Last week of the practicum

Unfortunately I did not see a lot of technology used in the classroom this week, at least not anymore than usual. The students in our class have computer time once per week, but there were not a lot of other elements really incorporated this week into our class.

I finished my “moon” lesson this week, and used the document viewer again for my Venn diagram. It really helped the students to see my partner teacher writing on a replica of their diagram to help them know what they should be doing.

We’ve been teaching a lot about the moon in our class this week, and I think it would really be beneficial to use stellarium in the class to show students the different patterns and phases of the moon. There are a lot of great programs out there to supplement curriculum in the classroom, I think some teachers are just a little hesitant to embrace technology for fear of using it and not knowing how.

I will survive!

The countdown to when I can get a good night’s rest again has begun. I am learning so much about management, assessment, and juggling different children and their needs, but it can all be a bit overwhelming.

This week in the classroom, I did not see a lot of “new” technology that I hadn’t seen before. Our teacher loves, loves, lover her projector, but she doesn’t incorporate a lot more than that.

For Veteran’s day I did a read aloud with a book called The Wall by Eve Bunting. I put the book on the document viewer while reading it. This really helped so all of the class was able to see the illustrations as I was reading the text. I also taught a science lesson this week comparing the differences and the similarities of the earth and the moon. Using kidspiration I made a venn diagram to use for this lesson. Kidspiration is a great program with lots of good formats you can use in your science or social studies lessons, or even for writing.

Second week of Practicum

What a whirlwind this whole experience in the schools is. Whew! Throughout this week I've kept my eyes open for different ways our teacher uses technology. The fact that she has a projector and document viewer in her room definitely helps. Technology definitely plays a part in our classroom. She uses those two things for almost everything. It helps out so much. Like this week she was showing them how to draw a turkey for a little Thanksgiving activity and she was able to just put it up there on the document viewer to show the kids instead of trying to use the chalkboard.The document viewer is great for modeling things to students, you can also use it when teaching cursive. Miss Utah came to our school this week and presented a presentation on internet safety. She used a projector and a power point type presentation. There was a little bit of technical difficulty, but overall it turned out well. I've noticed some teacher shy away from using technology, why I'm not sure. Maybe they're afraid it will be too complicated? I don't know.

This week Marcie and I taught a music lesson where we taught about the treble clef and staff, etc. We used the document viewer to show how to draw the notes on the lines and spaces and to label them. It really helped out because all of the kids were able to see on the projector screen instead of trying to see through us while using the chalkboard. So far my assessment on technology in the classroom is two thumbs up!