1. Select one of the web based strategies discussed in these
articles or another you are familiar with and integrate it into one of your
lessons. Report how the lesson went.
2. Sear2. Search YouTube and
post a video on our blog that you could use in an elementary classroom.
We have computer technology time that we can reserve in our computer lab, where all students sit at their own computer. They participate in a guided lesson and then there is time for them to each type their own spelling words and create sentences. They are able to print their work and bring it home to share with their families. I am interested in having a Smartboard in my first grade classroom, there is just 1 representative from each grade level to have this equipment mounted in their classroom. We each have an ELMO projector which is extremely helpful when teaching a lesson. During our daily Everyday Math Lesson I am able to demonstrate and work in my very own Workbook that is projected on the big screen for all to see. Students can also place their work under the ELMO to share with their classmates that way, they all think that this is pretty special.
ReplyDeleteIncorporating technology is the future of teaching. The resources that are now available are absolutely amazing and so helpful in making and proving a point or demonstrating a point or fact. Everything is in real time. When we are tracking weather and temperature, we are more apt to go to a smartphone with the temperature for our area than to look at the actual thermometer that we have mounted to the outside window, they are just unreliable and difficult to read.
By incorporating technology lessons are accurate and spark rich class discussions that inspire students to learn even more.
Sounds like you make good use of technology and enjoy using it! Have you looked at YouTube for possible videos? Every time I see one being shown the students really pay attention and seem to learn from it!
DeleteNancy
The first article about iPads/iPods made me think about using technology for fluency (and various other) practices in my classroom. In my student teaching classroom, we were fortunate to have three teachers and therefore always an extra set of hands to work on fluency with students during the quiet reading block. I often got out my phone to time the students reading a passage fluently, and found that students were motivated to stay focused just by simply seeing the phone timing their progress. This makes me think they if we could get the students trained to use an iPhone/iTouch/iPad to track their own fluency, they would become extremely self-motivated to practice their fluency daily. I particularly liked the idea that using an iPad to record their voice puts students within an instant feedback loop, as they can hear themselves and better understand what they need to fix or work on. Finally, I've seen something like this in action in my student teaching classroom; students have access to iPads and laptops for a "First in Math program" which focuses on basic math concepts, skills, and fluency. Students are very motivated to log onto the program and practice math because it feels fun to them; there are "games" and "stickers" to show progress throughout a particular skill, and interactive graphics and sounds that maintain students' levels of curiosity and interaction. As a result, students often spend time playing First in Math at home, and the teacher has seen math fluency (ability to quickly recall and use math facts, like quickly solving 3+5) skyrocket.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of the National Geographic channel on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/NationalGeographic
I used it a lot in my classroom last year when we were studying African animals - I was able to find videos of every animal and knew the videos would be age-appropriate and scientific.
Do you think you have the same feelings for using iPads with your nursery group?
DeleteGenerally, all of the students in my class are engaged by technology. Many have reported that computer lab time is their favorite part of the week, and almost all of the students have reported that they love to play games on the Wii, the computer and the Ipad at home. Although we not use the Wii in school, I have found whenever we can mimic these interactive experiences in school the students are always engaged. To do do this, we try to use our classroom Smartboard atleast one time per day.
ReplyDeleteLast week in Reader’s Workshop, I taught first grade students the comprehension strategy of visualizing, and I used YouTube videos to teach this strategy two days in a row. On the first day I played sounds from YouTube videos on the Smartboard, without showing students the picture. The students had to draw what they pictured to be making each sound. After students drew their picture, I showed them a picture of what was actually making that sound up on the Smartboard. The sounds used were of dogs barking, waves crashing on a beach, children playing at recess, and a crowd cheering.
The next day I wanted students to practice visualizing while I read them a story aloud. The story I read them was titled Fireflies, and was about a boy who catches fireflies in the summer. A major part of visualizing, is using your background knowledge to make pictures in your mind. Since some students may have never seen fireflies before I showed them two pictures of fireflies, and showed them a YouTube video of fireflies (I projected both of these on the Smartboard). Since the fireflies entered onto the screen sporadically, I made their entrance into a game and told students not to say a word, but to quietly raise their hands when they saw a firefly come on to the screen. This was very exciting for the students, and they were extremely well behaved; I think this was because they were so curious to see when the next firefly would appear. This also proved to be an essential part of the lesson, because half of the students reported that they had never seen a firefly before.
Sounds like great lessons and uses of technology!
DeleteIn the school I am student teaching at, students have access to the school’s computer lab with top of the line equipment, and individual classrooms sign up for lab times throughout the week. Recently, I took the first grade students to the computer lab to play a National Geographic game about maps, symbols, and keys to extend their learning about maps in the classroom. The students don’t use computers in the classroom, so going to the computer lab is always a special experience. They are highly motivated by the use of this technology, and the map games help reinforce their classroom experiences in a new and interesting way. After returning from the lab, the students seemed to have a better understanding about different map symbols and keys.
ReplyDeleteDuring a science lesson on balls and ramps, where students first made predications about what kinds of materials balls were made from, what was inside, and how balls were made, students watched an educational YouTube video on the computer about a ball factory. The video gave them specific and detailed information about a topic that helped extend their thinking. Following the video there was a whole class discussion about the differences between their predictions and what they learned in the video. The students were so excited by what they learned from the video that many of them talked about it in their journals the next day. The information from the video also helped them make predictions in some of the following science lessons because they had a deeper understanding of lightness, heaviness, and force that different balls may have. One video we watched can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ljnHIdcGY
Although I haven’t yet had a chance to, I think it would be fun to integrate some applications on iPads or iPhones into daily classroom experiences, such as timing or recording students reading. Although this may not be appropriate for the kindergarten classroom I am now in, I think the first grade students would be highly motivated by the use of this technology in the classroom, and also benefit from it. We can say things to them such as, “Read like your talking,” or “Read with expression!” but I think having children actually hear themselves would help bring awareness to their own strengths and challenges.
Terrific ideas. I hope you have technology available in your first job. If not, you might consider applying for a grant or appealing to the parents—or both.
DeleteDuring writing workshop this week, we have had the opportunity to bring in laptops for each student to do research on their non-fiction writing piece they are working on. The students have been using their time a lot more productively with the computers in the classroom compared to when they went to the computer lab to do research. It is shocking to see the difference, but also great.
ReplyDeleteThe school that I am working at are fortunate enough to have this available for teachers. Each classroom also has an ELMO, which is great. In the classroom I work in, the teacher also uses her own ipad where she has connected it directly to the smartboard. The students love this.
One website that I've discovered this year is called Prezi. It is a website where you can create very engaging presentations. I would definitely suggest checking it out and playing around with it!