After reading the article, “A smart Board in the Classroom: A Promising Practice for engaging Students” which can be found by clicking below, I learned many things about smart boards being used in the classroom. Please feel free to read this article along with my post below to become more familiar with smart boards.
I learned about how sixth grade teacher Pete Darragh wanted to integrate more technology into his classroom at Sidney Glen Elementary School in Port Orchard, Washington. He applied for the grand in order to help his students stay engaged for longer in the classroom. He wanted to add things to the classroom that would keep them engaged in their own learning. He believes that smart boards are an exciting type of technology and would keep the attention of his students.
Previously, I have blogged about smart boards as well. I feel that smart boards are a great way to keep all students involved in the lesson and they are very big which allows everyone to be able to see. This technology also allows you to project your students work onto the board to share with the class. Darragh mentioned that he liked the smart board as well because it allowed those with disabilities to be able to see and stay engaged as well. I think he makes a very valid point because those with disabilities are sometimes more difficult to keep engaged in lessons. I believe that since smart boards are so simple, they should be integrated into many classrooms in order to improve engagement. Although the initial set up of the board and learning the specifics may take a week or so to get used to, I feel that the outcome is worth it and all of the students will benefit from this technology.
For other future educators that are interested in integrating smart boards into their classroom, I would like to put emphasis on the factor of getting those individual's with disabilities involved. I feel that they tend to loose focus or become discouraged easier and with a interesting technology that keeps everyone active, they will be able to stay focused. Smart boards allow for students to share their homework with the entire class and they are then able to learn from each others mistakes. In conclusion, I feel that smart boards are very beneficial to any classroom and all students. They have a great purpose and will add a interesting lesson to the classroom. They will allow everyone to stay together and engaged simultaneously.
As a teacher I feel it is very important to be organized as well as keep your students organized. The easiest way to do so is by keeping a structured calendar. As I learned how to use the google calendar app I realized how easy this would be to use on my classroom page. This google calendar allows you to keep all your events organized and publish it onto other websites such as a classroom website. This will allow me to inform both parents and students about events going on along with what is happening in class. I feel that many individuals use classroom websites because it allows you to stay caught up on things and always be prepared for whats coming up.
I believe this calendar will truly be effective in the classroom and it will show through students grades. If students are staying caught up in class and not getting behind, than the calendar is really working. It will allow students who are sick or miss class to check and see what they missed that day. I really think think this will keep students grades up and allow them to be as organized as possible. If students continuously are missing assignments or turning in late assignments, I will know they are not using the calendar. But when students are always on time with their assignments and continue to receive good grades in class, I will know that they are organized and on top of things and hopefully it is partly because of the calendar keeping them organized.
This app that google has created seems to be very simple. I think that since it is so straight forward, it will be simple to set up. Also google has set it up so that you can link your phone calendar to the google app. With this being said, I can enter events into my phone and they will automatically show up on my classroom calendar. This is a great way to change things at any moment. In addition, this app allows you to set events private or choose who can see the event. So for example if you have more than one class, you can set certain events to be shown to one class and not the other. Also if you have personal events, those can stay hidden from your class as well.
With how simple this app is, I feel that it will definitely pay off for both me and the students. It will save me time from explaining to tons of students what they missed or what is due in the next week. They can simply check online and with the simple features, I am able to change things on my phone's calendar and they will update on the website. I feel that with how much this technology has to offer, there's no way I could pass on using this. Also I feel that every teacher should be informed of this technology. With the simplicity of the calendar, I feel that every teacher should use this in their classroom.
I believe that with this simple app, I will be able to keep the classroom very organized. My only concern is that hiding things may get confusing. With multiple events per day, it may be confusing who needs to be able to see what. But I think I will be able to figure it out as time passes. The workshop was very helpful because the instructor showed us step by step how to publish the calendar to our websites so I feel that I should have no problem with that part of the app. I feel that with time I will learn more about it as well as find out how to be more creative and use all of the available designs and tools.
After attending a Jing workshop, I learned more about the website overall along with individual key components. I was very confused when trying to embed videos onto Weebly after creating them with Jing. Above is a picture of the embedded code to which you copy and past onto Weebly. This workshop really made it more clear and simplified the process.
Jing is a very cool website to use but also has it's difficulties. Jing was created to be used for the purpose of screen sharing. It allows you to record your computer screen while clicking in and out of things. It is very useful when it comes to showing others how to use specific features on a website. This type of technology would be great to use in the classroom when it comes to showing students how to do things, especially when you cannot physically show them in person.
This type of technology would be very useful in the classroom for students when it comes to integrating technology into the classroom along with take home assignments. When at a young age, it is important to help students understand technology to the best of their ability. In a society where technology is slowly taking over, it is important to teach students how to use it to the fullest. The classroom is a great place to start using it and slowly help students become familiar with it.
In addition, Jing would be great to help teach students to use certain websites. Technology can be overwhelming at first and cause frustration. Using technology in the classroom would be a good start and sending them home with assignments using technology would allow them to continue to learn outside of the classroom. Using Jing to create videos in order to help my students move through websites and complete homework assignments would also allow them to learn more about the internet.
In conclusion I think that Jing videos will really help students to become more familiar with the internet and other technology advanced things with computers. It is a great resource to have in the classroom and I believe students will really benefit from it.
 After attending a workshop about Weebly, I learned how to use google apps on Weebly. Google has recently created apps that accessible on other websites. For example, in the workshop, I learned that with a Gmail account, google allows you to created calendars virtually and publish them onto other sites. The settings are also very unique on this app. When publishing this calendar to a public website, it allows you to change the privacy settings so you are in control of who can see what on your calendar.
As a future educator, I believe that this would be a great resource to use in the classroom. Having a calendar that is synced with your phone calendar so you can change things on the go, is a great way to stay up to date with your agenda. Parents are able to see your classroom agenda for the up coming months, which is very helpful. Not only will this allow students and parents to see your upcoming agenda, but your fellow teachers are also able to view your schedule.
This tool could be a great way to integrate technology into the classroom. By having students make their own calendar online, they too could work with technology along with stay organized. With technology moving as fast as it is, soon I believe that the majority of things we do will all be done via the internet. Working with students at a young age and getting them accustomed to working with technology will be very beneficial.
In addition to becoming accustomed with technology, this will allow students to stay very organized. At a young age it is important for students to learn how to stay organized. Keeping a calendar where they have all their up coming events in one place, can help them plan when it comes to fitting in homework. Having a calendar where you can see everything planned for the next week will really help students stay on top of their work and plan accordingly.
In conclusion, I believe that utilizing Google's online calendar will really be useful in the classroom. Students will benefit greatly from this along with parents when it comes to helping their students stay up to date on classroom assignments. It is a great way to keep everyone on the same page and tuned in to everything that is going on in the classroom.
 There are so many different types of technology present in today's society. The technology today just continues to expand. As a young child, technology was not a big deal to me. I really did not know what technology was. When teachers used projectors and computers in the classroom it just seemed normal. I could not imagine growing up in a classroom where technology was not a major part of learning. Technology is really anything that we utilize that involves our current day knowledge of tools or machines and systems for solving problems. Technology for the classroom is typically anything that is technically advanced and it advances the learning of students. I personally believe that technology really helps students learn to the best of their ability. One specific type of technology that was used in the classroom when I was in middle school was the Elmo classroom camera and projector. This was a camera that was used to share homework with the classroom or in class problems. This allowed the teacher to write and share students homework with the whole class. It was very similar to a projector but does not require clear sheets in order to be used.
Using this type of technology into the classroom would allow all of your students to learn from each others mistakes. In other words, while sharing student homework assignments, all the students are able to view the same problem and the teacher can hand write other ways to do a problem. Although it is similar to a projector or chalkboard. It is in paper form so it can be used again in the future, without having to be erased. Investing in something like this would really allow the students to get the most out of the classroom. This is an investment that I truly believe is a good resource to use in order to strengthen the student's learning in the classroom. It makes teaching easier along with learning easier. It allows me as a teacher to be able to reflect back on these examples when students are struggling down the road or preparing for a test. This technology, although may take some time to figure out how it works and to get it set up and working in sync with your computer, will defiantly be worthwhile investing my time into. The set up is not that difficult and with how it will pay off, in my opinion, is well worth my time.
Using technology in the classroom will really allow students to learn to the fullest of their ability. It makes teaching for me, along with other teachers easier as well. It is clear and concise and allows students to ask questions in a group setting. Using a Elmo instead of a projector or chalkboard makes writing more neat along with a copy of class work. These notes that you write down under the Elmo can be kept where as notes on a chalkboard are erased and projector notes also get erased. This allows me as a teacher to keep things for long periods of time for a reference when reviewing.
After the initial set up, I believe that the Elmo will be very easy to use and understand for both me and my students. The time put into the setup and learning all the ins and outs of this technology will for sure show great results and pay off. I believe that working with this type of technology on a daily basis will make it easier to figure out how to use it and use all the things it has to offer. Initially I believe it may take a couple days to really figure out how to set it up and sync it with my computer but I feel that I am really good with technology so it should not be a struggle for me. With that being said, there are always some moments when technology does not work the way we are used to or work the way we learned it to work. These are the moments that may cause barriers in the classroom but integrating this Elmo into the classroom is pretty easy and straight forward.
Finally, reaching my goal will be shown in how the students learn and how my teaching in general is working overall. Students should see a slight difference between a chalkboard and the Elmo but it is a very similar concept. It simply should make teaching easier for me and allow me to always have these back up copies of notes. Also I feel that when students have questions on certain homework assignments, it will be easy to share their work with the Elmo so that the entire class will be able to understand what the question is and what exactly is being said. Overall the Elmo seems to be a type of technology that I believe should be integrated in to many if not all classrooms. It makes teaching more simple and will allow teachers to have a little more leeway in preparing lesson plans. We would not have to always have slides provided because you can simply use regular paper to created more notes. This is a type of technology that may not seem to be that different from what we already have, but in the long run, we will really see a difference.
 Today's society has become one that revolves greatly on technology. However, the question now is wether technology being brought into the classroom would be a good or bad thing. There has been extensive research done on this topic and it is a very hard decision to make. The question is would it be beneficial to the students or not? I personally feel that technology being brought into the classroom could potentially be very beneficial. I feel this way because of my own personal experiences with technology in the classroom. I believe that it is very important for teachers to understand new technology and to be able to integrate it into the classroom where their student are able to learn more about new inventions. Even the simplest forms of technology will allow students to excel in the classroom.
One example of technology I personally feel is very important is email. Many students in high school and middle school do not use it but when students get to college, it seems to be a key essential in communicating with professors and fellow students. It is very efficient way of staying connected with others.
Another example of technology that I personally feel is very important is the iClicker. These are clickers that are used frequently in college classes to answer questions throughout the class period. I feel that the use of these iClickers in classrooms are a very good way to keep students attentive and able to interact in class discussion. Also, other students are able to see how other students think through different problems and learn from the mistakes made.
Integrating the use of iClickers into my elementary classroom could be done in a variety of ways. Providing an iClicker for each student during the class period would be a beneficial way to maintain focus on the lesson of the day. Also, all the students would be able to participate and would be able to see their mistakes along with the mistakes of their classmates. Working through problems as a class can be very beneficial when it comes to learning new material because the students are able to learn from each other in a different ways.
I feel that using iClickers throughout the year, the students will be able to become more comfortable with them even though they are pretty simple already. These clickers are very easy to use as they have labeled buttons on them and they are clearly labeled a, b, c, d, and e. They are easy to power on and off. These seem to be the perfect type of technology to use in an elementary classroom. Using these on a regular day to day basis will allow them to become part of the classroom and hopefully create a sense of comfort in the classroom as the students interact as they work on their problems and are interacting in classroom discussion. Using the iClickers regularly for a warm up or comprehension check is the easiest way to use them. They are a really good way to keep students involved in class discussion and allow them to interact while learning as well. Small barriers may be issues such as discouragement if the student answers the problem wrong. We can overcome this battle though through class discussion as to why the alternative answers are wrong and why the correct answer is right.
After integrating the iClickers into the classroom, I will know if it is an effective way of teaching if the students are learning and if their improving their understanding as time goes by. The iClickers should create class discussions and allow students to think through their answers wether they be correct of incorrect. Students will be more open to explaining their thinking to the class along with asking questions as to why the answer is wrong or right. Students should show an improvement in their score on the iClicker as the lesson goes on along with as the chapter goes on. Considering the sole purpose of the iClicker is to improve understanding as a whole class along with create discussion, the students should show great results of improvement in their iClicker answer scores. I should be able to tell that as the lesson goes on, that the students are beginning to all choose the correct answer because of their engagement. I feel that having questions throughout the lesson, the students are more likely to pay attention because they are being forced to interact which is the best way for students to learn-through practice.
Since these iClickers are so easy to integrate into the classroom, I think that they would be a very good investment. They would be beneficial to both me as the teacher along with the students themselves. It allows me to make sure they are interacting and paying attention based off of their answers and it gives students an easy way to practice what they're learning. Also when they answer questions wrong or right, they are able to see why their answer was wrong or right and also see what their fellow peers said. This is good to make sure the lesson you are teaching is clear before sending your students home to do a homework assignment on their own. It gives students good first hand information and practice. I would definitely recommend this iClicker to other teachers to invest in. This is a very beneficial when trying to have an interactive classroom. It allows your students to be attentive and learn to the best of their abilities.
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