England #3

London! A great city with thousands of years of history and I only have 2 days to see it all! Well I must first say that I did not see it all. I didn't even get to see everything I wanted to see, but I saw a lot so that's a good start.
The first day in London, my dad, brother and me walked around London and saw the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, etc. What amazes me is that this has all been around for hundreds to thousands of years. Westminster Abbey was first built in like 800 AD and it is still standing today! It's crazy to say the least! Both St. Paul's and Westminster were eyeopening. The architecture really shows that the people who built it really put their hearts and souls into what they did. Religion really meant a lot to the British back in medieval times and even up into the modern era.
The most interesting thing about London is that it is a blend of ancient and modern culture all mixed into one city. You'll see modern office buildings sitting next to sites that have been around for hundred of years. The culture of London is very mixed too. I saw a lot of Arabs, Chinese, Caucasians, Blacks, and many more. There were so many different languages spoken all around you, even in the Tube (aka the subway) or on the bus.
Technology is an interesting part of London too. Everyone around you seems to have a Blackberry or at least a phone and many have Kindle or Nooks. I didn't see too many people on laptops in my travels, but I'm sure they use their Blackberries for that. But something that was interesting in my travels was Internet is available in most places, but it is spotty at the same time. In smaller towns like Exeter and Mildenhall or Lakenheath they have Internet access in the hotels or in your own room for free. But in London, we would have had to pay for Internet and it wasn't available in our room. Makes you miss the USA where you can get on pretty much anywhere and everywhere.
Time to try and find a way home to good old Utah! I hope to be seeing my cohorts and teachers very soon!

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!

Vidcast

Podcast Series:
Renaissance (vidcast)

Core Curriculum:
Renaissance:
Social Studies 6th grade
Standard 2
Students will understand the transformation of cultures during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and the impact of this transformation on modern times.

We thought that this vidcast would be a good introduction to a unit on the Renaissance. It would introduce children to the important people who shaped the world and made landmark changes that we still feel today. We just wanted to give students a good idea of what we would be learning in our unit.

INTASC standards that connect to our vidcast:
Standard 2
C. Design and articulate instruction aligned with Utah Core Curriculum standards.

NETS standards:
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society. Teachers:
a. demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations
c. communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats

Drawbacks to this assignment:
I would like to work on this vidcast a lot more to make it work better, but that would take more than the time allotted to make happen. I would also like to ask students about what figures might interesting to them so I could tailor it more to their interests instead of what I think is interesting to me.

Future plans for this series:
As stated before, I would like to perfect this vidcast a lot more. I would also tailor a lot more of my video to my students interests rather than just what I found interesting for me.

Vid Casting

This week we started throwing around ideas for a vid cast that is due in a couple of weeks. We kinda decided to do one on the Renaissance, but hadn't gotten any farther than that. We talked a lot in class about how to use vid casts possibly in a classroom. I really look forward to using and learning more about vid casts as I work on it further.

Podcasting

Today we experimented with Podcasting. We did it with a public service announcement. Me and Lori chose to do it on cyberbulling. I had a ton of fun with it. We were laughing and had tons of fun writing the script and recording it. I mean we seriously had to try it at least 15 times to get it right.
I would like to use this now to help me possibly with homework for teachers. If they are willing to allow me to record them, then possibly on the days that I'm gone, I can listen to their lectures on my iPod. That would be so totally awesome!
When I become a teacher, for certain subjects (This really wouldn't work well with math), I could record and podcast my lectures so that my students would know what I talked about during class and be able to listen and keep on top of their homework.

EDEL 3250 Google part 2

This week we worked on building a Google site. I have to say that it was a lot of work! Most of it was a review from 2200, but it was nice that we went over it step by step in class. I really think if I worked at it, I could probably get comfortable working with a class website.
I really don't see myself running a website at this current point in time considering my schedule, but it's good practice for when I am ready to start working on my very own real class website. It really works well for me to learn now when I have Doc Waters to help me if I get stuck rather than being frustrated on my own with no one to help me.
Once I become a teacher, I could really see myself using a class website in one form or another. It would be helpful to my students and parents. Students and parents can check announcements related to the class, get missed assignments, etc.

EDEL 3250 Google Part 1

This week we started learning about google, specifically gmail and google docs. I was already somewhat familiar with gmail since I already have an account. I really like it a lot better than the rest of the email accounts because it has a lot more features. But what I really loved learning about this week was google docs! Our entire cohort is using them all the time now.
We're using them on most of our assignments already and we just barely learned about them! Our entire cohort made a contact list and a calendar for our classes in google docs that we share with the whole cohort. Google docs is completely amazing.
I plan on definitely using this a lot in the future. Google docs really promotes collaboration with colleagues and other students. It's a perfect medium for papers that need that. I really look forward to using this in my professional life.

EDEL 3250 Week 1 Educational Hero

I have had many heroes in my long journey through the American Education System lol. But since Doc Waters would like me not to write a dissertation I will focus on one or maybe two.
My big hero that I can think of is my high school English teacher Mrs. Lee. She was complete opposite from me in nearly every way, but I loved her confidence and her ability to question EVERYTHING and I mean everything. She taught me that it was really okay to question. She even let me question her, which was a big no-no for me underneath (you wouldn't know it if you know me, but it's true). She became one of my best friends and I really want to allow my students to question me (in a good way of course). I want them to trust me and I want to have enough trust in myself to allow my students to ask me questions about what I believe.