Education Technolgy

2007-03-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the last three months of winter term student teaching in a high school (10th grade) English class. I think that one of the most important ‘enduring understandings’ that I gained from the experience and from my cooperating teacher in particular, is the infinite value of being kind. My CT is an exceptionally warm, caring person I think, and through her accessibility and personal interest in students she has created a classroom environment that is a safe, comfortable place for students. I think that in an English classroom this is especially important, because students’ comfort level also affects their willingness to be open with their writing and in interpretations and discussions of literature and the sometimes emotionally charged issues that come up.
My CT has also created a warm classroom with the physical arrangement of the room, which I think is equally important. She has a lot of her personal things in one corner of the room, which makes it look like it is her home away from home. She’s covered the walls with student work as well as colorful posters or quotes from well known literature and poetry. Each day she provides hot water, cups, and tea bags so that students can make their own hot drink, which they often take advantage of during AR.
My CT has many students stop by her room just to say hello or tell her about things going on in their lives. I think this speaks to the personal rapport she has developed with them, as a result of her willingness to share things from her own life, in addition to expressing interest in theirs. I saw on many occasions that some students, who might not otherwise have been compelled to make it to class, did so because of her kindness, which she also extended to me in many ways. I think it’s intuitively clear on a human level that students (and all people) respond positively to those who express interest and concern for them, but I now have a tangible reminder of just how important that is.

2006-08-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of class, and I'm pretty amazed by all that we did in just four weeks. I was totally intimidated during the first week of class; everything on the syllabus was new and foreign to me, and it seemed like way too much to take in in one month. Now that we've gone through it all I have to say that beyond the actual programs that I learned, the most valuable aspect of the class for me was just realizing how much technology has to offer, to me personally and especially as a future teacher. Previously I had been more or less intentionally avoiding anything technology related, and had kind of an aversion to it in general, though I can't really explain why. This class was exactly the motivation I needed to experiment with a few of the possibilities. I realize that there's no reason to be intimidated by computer software...it's made for the public afterall, so it should be accesible.
With teaching language arts in mind, I'm excited about some of the options that come with using technology in the classroom. The most important aspect of this for an English classroom, I think, is the potential to connect concepts discovered in literature to real-life, accesible situations and projects. There are so many options for bringing characters to life through the newsletter (like I talked about in my second blog entry) or developing a website, as well as researching context via the internet, communicating with classrooms in other states/countries, illusrating themes with claymation, publishing persuasive essays about real-life events or issues in a blog or website forum......the list goes on. I'm relieved to have made it through this class, though it didn't turn out to be half as intimidating as I imagined at first. I feel like I got so much out of the class that will transfer directly to the classroom.

2006-08-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

After the first two weeks of class, which felt initially overwhelming, I have realized that I am in better shape than I originally thought. Although I haven't had a strong background in using computers or much technology of any kind, I feel like I am picking it up pretty quickly. Like many things, maybe the anticipation is worse than the actual process. I'm really excited about what we've learned so far, I had no idea some of these things (like the newsletter) were so accessible. There are so many possibilities to think about for integrating things like this into the classroom, from students using them for projects to communicating with parents. As a language arts teacher, some things I imagine would be having students create a hypothetical newsletter-type-resume representing a particular character, or a newsletter which gives an update of what has happened to the characters since the story ended (sort of an extension, or brief sequel to the narrative).

Using the digital cameras and photoshop has been fun and totally new to me. I knew there was all of kinds of potential for manipulating photographs, but again, didn't realize it could be so accessible. The tutorial was extremely helpful, but just experimenting with the pictures through trial and error was even more effective for me. I look forward to learning about creating a website as well. As far as transferring this to the classroom, the possibilites are pretty limitless. Writing and expressing a unique position about a given topic is an important part of any Language Arts program, and a class could be split into small groups to create websites which present research and evaluations of certain themes. Even persuasive essays could be put up on websites or used in a chat-type forum for class members to weigh in on (anonymously perhaps depending on the topic since privacy issues are important, especially for younger students). Also, any kind of school publication, newspaper or club newsletter or whatever, would benefit from students having knowledge of photoshop.

2006-07-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

The use of technology is my life has been very limited. My family is not particularly tech savvy, and growing up we had one old television, a record player and tape deck, a regular phone, and that’s about it. No video camera documenting our every move, no cell phones for constant communication, and no email until I went away to college and found out that the internet existed. In a nutshell, I was literally listening to old mix tapes on my walkman until a few years ago, which should illustrate my point fairly clearly. I still don’t know how to use a digital camera, Ipod, most computer software, a GPS, or the seemingly infinite array of other gadgets out there. Although one would think I may have been exposed to some technology though school, all I remember being integrated into our education was limited to overhead projectors and VHS machines for in-class movies, and a class that taught us basic touch typing skills. I think back and imagine how much more we could have done with the resources that are available now! In college, I took mostly discussion based English and Sociology classes, so our library was the only place I encountered much in the way of technology, and by that I just mean computerized catalogs and databases for academic journals. None of my jobs since college (for example, on organic farms, at a residential treatment center, and an Outdoor Science School) have involved anything tech related either, and without any need to teach myself, I have definitely avoided doing so. I tend to like to understand the big picture behind anything I learn, and most technology makes that a very intimidating endeavor. I admit I’ve been really stubborn as a result, although recently I’ve realized how many really cool, useful things I’ve been missing out on. Anticipating my role as a teacher is great motivation, and I really look forward to this class as an introduction to some of the technology that exists, and that can be so useful and engaging in the classroom. Although it feels overwhelming, especially since I imagine other people to know so much more about the basics, I guess everyone started somewhere!