the processing of numbers in their head and it is easier to memorize it like we would memorize spelling of words. It is hard to say what is the best method when things in the past have worked, but new developments are working well for some students also. I think we should have a combination of old and new techniques so the students who understand one way can use one methods and others can use different methods.

Picture Credit: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/28/earlyshow/living/ConsumerWatch/main1167398.shtml 

Podcast, Website & Blog Mid-term Critiques

Part 1: Podcasts

The two students podcasts that I listened to had a few interesting websites that I have never heard of before. My favorite has to be searchypants though. Besides having a name that you can giggle at, the benefits of this site are numerous. It would allow me to create my own personal search engine and finds for my students so they do not find sites that are not valid. Many students have issues telling the difference between factual sites and nonfactual sites. This is a big problem and this site would help eliminate that problem in my classroom. It is also great in the way that parents would feel more comfortable knowing all of the information was created by the teacher. The other site I was jazzed about was http://math.com. The tutoring, lesson plans, and games would be very helpful in my classroom. Games are a great way to relate the subject matter to a thing that most every kid does on a weekly basis. I was very glad my classmates found these sites so I am able to use them in the classroom.

Part 2: Website/Blog

I was very intrigued to see the difference between the different website creators being used. Google’s websites are a little more basic and do not seem as pizzazzy as wix’s website creator, but they each have their benefits. Google’s website creator seems easy to upload multiple different videos and projects the only thing I do not enjoy about it is the fact that it doesn’t divide up the posts nicely. I personally like the different pages or areas for projects instead of everything being bunched on one page. I really like the wix creator and have been using it. It allows for a variety of different backgrounds and clip art to jazz up the website. I enjoyed my classmates explanations of their projects and will be taking this example and adding explanations to my website.

I am very glad that we did peer reviews because it allowed me to improve my website and find new resources for when I begin to teach.

Comics in My Classroom

ToonDoo  

Comics are an excellent project that could be used for a variety of subjects in a classroom. I personally think it would be very interesting for my students to create a comic strip about elements. These elements would have their own personality relating to the traits they exhibit in our lives. It would help the students to relate content with something they understand well, different personalities. I already try to create this connection between elements and the different traits with different personalities while tutoring and have received positive feedback. I also think comics would allow the budding artists in the classroom to better enjoy the subject matter. It is very difficult for students to listen to lectures all the time and comics would be a great way to change up the lesson plans. It would also be a great alternative assignment for a worksheet. I am very excited to test out this comic idea in my classroom and see if the students enjoyed it as much as I did.

Podcast Reflection #10: Tech Chick Tips: Stuff we forgot to share

Tech Chick Tips

Free wikis are very very helpful in the classroom. It allows for collaboration between the students and teacher. It is easy for students to collaborate online through wikis to create projects. I have used this free technology in one of my anthropology courses and it greatly helped with project. It allowed us to be online together without having to figure out the best time for everybody to meet. This leads to the next site these lovely ladies talked about. http://typewith.me. This site is very similar to google docs. It allows users to pick different colors to type in and allows multiple people to be logged into the document at once. The main and important difference is that this site does not require an email address or login to edit the pages. This is very helpful because creating numerous email addresses for students becomes a chore. It also has a time sliding feature that allows you to view the documents progress from the beginning to end. The last site I will talk about is one that the Smithsonian is helping to run. It is an online game that is using environmental disasters to help students use the scientific method and collect samples to solve the mystery. I really love this concept as a science teacher and also love the fact that the students would be able to receive help from some scientists from all around the world. I think it is super cool. Tech Chick tips has done it once again.

Podcast Reflection #9: Salman Khan Let’s use video to reinvent education

 Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

I am a big fan of TED talks let along Khan academy. I have personally used this site to help with my multiple mathematics courses and chemistry courses. I completely agree with the idea of students/learners can go back and view the videos when they forget a certain subject matter. I do believe many people do not ask questions when they fill as if they are already supposed to know the material. It makes it more comfortable to ask for help, which is crucial to understanding. The idea of flipping the classroom where the students watch the lecture for homework and do the homework in the classroom is wonderful. Like Mr. Khan said it does allow the students to use these videos at their own pace. This allows the student to ask valuable questions in the classroom and develop more personal relationships with their instructors. Besides being a wonderful tool to flip the classroom, the idea of having a check to make sure the students understand the concept before moving on. This idea of having the 10 questions until you have mastered the concept is wonderful to help the students understand the concept instead of maybe not knowing a certain part of the lesson and having the class move on. It builds on the basics that you have mastered and continues on. It is fantastic. I want to use this program in my classroom. I am very excited because I will be able to do more hands on learning and experiments with my students when integrating this technology into the classroom. It also will allow me to help the students with the specific parts that they are struggling with and not spend time on the subjects they understand and probably boring them going over material they already know. I cannot stress enough how important the person-to-person contact is when learning. The students greatly benefit from it and the classroom is enriched. I am all raves about this and hope the Khan academy gets used in many classrooms and that learners/students know about this resource and use it to aid in their learning and development. 

Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0

This site has so much to offer educators. While perusing through the website I found many different groups that would be very helpful to a new teacher. There is a professional development group, groups and posts about subject matter, and also many forums for different computers used in the classroom. All of these things make life a little easier for a beginning teacher. One thing I really like was the science area. One teacher posted about a game called Nano Legends where students learn about cells and the bodies reaction to foreign bodies. It allows students to learn about cells while having an interesting game to play. I also enjoy that there is a group for new comers into the Classroom 2.0 website. This site has many different helpful groups that can help take you step by step through technology processes. This is great because many teachers do not have the extra time to teach themselves how to learn a specific site. Besides these great groups Classroom 2.0 also has a wiki. It offers things such as free workshops, live conversations, and community resources. All of these can be utilized in a classroom and are very important to any teacher, not just beginning teachers. This site has much to offer and even after exploring the site for a long while there are still many more resources on the site that I did not get to visit. This depth of resources makes Classroom 2.0 a wonderful tool for any teacher.

EduTecher

eduTecher

This site offers a plethora of different resources for every subject area taught in schools. Because I am in the science field I decided to take a look around at some of the sites listed on this site that caught my eye. These sites are

Extreme Science
This site is extremely interesting, not only because it is about science, but because it has 6 different areas of the science right on the website. So students who are interested in astronomy could look at the website along with students interested in geology. This site would be very helpful for studying planets, earthquakes, and geology. I would use this site for students to create a paragraph write up about their favorite subject and then have them create that object/subject in an art project to be displayed in the room. I believe it would be fun and interesting for the young budding scientists in my classroom.

Chemical Elements
This site is exactly what it title says. It is all of the chemical elements in their home place, the periodic table. I really like this site because it gives tons of information on the elements, more so than you find in an ordinary text book. It would be very interesting to have students search through the elements and then create a venn diagram that compares and contrasts the 2 elements they choose. This will allow them to see the relationships between elements in the same groups and periods.

Google Body Browser 
This site is excellent for exploring the bodies muscles, brain, skeleton, and organs. It is very easy to use and understand. You can click on the left side bar to get to any of the fore mentioned categories. Also, you can click on the body to see what the certain area or body part is named. This is especially beneficial to students who are talking anatomy and physiology in secondary education. I believe it would greatly aide the studying of the human body. A very simple assignment would be handing out a worksheet to the students and having them click on each of the categories and the different body parts to become accustomed with the site.


All in all eduTecher is a very interesting site. Several fantastic resources are offered but sometimes it is hard to scroll through all the different subject areas and it takes time. But other than that I give the site a thumbs up.

Kan-ed Reflection

 Kan-ed

The Kan-Ed website is a fantastic resource for teachers and students. I remember using it in my high school, but I never knew how many wonderful tools were on this website. As a high school student I only used the library resources from this site, now as a future educator I see a plethora of resources on this site. I am only going to discuss a few due to the fact that this could become a very long blog post if I did not shorten the list. The first, and my favorite tool, is the online tutoring service provided by Kan-Ed. This is simply amazing because many students have questions on their homework at home and many parents are not able to help their children. The children also might be shy to ask their questions in class, but asking these questions in the privacy of their own home is more comfortable. Besides these reasons it is excellent because it allows the students who have been sick to make up their work in a less rushed manner. The other resource I really like was the Thinkfinity resource from Verison. This source has thousands of worksheets that are very easy to find, review, and use for the classroom. These worksheets also vary in activities and plans so it adds a variety to your lesson plans. I will be utilizing this tool in my classroom several times. All in all I really liked the site. I love that the website format is easy to change and that students can also use it. To me it is a very great website for both teachers and students.

Podcast Reflection #8: Learning Matters, Are small arts high schools the answer?

 Learning Matters

This podcast discusses a small arts high school in the Bronx. It is very interesting to hear about this school due to the fact that they do not have tryouts to be in the school. All kids are welcome and are exposed to the arts that they might not have exposed to before. This school was started because of the dismal graduation rates in other schools. They now have a graduation of 83%, which is wonderful. Along with the principal of this school, I believe that size does matter in graduation rates. The smaller the school the more personal care the students get.  The teachers, administration, and students are a very entwined community and each student feels as if they have connections. It is the personalization of small schools that create this atmosphere where students want to graduate. This 83% graduation rate is not always typical of small New York schools. Many of the small schools in New York only have a 50-60% graduation rate compared to the larger schools 40-50% graduation rate. These statistics surprised me because I always have thought of many small schools having much higher graduation rates than that, but the 10-20% difference does mean many more students graduate.

Podcast Reflection #7: K-12 Online Conference, Engaging our Youngest Minds

K-12 Online Conference

Angela Maiers stated that passion is one of the most important aspects of teaching. I completely agree with this statement. I believe that when teachers have a passion for what they are teaching this inspires students to be passionate about a subject they deeply care about. This passion allows for perseverance and tenacious in school. This needs to be apparent in school because it will create an enriched environment for their learning. Having passion allows students to integrate technology with this passion. They would be able to publish their ideas online and create a much more engaged learning system. Technology should not be the way we engage students, because students already are engaged in what they enjoy. We teachers need to notice this and help these students to find technology that suits these needs.

Podcast Reflection #6: NPR 2-17-2011 Stories: Science Diction

 NPR: Education Podcast

This podcast brought me mixed emotions. When the mayor of L.A. was talking about removing the ability to obtain tenure from the teachers, he started to rile my emotions. Some of his statements made believe he thinks poor scores and issues in the school district are solely the teachers’ fault. This did not sit well with me. Although, I agreed with his statement about teachers, parents, and communities needing to come together to be innovative and remove the impediments of education. When parents and the community become involved in education I believe it makes the school district much better. Blank was another person interviewed. She was a former educator and had great ideas on how to improve the way teachers receive tenure while still protecting the teacher and improving on student issues. Her point addressing the issue of reviewing teachers was very correct. She stated that teachers should be peer reviewed instead of a principal stopping by a classroom every once in a while. I think this would be a great way to be reviewed because current teachers would know what works the best and could give many helpful hints on how to improve the way you teach. I highly recommend checking out this podcast

Fun with Text Reflection: Wordle/Tagxedo

Wordle

Tagxedo

Creating word clouds could be a fun simple way for students to complete projects in my classroom. I am planning on being a science educator, which means dealing with many environmental issues. I could have my students create these word clouds for various environmental aspects such as carbon dioxide usage, water, and elements. It would allow the student to do research on an area of study while creating something that is fast, simple, and pretty. I think word clouds are an excellent resource on the Internet and will be very interesting to use in my classroom. This is one I created about math and science.

Animoto in my Classroom Reflection

Animoto

Finally!!! A super simple way for students to create interesting videos. I am very excited to use this website in my classroom. It puts an end to the boring, same transitions slide-show and creates an interesting presentation. There are so many possibilities for using this video technology in my classroom. Students could create short videos explaining properties about elements, sharing simple math techniques with each other through these videos, and I could combine students’ art work or writings into an interesting video they would enjoy. Animoto opens up so many possibilities in the classroom and I am thankful this technology has been created. Here is an example of an amazing video created about the civil rights. It is short simple yet breath taking. 

Podcast Reflection #5: Driving Questions, School as a "Life Practice" with Ginger Lewman

Driving Questions

 It is always interesting to hear the different viewpoints of teachers. Ginger Lewmans interview was especially interesting to me because she had many great thoughts. I especially liked her quote “If schools are supposed to prepare students for the real world then why aren’t they mimicking the real world?” This is a great point and I think teachers and future teachers should always be thinking about how to relate the information to the real world. This is the best way for students to keep interest in a subject. Another great point mentioned was that teachers and students are learning together. I forget about the teachers learning experience in a school. We are always very focused on talking about how to help the children learn, but forget we learn from the students also. This is important especially with all of the new technology that the students will use. I might not be able to figure out the information but some of the students might and because of this they might be teaching me how to use it. This podcast was full of many “aha” moments.

Podcast Reflection #4: Learning in Hand, Classroom Do's and Don'ts

Learning in Hand

While listening to Mr. Vincent's podcast on iPods Dos and Don'ts I realized I would have not been very successful using iPods in my classroom. He had many helpful hints and explanations of procedures that I had never thought about. For example, syncing the iPods to one computer instead of multiple computers. It makes it easier to have the students' iPods sync to one computer with all of the up to date information instead of trying to put this information on 20 or more different computers. I also thought the idea of having color coded iPods was a fantastic idea. I would have numbered the devices and called it good, but having the color coding makes it easier for the students to find their individual iPod. The last idea that really struck me was having a contract for the iPods that clearly states the proper usage of the device and repercussions for misusing the device that both the student and parent must sign. The idea of having the parent sign it is wonderful because then they clearly know how the technology is being used in the classroom. I am very excited to see what technology I will be able to use in the classroom and will be using these helpful hints when I begin to teach.

Podcast Reflection #3: Tech Chick Tips- By the Numbers

Tech Chick Tips

This podcast was amazing. There were multiple different sites discussed that dealt with my two fields of math and chemistry. My favorite one was the NSF (National Science Foundation) Science of the Olympic Winter games link. It brought me several answers to the old question “How does this apply to the real world and why do I need to know it?” I can now tell my future students who are athletes or are pursuing an athletic profession that science, mainly physics, is the key concept behind many ice skating competitions. I could also tell them that geometry and angles are used for the angles of shots in hockey. I think this will be interesting and relate to them even if they are not interested in ice sports because other sports use the same concepts. Another groovy site mentioned was Wallwisher. I loved the ideas behind this shared post-it note system. I will definitely use this site to create an assignment where the students post some sort of math equation, geometrical shape, or real world examples of math being used. It will allow them to use the computer and branch off from the boring days of always doing math assignments on paper. Another project I was excited to do was to have students write what chemicals they can decrease usage of to help the environment. I believe seeing all the multiple different ideas their peers have can help them create their own idea and also, hopefully, my future students would decrease their use of other items that their peers posted.

Reflection 2: CDK's Education Technology Place

CDK's Education Technology Place

After reviewing CDK’s Education technology place I found this website to be very interesting. The multiple you tube videos are interesting and informational. I previewed a few of them and thought it was a unique mixture of videos about education and about the students we future educators will be teaching. I really enjoyed the TED talk. I took to heart the part about treading lightly on students dreams and helping students figure out what their talent is. It was very inspiring. Besides the videos, I found the multiple different websites and twitters to be useful. While browsing through one of these sites I found interesting podcasts, tools for organizing your life, and interesting articles. I really enjoy that the homepage has multiple links that I will be able to make use of in the classroom. The tutorials on the Ipad page are very helpful and a good start to get comfortable with this new device. I am also grateful for the websites of past students. It allows me to meld my ideas with some of their helpful tips and designs. All in all, the website is very informative, easy to use and well organized.

Reflection 1: Technology Bits, Bytes & Nibbles

Technology Bits, Bytes & Nibbles

Math is not a subject that most kids enjoy. They loathe having to complete the problems and do not see how this content area would be applicable to them in the real-world. I am glad to say that Vi Hart has changed this way of thinking. Now, when students ask me why they must learn math, I will be able to relate it to one of Vi’s creations. I would be able to advise the students to view some of her entertaining videos so they could see the applications of math. I find these videos to be very interesting, and hope they would too. It was fascinating to see how doodling is very relatable to math and that math can also create art among other things. I have never thought of math in an artistic way before seeing her doodling videos. Besides her videos, I thought it was interesting that she attended a math conference and was very pleased while she was there. Vi mentioned that at this gathering the mathematicians were very excited about their professions, and that this enthusiasm inspired her to enjoy the conference and math. I have always known that being passionate about my content area is a very important aspect to being a good teacher. If they students see math can be enjoyable then they are more likely to want to learn about it. I was glad to see that she mentioned this in the article, because I believe that more people need to know this fact. It has a major impact in the way you decide to teach. I think that I will be able to show students her videos and do creative math projects with the students involving art. This is something I would never have thought to do before reading this article and digging deeper into Vi’s videos. One last thing, Vi mentioned that many young girls have been viewing her videos, which is wonderful. When I am a teacher I also hope to inspire young female students to be interested in mathematics.

I am from a high school that issued students laptops. I believe that it was a great help to my school and to the staff. While reading the article about whether or not laptops were helping a school, I was interested to see what the consensus was. The polls mentioned that many of the students and teachers believed the laptops to be more of a distraction than a useful resource. This surprised me. From my experiences, I saw that my fellow students and I were very focused even with the technology. But, I do remember that many regulations had to be put in place before we became focused. I think that this school needs to figure out different methods of regulating students’ behavior on their laptops. It is not taking away the students’ freedom but helping them to learn the proper way to use this technology. I was also surprised that the teachers said that the students’ work habits have became worse because of the laptops. I thought that this would be the exact opposite, but I was wrong. I was pleased to see that several students and teachers thought that the laptops were very beneficial and really enjoy them. In a world driven by technologic advances, I believe that I will have to face these same issues with technology in the classroom. I benefited from this article because I now know what to be cautious of with technology when I become a teacher. I know that I will have to keep the students on task and help them to not be distracted by their laptops. Besides having to be a good disciplinarian, I am enthused to see what interesting projects my students could create by using all of the resources that this technology provides. I think that it will make classes much more interesting and allow a wider scope of instruction.