Blog Post #15

Creativity and Curiosity: My Thoughts - Special Post #12A.

1.) I believe that schools in the United States are inhibiting the curiosity and creativity of students. Schools are trying to use innovative ways of teaching but its not allowing the students to use their creativity. In a way the schools are still being led by the old school way of teaching. This is a problem.
2.) From my point of view, I'm not even sure how to stimulate a child's curiosity. My experience maxes out with my toddler who is still curious about everything. Getting a 5th grader to become curious about math or learning plant and animal cells, well I just am at a blank. There are the old tricks that simply don't work such as pretending that you, the teacher, is interested but kids are smarter now: they know better.
3.) I absolutely think that a teacher's actions can increase the curiosity of students. What are these actions? Well, honestly, answering these questions makes me feel ill prepared for running a classroom. I hope that between now and then, I find some amazing mentors. I think that the best way, is for the students to teach each other. If teachers give them access to all of the tools they need plus whatever they may come up with, teachers could stay up-to-date on what kids are using for technology. Plus, the students are now learning about technology and using it to teach their peers.
4.)I feel like a creative person already. I must admit that I would better with physical objects and mixed media but technology is slowing working its way up there. Teachers and schools could help with the creative process by searching for a new and improved way to keep everyone informed. Students often have an immediate question that simply can not wait until morning. What about assigning students to be "on call" for homework help? That would encourage students to work together and give one more way to students to learn the material.

Progress Report on Final Project

Our group shuffled through several ideas before we came to, what we think, is the best one. We have been meeting at the lab, emailing and texting for a couple of weeks, pulling our ideas into one. Since EDM310 is a technology class, we think that it is important to get, first hand what teachers are lacking in the classroom. By interviewing students, teachers and parents we can hear their thoughts and better prepare ourselves for what we, as educators, are about to walk into following this class. Classrooms are well equipped with computers, Smartboards and even iPads but what else can we do to help the parents stay connected to the class? Are we utilizing these products to the best of our ability to teach our students? Do teachers have knowledge on these products that are provided for them to use?

Blog Post #12

I am an elementary/special education major and my original goal for this assignment was to show how technology could be used even in a special education classroom at an early age. As soon as I read this assignment, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. For a couple of weeks now, I have been working on Smartboard lessons for my daughter. She now has numbers, shapes, animals and the alphabet. Each one allows her to interact with the lesson via the Smartboard by drawing out the shape, number or letter. The animal one allows her to click on the picture of the animal and hear its sound as well as see the name of the animal. As I practiced and practiced with her to make sure she knew all of the animals before we made the video, I made one mistake: we never practiced on the Smartboard. This afternoon we took our trip to the lab to show off how smart she is. Everything she had learned prior to this trip was erased. Her fascination of the Smartboard took over and she found it necessary to learn how to use the pens and eraser. I must admit, I have learned first hand that a lesson will never go the way it is planned. This incident forced me to take a new direction with my assignment. Did I mention that my daughter is not even two yet and she was capable of learning how to use the pens and eraser within a matter of minutes. Had we spent a day or two on what I had planned for us to do, I know she would have master it. I realize that teaching a toddler to use a Smartboard is not the same as teaching special education but for some students, their attention span and mental capacity is similar.
My assignment is to share a lesson in your area(special education/elementary education) to the Smart Exchange. Students learn from one another and I feel that it is important for teachers to do so as well. By sharing lessons to the Smart Exchange we are helping our community of colleagues.

Directions
1.) Watch these videos on Special Education and Technology for Special Education. I also suggest watching this video on a the day of a special education teacher. Think about how technology could help her in her everyday teaching and lessons.
2.) Create a lesson that would be used to teach special education students using the Smartboard.
3.) Sign into SmartExchange or signup if you haven't already done so.
4.) Click on Share a resource.
5.) Upload your lesson to the appropriate location.
6.) After sharing to the Exchange, please include a link on your blog so that others can find your lesson.
7.) Also, leave summary explaining why you chose this particular lesson to share.

My SmartExchange Lesson
I chose to share a lesson on animals to the Exchange. My thought behind this was to teach simple animal sounds for a special education class that my not yet be distinguishable. If you notice that some slides are not animals- I know. I wanted to mix in some things that were not living to inspire creativity of the children. When you ask a child "what sound a balloon makes?" or "what sound a banana makes?" it will stimulate the brain to come up with what sound a balloon really does make. I think that at such a young age, like my toddler, the attention span is hard to control, so I mix it up a bit.

C4K#-April

Megan
Not Your Blog, My Blog has been produced by Megan. Her first post was about her favorite animals and subjects. She has a love for animals and insects as well as science. Hopefully, the Blogging Challenge will give her some motivation about blogging and we will see many posts from her in the future.
Megan
This week Megan has posted about how excited she is for her upcoming spring break. Its great to see her enthusiasm. I commented to ask if she had any exciting plans for the week so we'll see what she has to say.
Jake
I received a different student this week, Jake. This week Jake, posted about pollution. Many people are unaware of the pollution problems that we face today, he noted about the amount of gasoline that we consume and the damage it does to the air. Jake is very knowledgeable on the subject of pollution. I mentioned a few things that we were doing around the house such as recycling, composting and shopping local. I asked if they were doing anything to help, so we will see what his response is.
Mubashshir
Room 9 @ Pt. England School is the main site for Mubashshir's class. This week it was his turn to blog and he chose to do an animation. During Mubashshir's presentation he told us a little about himself. He enjoys reading and he also hopes to be a great swimmer. I suggested that make a book trailer about his favorite book since he enjoys reading and animation.

Blog Post #11

I love how Ms. Cassidy incorporates technology into the classroom. Honestly, I would like to use technology in every way she does.  The first thing that I would like to include in my class is blogging. As many of the children said, it helps them write better. In my ideal classroom, I would have a class blog website. It would include my blog and an individual blog page for each student. The children's parents and the rest of the community could see all the great things that we are doing in my classroom. I have also, begun to play with the idea of a QR code. Qurify is a simple way to add just text. There are other sites that will allow you to link to a website or your class blog. I have tons of ideas of how we could use this for class but I'll save that for another post.

As I stated earlier, I see the techniques Ms. Cassidy uses to be very beneficial to her classroom. For this reason, I think it would be beneficial to my classroom. I already discussed this a bit, but blogging helps children write better. I expect students to work hard, but I don't expect them to be perfect. Blogging allows children to get positive feedback. Their parents, peers, or I could say how they could have written the sentence better. The techniques Ms. Cassidy uses also teach valuable life skills, like sharing, communication, and collaboration.

Blog Post #10

Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
After watching this video, Do You Teach or Do You Educate?,  I can see that there is a big difference between being a teacher and being an educator. I fully intend on being an educator. This video compares and contrasts a teacher and an educator. It talks about the teacher first and gives a few simple definitions: to show or explain how to do something, encourage someone to accept as a fact or principle, give information about or instruction in, cause someone to learn or understand something, and to induce by example or punishment to do or not do something.  I plan on leading my students to their future and do everything within me to help them succeed not only in the classroom but also in their lives. Educators are people that you can trust and confide in and I want my students to see me in that light. I want my future students to know that with the power of knowledge they can achieve anything. I want my future students to know that even if no one else believes in them, I will be there to support them. The way that I see it is, I will be a stepping stone for my students. My job as an educator is to help my students succeed in life so they may help me in life as well, because like they all say our children are our future. 
Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home
This post, "Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home", was entertaining, yet it is sad to know that this stuff really happens. Gertrude, the "School Curriculum Instructional Interventionist Academic Specialist" storms into Tom's classroom ranting about PENCILS. How we go about doing that is where things get fun. Not all students can just come in and listen to you lecture and understand, but everybody has a way to learn. It might be tough at first to figure it out but once they do things start clicking and they feel good about themselves and want to continue learning. It is important that we keep our students entertained while teaching them. I believe it’s time for teachers, parents, and administrators to stop viewing technology as a source of distraction. We must realize that in our society of ever evolving technology, it will be and already is a norm in our classrooms.