Practice Inspiration

Alyssa's Podcast

Post #3

A lesson plan that could use technology in a lower elementary school classroom could be learning multiplication. This would probably be a third grade class. The teacher would have to teach the basics of multiplication first, but could then use a drill and practice program in the computer lab to give her students practice.

Some concerns that I would have supervising the use of the internet in my classroom would be that I plan on teaching early grades in elementary school. The use of the internet might not be desireable for such young students. It might be very difficult to keep students this young on track with all of the information available online. Another concern would be filtering waht kind of information the students have access to. It would be important to ensure that there is a filtering system in place so that the students don't accidentally come across inappropriate information.

I found a fun website for teaching math to kids. It has different games, flashcards, and other ways to pratice. I also liked it because you can set the games to practice either addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, or all of them together. You can also program the difficulty level. The website is http://citl.hbg.psu.edu/vlibrary/Reish/vlibraryar.htm

Post #2

Most of my experience using a computer as a student has been in the form of using MS Word for word processing. I have had to write papers for many of my classes, and have used MS Word to do this. Most of the worksheets, tests, syllabi, and other handouts that I have received from teachers have probably been created on MS Word or some other similar word processign program.

An example of a case using MS Word that I found to be interesting in Chapter 9 was the case of Adam and the assignment to create a newspaper from the medieval times. I liked this example because I thought that it was a very creative way to get the class interested in learning about both the subject matter of the medieval times, and also the format of writing a newspaper. The project allowed the class to use their creativity in incorporating their research about medieval times together with their own ideas about what their own lives would have been like had they lived in those times. This forced them to dig into the research and then place themselves "in medieval shoes", and then fashion what they had come up with into the form of a newspaper. I think it sounds like a fun and interesting project that would have piqued the students' curiosity.

A new skill that I have learned so far in this class that might be useful in my future classroom is the use of jing and recording a procedure done on the computer. I think that it could be helpful if I needed to demonstrate a procedure for the class. Instead of going around the room and demonstrating the procedure to each individual student, I could pre-record what I needed to show them and then just play it on the projector. This would be a much more time efficient way of demonstrating something to a class.

Post #1

I think that computers and new technologies are important parts of the educational experience because they provide teachers different, and new and exciting means of bringing information into the classroom. Different students learn in different ways, and by changing up the teaching methods, a teacher can make the ciriculum more interesting and draw more students in. When students are excited about learning, they get more out of it, andusing computers and technology can be a way to do this. We are also in a different age than when our parents went to school, and computers and technology are becoming increasingly important in the workplace. It is therefore important to provide these needed skills to students at a young age so that they can be well equipped once they enter the workforce. Some critical concerns for how teachers and students use computers can be tied in to the idea of ethics. Teachers, now are using e-mail to stay in contact with students or the student's family, to give assignments or to give progress reports. It is important for this correspondance to remain professional, just as in a face-to-face meeting would be. Teachers are also responsible for monitoring the students use of the computers in the classroom. It is the responsibility of the teacher to make sure that students ore not misusing the technology, not sending questionable information or e-mails to other people, and making sure that the students are making the best use of their time on the computer to further their learning. I do agree with issues that were raised in Chapter 1, such as the issues of the digital divide. This is an important thing to think about as a teacher, because some extra time may have to go into helping students that don't have home access to a computer. Chapter 1 says that a student's household income can be the greatest factor in whether or not a child has access to a computer. A teacher needs to be sensitive about this matter. I know from personal experiece that children can be very sensitive to the fact that they are not as "rich" as the other kids in their class, so a teacher needs to be able to give some extra assistance to those children without singling them out.

I think that drill and practice programs might be a good tool to use with young elementary age children. At this level in school, children are learning basic skills in reading, writing, and math that they are going to have to build upon later. Drill and practice programs can be a good way to practice these skills as an alternative to worksheets and other methods. Like I said before, I think that switching things up in the classroom can be a good way to keep the students interested, and practicing skills on the computer could be a good way to do this. I hope, in this class, to learn the basics of computers that I will need in order to facilitate the teaching of my students, so that I can bring alternative methods into the classroom that will make things more interesting for them.

I definitely feel that I, personally would have benefited from more computer and technology experience at a younger age. I was certainly a victim of the digital divide growing up, and I am seeing that now, especially in this class. I feel that I am much farther behind, technologically, than most of my peers. Hopefully this class will help me bridge a little bit of that gap, and help me to be able to help my future students become more proficient with technology than I was at their age.

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