Final Reflection of TPTE

At the beginning of this class, I thought I had a solid understanding of technology. I thought I know a lot about the many types of software available and the skills for using it. Over the course of the semester, I learned that there were so many things I did not yet know. I learned about creating digital stories, digital diagrams, flip charts for interactive whiteboards, and the skills to go along with these. One of the major things I learned is that technology can be useful even for working with young children. It can easily be embedded into an early childhood classroom. I can't wait to use some of the knowledge I gathered in this course in my future classroom.

My favorite thing I learned is how to make a flip chart. I can definitely see myself using those in the future to teach my students certain skills. I especially like the one I made about math concepts and
plan on using it in the future.

I think the most important concept this class taught me is how to troubleshoot when something goes wrong because technology is not always compliant. For example, when I was creating my digital story, my pictures were completely blurry when they loaded into iMovie from the cell phone where I captured them. After a great deal of troubleshooting, we finally figured out that when I e-mailed the pictures to my computer, the picture files were compressed. I also learned a lot about being patient with technology. It is those types of understandings that will benefit me in the future. I am thankful for this class because I now know so much more about technology.

 As a final wrap-up for this class, I created a website for my future classroom that contains all of the work or links to the work I made throughout the course. I am proud of the work I have done. I think my website embodies my hard-work well. The image below is a snapshot of a page from my course website about my favorite project, the flip chart.

 

Critique of U of Houston Digital Storytelling Website

The University of Houston Digital Storytelling Website is a great resource for learning all about digital storytelling. Upon entering the site, the layout quickly catches the eye. There is a nice balance between the use of bold colors and graphics to draw in the user. Many of the graphics are also helpful for explaining the information provided on the page. For example, the Getting Started with Digital Storytelling page provides a graphic that breaks down the process of creating a digital story. An image of this is included below. There are also quotes on many of the pages that relay the impact and importance of digital storytelling. After looking around the site, it is apparent that the pages are organized and easy to navigate, which makes it easy to decide where you can find the information you need.

In addition to the visual appeal and layout of the site, the quality of information it provides is fantastic. One particularly helpful attribute of this site is the actual abundance of information about digital storytelling. If you are not familiar with digital storytelling, the site provides descriptions, educational uses, the 7 elements it incorporates, the skills it builds, and more. Another helpful attribute of this site are the links to actual examples of digital stories. There are even options to look up examples by their subject categories, and there are many categories provided. Perhaps the best parts of this site are the how-to pages that describe each step of creating a digital story. These pages provide in-depth descriptions of all of the necessary information. This site also offers links to other sites where software for creating digital storytelling can be found. From learning, to creating, to sharing your digital story with the world, the University of Houston Digital Storytelling Website is a great resource.

My Exploration of Interactive Whiteboards Systems

In order to learn about interactive whiteboard systems, I read the first chapter of the iBook, Engaging Learners with Interactive Whiteboards. First, I learned that interactive whiteboards are also known by the abbreviation IWB, which makes them seem much less intimidating. I have seen interactive whiteboards in classrooms over the years, but I had no clue how teachers could use them or what purpose they served in classrooms. Now that I know more about them, I think they are a great classroom tool.
The overall purpose of interactive whiteboards is to get students to interact with the material and content you are teaching. Teachers can create components to use on IWBs or get them from websites, like Promethean Planet. As a future teacher, it really struck me that I need to remember the importance of providing good instruction along with the use of interactive whiteboards in order to make their use in the classroom valuable to the students' learning.
Before reading this book, I did not know there are so many different ways that you can make interactive components used on interactive whiteboards interesting, like by adding pictures or video, touch-activated feedback, or even highlighting certain things on the screen. These all seem like really great ways to get students interested in what they are learning.
This reading also brought it to my attention that some research about interactive whiteboards has been done. In the education field, it is always nice to know what research indicates about specific instructional strategies before they are implemented in the classroom. Apparently across the span of research on this topic, there are some conflicting results. Some studies found that interactive whiteboards did not raise students achievement. However, other studies found that they did, specifically when they were used correctly. I will definitely keep this in mind when I use interactive whiteboards in the future.

Midpoint Check-In

So far in this course, I feel like I have learned so much about technology. I really considered myself to be knowledgeable. However, there are so many things I did not know. I enjoyed learning about wikis. Aside from Wikipedia, I had no knowledge of how to create wikis or use them. Now, I feel very familiar with them. My favorite activity was creating an inquiry-based assignment. It enabled me to become familiar with a website called Storyline Online. I think it is a wonderful resource, and I will definitely be using it in my future classroom. Creating the activity to go along with it really helped me understand how to use online content for educating very young children.
In the next portion of this class, I look forward to learning more about interactive whiteboards. In the classroom where I intern, which is a preschool, there are interactive whiteboards. I found this to be shocking. However, the children really seem to enjoy working with them, and I think they can be valuable resources in the classroom. Overall, this class has really pushed me to further my technological knowledge.

Taking the Wiki Walk-Through

I just took the Wiki Walk-Through, and boy did I learn a lot! If you are not familiar with wikis, like me, this is a great resource for learning all about them. This site even provides links for wikis that you can explore. I really enjoyed looking at the First Grade Learning to Write wiki. The children in this class started writing a story and posted it on a wiki for other people to add to it. I think that is a very clever use for a wiki. 

I never realized there are so many reasons why we should use wikis. I particularly like that wikis cause people to work together and require us to get our creative juices flowing. Also, wikis can help us become better writers as we can continually edit when we use them.

My favorite thing about this walk-through is that it provided ideas for wikis based on subject, and even age. There is even a whole page of ideas for using wikis with young children. I really love the idea of making a Where is Wanda wiki, which is basically an online version of Flat Stanley. This is a way for children to learn all about the world around them through pictures and text. I also really like the idea of a Twaditionwiki where children can share their traditions. In a world where our classrooms are filled with so much diversity, this is a great idea for bringing a group of students together.

This walk-through also provides a really helpful set of questions that you can answer in order to prepare yourself to make a wonderful wiki. Sometimes, when we are trying something new, we do not know where to begin, but this site helps to eliminate those issues.

My Experience with Website Evaluation

I just completed my first website evaluation. I feel like I took a lot more from this experience than I had initially expected. When I normally peruse a site, I do not pay attention to who authored/created it, when it was written, or the accuracy of the information. I guess you could say I have been way too trusting. My experience with a website evaluation was eye-opening in that I now recognize that I need to pay more attention to what I am reading on the internet. Anyone out there could create a website, even though they have no qualifications. Also, I could be reading information that is way out-of-date. I will definitely pay more attention to what I am reading on the internet in the future.

Since I completed this activity, I feel like I know a lot more about how to complete a website evaluation. I now know what makes a website reliable and useful. Overall, I learned what to look for to ensure a website is reliable and useful for my students. I found the evaluation sheet very helpful because it guided me through the activity. I am going to make copies of it to refer to when I am evaluating websites in my career. The process of evaluating is actually quite simple, so it should be no problem for me to complete when I am looking for websites to use in my classroom. 

Welcome to My Blog, Here's Another

As I work toward becoming a teacher, I am always searching for new ideas that I can use in my future classroom. I spend a lot of my free time sifting through the blogs of other teachers in order to find interesting activities and lessons. One of my favorites that I have found is Ms. Cassidy's Classroom Blog. It is filled with wonderful updates and pictures of what is happening in an actual classroom over the course of a school year. The crisp, organized layout is eye-catching and refreshing. Ms. Cassidy also provides a gadget that allows access to her class's twitter page, which is a great glimpse into their day-to-day learning.

My absolute favorite part of this blog is that it links to a blog for each of the children in the class. This allows followers to keep track of the individual learning and progress of each child. It provides a beautiful snapshot of what each child likes and what they are creating in school. After looking through each child's blog, I am floored to see how capable six-year-old children are of successfully using technology. I also really enjoyed seeing their attempts at spelling certain big words.

I think this blog is a great resource for teachers because not only does it give ideas for teaching, it also provides ideas for how to use technology in a classroom of young children. As technology advances and becomes even more present in today's world, teachers will need to be able to implement technology into the classroom. If I get a job in a kindergarten classroom when I start teaching next year, I will definitely be making a classroom blog and a blog for each of my students. Who knows, they may teach me things I did not even know about technology!

Course Expectations

I am a senior Child and Family Studies major with a concentration in PreK through Kindergarten and a component in Special Education. I am interning in a preschool special education classroom this semester, and next semester I will complete my student teaching before graduating in May. I am excited about taking this TPTE 486 course because I think it will teach me a lot of ways to use technology that I can possibly implement in my very first classroom next year. Since I am working with very young children, I am curious to find ways to use technology that will benefit them. I am very familiar with working with Mac since I have been using it for the last six years. Hopefully my prior knowledge will be beneficial to me in this course this semester.  Technology does not make me nervous. However, I am very accustomed to searching around to figure out how to use technology. I hope this course will teach me the proper methods, so I will no longer need to search.