England #2

We went to see Conwy Castle in Wales. It was built in the 1100's by Edward I and is the most complete castle that's still standing. The architecture was amazing! There were big towers with narrow passageways and ruins of the royal apartments. The chapel was very beautiful in the fact that it was intact. It was very simple in terms of the fact that there wasn't amazing carvings or anything. But you could see out the window into the harbor. And yesterday we drove around Summerset and saw areas that my ancestors had been in. I could almost see myself stepping into their time period in these small villages they lived in.
The next couple days we will be travelling around the country doing more family research before we will be in London. I'm so excited to go to London and see all the sites there. I want to see the Albert and Victoria Museum as well as the Crown Jewels, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. Stay tuned for more!

PDP My Beliefs

I believe that technology is an asset to us as long as it is used correctly. The internet can provide instant and accurate access to information from all over the world and that is a wonderful thing! Students can communicate with others from the other side of the world and that is a great thing for out students.
I want to be a teacher who allows my students to use technology and to learn from my students. My students are more likely to be more tech savvy than myself. I, as a teacher, need to be comfortable enough with my self esteem that I can realize my students can teach me things and that I don't know everything about the world. I want to use technology as a tool to help my students become interested in what they are learning and to allow my students some flexibility in studying what they want to study.
The idea I had for using technology is allowing them to make a YouTube video about their favorite person in history or on a person or event we may be studying in the unit we are studying. I hope that I can keep up with the spirit of discovery and use that to guide my teaching and in making me the best kind of teacher that I can be.

PDP Lessons Learned

I learned a lot based off reading the articles I read (since videos and surveys wouldn't open). I learned that students really do perform better with technology. For me, technology sometimes is more trouble than it's worth and I get more frustration out of it and don't learn as much, but students that I will be teaching are a little more tech saavy and really like technology.
I learned there are plenty of ways to integrate technology in the classroom. You can create webquests, class websites, class acts, use polls and social networks, etc. I also learned it doesn't have to be fancy technology for students to enjoy it. Creating assignments where they can explore or solve real world problems is really what students are looking for.
The concern I have is when is there too much technology in the classroom? Some students are not tech saavy and they may feel a bit out of place in a highly technical classroom. I also worry about distractions in the classroom that come from the technology that is provided.

PDP Strengths and Weaknesses

Because of some technical difficulties in England I wasn't able to pull up the UNI survey, but based off of the NET standards, I would say that my strengths are as follows:
I have introductory knowledge of technology.
I am a lifelong learner (I always say that you learn new things everyday).
I try and choose technology to enhance my lessons and peak the interest of my students and address a variety of learning styles.

My weaknesses are:
I don't have any idea how to use technology in terms of assessments.
I don't really understand the ethics and legal practice of technology (other than cite your sources in papers).
I don't really know what they mean by looking for sustainable technology.

My goals are to learn more about using technology in the classroom besides doing videos in class. I would like to learn how to assess student learning with technology. I would also like to learn more about running a website for my classroom that will suit my needs.
The following website has a lot of workshops on assessments and having a web presence which would help me on my website.

http://www.larkin.net.au/026_web_presence.html

This article has a lot of great ideas of technology use in the classroom that I would like to use in my classroom.

http://www.edutopia.org/martin-behrman-charter-school-technology

Field Experience #3

Wow field experience has flown by! Can't believe this is the last week we will be there. I had the time of my life and I really don't want to go back to college. I really am starting to get attached to these 5th graders and I've only been there 3 weeks. It's insane really!
So this week we taught our social studies lessons again. Technology cooperated with us this week (cue the angel choir singing!). But I found that my videos took a little too much time and I kinda left Loryn in a lurch with hers even though I cut a few videos out. We did a diamante poem for the kids and wanted them to perform some for our 2nd drama activity, but we ran out of time for them to read them in front of the class.
Science went well too. I taught a lesson on chemical reactions and the students went to different stations to try mixing different chemicals. Some of my students didn't understand one of my worksheets, so I brought the class together and explained it. Took me 2 days to get through my science lesson, but I felt like I got them to understand chemical reactions really well and do what I wanted them to with the worksheets. I realized it's better to take 2 days to do something rather than cram it into one and they don't get what you need them to get.
Now I'm off to England to enjoy the sights there. Most of my field papers are in or will be in shortly and I'm very excited! Thanks to the teachers who helped me get here and worked with me to make this happen!

Field Experience Post #2

This week Loryn and myself did our first lesson on Patrick Henry and Benedict Arnold. A lot of our technology wasn't working (neither the Digital Story nor my Powerpoint would open up. So we had to do a lot of improvising and being flexible with the schedule. I ended up using a reader that projected my printed slides on the projector. Loryn's part with Patrick Henry went really well and she was super flexible with making things work. At the end of the lesson we did Decision Alley, which didn't work as well as I wanted it to. I don't think they fully got the concept of what they are supposed to do. Also, it was right at the very end of the lesson and there wasn't very much time to do it. So I think that contributed to it not working as well as I wanted.
We also taught our first science lessons which went really well. The students worked with chemical reactions. The first day, they mixed baking soda, calcium chloride and phenol red solution. This caused a heat reaction as well as a release of gas. The next day, the students had to figure out, using their own experiments, what chemical caused the heat to happen. They found out through the experiments that it was the calcium chloride that was causing the heat.
This coming week, we are teaching Patrick Henry and Benedict Arnold with a drama insert from the Diamante poem and we will be doing some more experiments with chemical reactions in science. Stay tuned!

Field Experience #1

Our first week of field flew by pretty quickly for me and Loryn. We've been working hard to try and make our lessons work the way we wanted to. We learned that we would only do 2 social studies lessons and 3 science lessons. That kinda freaked us out a little bit, but then we decided to just roll with it and make it work. So we got some materials from our teachers and we observed the students and helped where we could around the classroom.
We corrected tests, pulled staples out of a wall(lots of fun) and helped keep the students on task. I worked with a student who scored low on their math test. It was really cool to do that on the spot. It was kinda trial and error to see what worked to make this kid get the concepts of division. But by the end, he was doing it without my help and it was really amazing to see! So far field has been an awesome experience!