Blog post #12 Current View of Technology in the Classroom

I think that after this class my view of how technology can be incorporated into the classroom has changed, and I have seen the different uses it can have in the classroom as well. I still think that the technology that is coming out today, is not really practical for schools right now. I mean that technology is rapidly changing, but schools still don't have the funding to incorporate what could really help the school districts in advancing the learning of our next generation. However, I have learned that technology is not all bad and can pose much help for a variety of students. I definitely think that my views of technology have changed for the better if not a lot at least slightly.

Blog #11 Non-Computer Tech use in Classroom

"No-tech solutions are strategies such as teaching a person to use his or her own body in a different manner to minimize impact of an impairment." I feel that an important tool that is no-tech would probably be the over-head projector. Honestly, it is the easiest way to display information to students, and you can have students interact with it. There is so much you can utilize with it and it is so much more cost efficient, especially for schools who are low on funding. I feel that this is something that schools will never really get rid of anytime soon, and that can always have a way to help students learn.

Blog #10 ERIC presentations!

After listening to majority of the ERIC presentations it really helped me to relate to using technology in the classroom a little more. I always had this feeling that how can we be teaching technology in an elementary setting when the technology they do have, if they have any, is outdated? I found some of the presentations helped to show that when it comes to technology it does not necessarily have to be the best of the best that is on the market, but what you do with what you have. I found it interesting that there are so many websites out there that one of the groups discussed and showed on the teacher who had started a blog for her class and then how the class took it over. I thought it was neat, becasue they were able to have a learning environment that allowed for so many different aspects of learning to be put into one project. Also, even though their resources for technology were limited it was the teacher thinking outside the box that came up with the way to make it happen, and change the way of learning for those students. After the ERIC presentations I had more information than I did from before and I found them to be helpful. I am not sure as to whether or not some of the material covered will ever be utilized in my classroom, but I at least see what can happen with some hard work and creative thinking when trying to incorporate technology into the classroom! :o) Good Presentations!

Blog # 9 Online article

Basically the article I found called, "Effective use of technology with young children" describes the past fears of incorporating technology or even yet assistive technology with young children, as well as the new positive with it to. The article discusses how assistive technology has changed over the years, as they said, "In the past several years, however, changes have occurred which have made computer technology more accessible to early childhood educators, therapists, parents, and children. Equipment is now more affordable, a wide range of developmentally appropriate software is available, and a variety of response modes have been developed which allow almost any child to access a computer (Burkhart, 1980; Charlebois-Marois, 1985; Goossens & Crain, 1987)." This means that in the classroom especially teachers will be able to be more knowledgeable of what is available and the materials that are available to the children will be much more developmentally appropriate and effective without the problems of cost and availability. The article also desribes the benefits of using assistive technology and the skills that it helps to develop in young children as well. It covers so much concerning that of motor skills, visual and perceptual skills, cognitive and language skills, and even social and emotional skills. I found the article to be very interesting, because I think it is very helpful to show future teacher or even current teachers and parents that assistive technology can be used at a young age and that there is nothing to fear when a child is using it. I also liked the fact that is gives so many helpful points and actually tells you what areas technology actually helps a child in. Besides that it gives you tips on how to choose developmentally appropriate toys and how to apply to them to your child and basically how to start introducing technology to a child. I think this article is very helpful, because it gives you some ideas and pointers when working with children who are young and are in need of assistive technology, and I feel that that is an important issue in elementary schools today. I liked the article and think it would be good for others to read as well.

http://www.parentpals.com/gossamer/pages/Detailed/912.html

Blog # 8 (Video Post) For Educators

Are your students learning? How is your teaching?? Things for old, new, or current teachers to think about! :o)

Blog #7 How things are going??

I think that things have been going ok so far. I feel really overwelmed with the amount of projects we have in this class, but I think some of the information that we have learned will be somewhat beneficial in an elementary school setting depending on the school district in which I am teaching. I think that just having basic knowledge of the computer and internet are great assets to have in our culture because it is so predominant. I think though that when I do have a classroom of my own that computer usage in the classroom would be very limited, just because I am a firm believer that you do not necessarily need technology in your classroom to be able to engage the children and adapt lesson plans for different learning styles. However, much of what I have learned has been interesting and if anything will help myself when it comes to teaching in the future. Basically the most important lesson I have learned so far is to just let the children explore and practice using technology when they can, and let them see what works and what doesn't while assisting them on the way. But anyway good so far :o)

Blog #6 Internet use in elementary classroom

I think there are many pros and cons to using internet in an elementary school classroom. A few pros I can think of are that the internet is so broad and has such a variety of information that you could always find information, pictures, videos, songs, or anything else to relate it to a topic you are teaching to better relate the topic to the children as well as give them different ways of absorbing the material you are teaching. It would be good to have when you are working on multiple subjects as well, because there are so many good educational sites for children, and for that of young children that assist them with the basics of numbers and letters, but of also things such as math and science to.
However, I think that the cons that would come into play concerning the use of internet in an elementary school setting would be things such as make sure the sites are appropriate for the children, that there is no chance of them finding inappropriate material while looking up things for a topic, and I think the biggest one would be the fact that there are still quite a lot of school districts that can not afford to have computer or the internet becasue of funding. I think that the lack of funding for the school or the assumption that all students know how to use technology could be a problem as some students may not have computers at home or may not be familiar with how to use the internet. I feel that it would be a good asset to have in a the classroom, but that it would not be necessay to use in a classroom. I know that technology is a huge part of our culture, but I feel that there are other ways to teach material to the children while they are in the classroom, instead of doing the easy way of letting them find information online. Besides that I feel that school districts already have trouble with funding and I don't really see elementary schools using computers as often as older grades.
However, I think that my favorite educational website to date that I have liked would be the one that is called the new Britanica Learning zone for elementary school children (http://school.eb.com/learningzone). I like how animated it is and is a great learning tool for children for any subject! It really has a great variety for the children and is a great interactive website that is greatly educational for the children.

3 links for ERIC project

here are the three links for my groups ERIC project that I found.

1. http://0-vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.maurice.bgsu.edu:80/hww/shared/shared_main.jhtml?_requestid=65832
2. http://0-web.ebscohost.com.maurice.bgsu.edu:80/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=102&sid=7512efb0-1c60-4066-9732-4829c50abd82%40sessionmgr108
3. http://0-web.ebscohost.com.maurice.bgsu.edu:80/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=102&sid=7512efb0-1c60-4066-9732-4829c50abd82%40sessionmgr108

Blog #5 What Kindergarteners Should Know...

After reading the article about what kindergarteners should know and the standards that were set for them, I was a little shocked that it had not been not earlier. I still think there is so much curriculum thrown at children today, and it is getting much harder on the teachers as well as the students to keep up. I feel that when they are worrying so much about the content standards in the classrooms, that majority of educators lose sight of the fact that learning should be fun for children and should be enjoyable. I think that in our society today so much pressure is put on kids to do all the standardized testing and so forth. However, the fact that they have a teachers guide is great, because it allows teachers a variety of ways to teach all the material that they must for a student to continue on to the first grade. Overall though, I always wondering how much is too much for kindergarteners to know?

Images in Education Lesson

Lesson: Your Everyday Garden:
This lesson is to show children the wonders of the earth in their very own backyard! It is also to teach them to learn to respect nature, and to teach them how easy it is to grow something beautiful.
In this lesson children will first, with the aid of a parent/guardian at home venture into their backyard and write down what it is they see. Then in class the children as a whole will discuss what each other saw, and then brainstorm as to what needs to be in a garden or simple what something needs to grow. The students then will be given time to look up on particular websites that the teacher has ready to see what it takes to plant something, and what a plant needs to grow to see if they were correct in their brainstorming. This is a great way for them to practice researching and also identifying facts on documents online. The lesson then will continue so that each student will be given soil, plant seeds, a planting pot, water, and tools to plant with the aid of the teacher. Each student will take care of his/her plant as it is growing each week in class until it is fully grown. At the end when their plant is fully grown, and again after being given specific websites, will go and see what type of plant they grew and what it is called, as well as its origin. This lesson is done to show children in a small way how nature works in the world around them, and the respect and patience it takes to plant and grown something. As well as aiding them in understanding how to research something and identifying facts.

Blog #3 Teaching philosophy

My Teaching Philosophy:
1. Make learning FUN!
2. show and teach CREATIVITY
3. Create great learning environment
4. Give and recieve Inspiration
5. Motivation and Encouragement!

Blog #2

Hi all,
Here is my Blog #2 on Gardner, Bloom, and Dale:

After researching all three I found that each had a little bit of something in common with the other one. Starting with Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory, or the only "learning-developmental theory that attempts to define the role of intelligence in learning". It talks basically about eight different learning styles that Gardner believed people learn by. Second there was "blooms Taxonomy" which basically states that there are three different ways that people learn and divided it into three categories:Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge),Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Attitude), and Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Skills). Each being a different learning style that individuals use, whether they use one or all three. The third theory is that of "Dales cone of experience", which also basically states that individuals learn from their "most concrete experiences to their most abstract experiences". Basically there are also three ways that people learn, similar to that of Blooms way of measuring learning styles and multiple intelligence.
For Gardner's theory I believe that it can support technology integration by the fact that technology allows you to learn in multiple ways just as Gardner states individuals need or already do. However, I think it hinders technology in the classroom, because mainly it may not work for all students, you may run into some problems because students obviously are not all the same. As for Bloom's Taxonomy theory I think that it could support technology integration in an early elementary classroom maybe a little better than that of Gardner's mainly because it is simplified and broken down to three categories of : Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor. Because it is broken in to three categories instead of eight you are able to break down the different learning styles much easier between them allowing you to adjust technology used in the classroom in to broader categories.However, you might run into a few snags if you cannot place all the children in just those three categories or you have students wh ofit two or more. This would just make it difficult to adjust the technology for those particular students. Finally for that of "Dale's cone of experience" I think that this one best supports technology integration becasue it allows the children to base there knowledge and learning styles off what they already know. The only negative I think you could have from it would be obviously not all children will have had the same experiences leaving it difficult to adjust the technology used.
As for the three different types of technology uses I feel that for all of them they use Type I technology use, because each theory talks about different learning styles and teachers who understand that and who use different learning techniques will be able to adapt to the childrens different learning styles making it more of an extension of what the teacher knows rather than taking control from the teacher or integrating a new system. As for Type II I feel that out of the three only Dale's Cone is the only one that relates to Type II and that is because that theory is based off of the children's experiences, and the teacher does not really have any interaction with the child outside of class giving them limited control on what the child does experience outside of their classroom. As for the other two theories, I don't think they really relate to that of Type II, or at least not in the sense that Dale's Cone theory does. For the final Type III of technology I feel that all three theories relate to it becasue all three can be adapted to the classroom to be used as a tool for the students by letting them learn and understand their learning styles so that the teacher will have more success with her students. All I think can be related to a classroom in some way and used with technology to become a great learning tool and assest to the class.
In the end I think that all three theories are alike and different in thier own ways but all interrelate to each other making any of them great to utilize in an early elementary classroom!

Hello! This is me!! :)

Hello All,
My name is Jamie and I am 21years old from Dayton, OH. I am an early childhood education major with a current minor of Italian. I love cars and the outdoors as well as traveling around! I am a 4th year transfer student hoping to graduate from BGSU in about a year and a half and to be able to find a teaching job in either Ohio or Michigan area preferably. My thoughts on using technology in an elementary school setting is that it is a very important tool in having kids adapt to our society that is so technology based. Kids now-a days still are so dependent on technology that to not implement it in the classroom would be silly. I think it is very exciting and look forward to working with all the different technology available for teaching in the future. :)

Jamie :)