Reflecting on the Semester

 I learned a lot about different types of technology tools this semester. Many of these tools will help me later on in my career as I become a teacher.

I really enjoyed learning about interactive whiteboards. I know that where ever I end up teaching, no matter what grade, I will need to know how to use interactive white boards. I also know that if I want to be the best teacher I can be, I will need to know how to create my own flipcharts that cater to the children in my class. After this class, I feel confident that I will be able to create new flipcharts, and tweak old flipcharts in order to best suit the class I have any particular year.

I also enjoyed working with the wikis. Wikis were something that I did not have very much experience with before this class. However, I can now see where wikis could be helpful both for teachers and for students. I can imagine myself having a wiki with my coworkers that way we can easily share and update information, lessons, tips, etc. and every person can have access to it. This could be used forever.

Another thing that I found particularly helpful is Google docs. I had used Google docs very sparingly when I needed to share a document that could be edited with a large number of people, but this class has shown me that Google docs can be used for various other things as well. In general Google docs are good, free applications that any student can have access to as long as they have internet.

I think this class is very beneficial for all students that want to become a teacher. No matter the grade level or subject area technology is going to present in the classroom. It is important to learn ways to use technology as a tool to advance all students' learning.

If you would like to see more about the technology I learned about this semester you can visit my class webpage!

Interactive White Boards

Interactive white boards have the ability to add an interactive digital approach to learning. There are a few different types of interactive white boards including Smart, Promethean, and the  Mimio system. Smart and Promethean are both interactive white boards while Mimio is a system that turns any whiteboard into an interactive whiteboard.

Each section of chapter one gives us various research into uses for interactive boards in the classroom. It is important that teachers use the interactive boards intentionally to further the children's learning by using them for more than a projector. Research shows that students who have been exposed to interactive boards do not necessarily score better on tests than students who have not been exposed to interactive whiteboards. Therefore, I think the interactive whiteboards should be used to further children's learning by giving them an interactive surface to work and play on.

In order to do this, teachers need to be taught ways to use their interactive boards in the most beneficial way for students.

University of Houston- Digital Storytelling Website

On the What is DigitalStorytelling? page of the website I learned that the most basic definition of digital storytelling is, “the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories.” Most stories focus on a specific topic and are done in a particular point of view.  I also learned that the stories can vary in time but most of them are between 2 and 10 minutes long. The Center for Digital Storytelling has been helping to create digital stories since the early 1990’s. Many different people with many different skill sets are using and creating digital stories to use in many different ways.

Under the EducationalUses page it explains that digital storytelling can be used in many ways in a classroom. This includes teacher and student made stories. The teachers can use digital stories to enhance lessons. The students can use digital storytelling to go deeper into a particular subject. It also helps give the students a chance to use technology to make something to be proud of.

The 7 Elements ofDigital Storytelling page gives seven elements that can be included in a digital story.

1.       Point of View

2.       A Dramatic Question

3.       Emotional Content

4.       The Gift of Your Voice

5.       The Power of the Soundtrack

6.       Economy

7.       Pacing

These are the seven that the Center for Digital Storytelling decided upon for general digital storytelling. The University of Houston decided that in order to create an educational digital story it needs ten specific things.

1.       The Overall Purpose of the Story

2.       The Narrator’s Point of View

3.       A Dramatic Question or Questions

4.       The Choice of Content

5.       Clarity of Voice

6.       Pacing of the Narrative

7.       Use of a Meaningful Audio Soundtrack

8.       Quality of the Images, Video and other Multimedia Elements

9.       Economy of the Story Detail

10.   Good Grammar and Language Usage

These ten steps help to make a digital story more educational rather than just entertaining.

Under the 21^st Century Skills page it lists several skills that students working to create digital stories use that are helpful in the 21st century. Some examples include: Digital Literacy, Global Literacy, Visual Literacy, Technology Literacy, and Informational Literacy.

There is also a Web 2.0 Resources page where there is a list of useful resources to use for digital storytelling such as blogs, pod casts, wikis, and an other category. 

Blog About Teacher Blog

Ms. Cassidy's class blog is a blog about the happenings of Ms. Cassidy's classroom each day. There are blog posts about what kinds of activities the class does each day. Sometimes the posts just contain a picture and a caption, while other times the blog posts contain multiple paragraphs and pictures.

There are also blogs about each individual child's work titled by their first name and followed by learning. For example: Micaela's Learning would be my blog name. On each child's blog there are pictures of the work they have done such as paintings, math patterns, etc. The children's blogs also have a calendar widget in which you can click a date and it takes the reader to the work the child completed on that day. The categories listed on the side of the children's blogs are: arts education, French, inquiry, language arts, math, and uncategorized.

Back on Ms. Cassidy's class blog there are link to each of the children's blogs as well as a twitter widget that contains tweets from the class twitter page. There is also a list of classes across the world that Ms. Cassidy's class learns with and list of links to sites the classes use to learn with. There is also a visitor’s ticker widget that tells how many visitors the page has had since August. There is also a section that is for other teachers and parents that contains information about Ms. Cassidy and other useful information such as “What Makes a Good Reader”.

 This is a picture of the class on pajama day!

 Here is the link to the class blog:
http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org/

Introduction and Expectations

Hi! I am Micaela Dodge. I am a senior at the University of Tennessee pursuing a degree in Early Childhood Education. I have lived in Knoxville almost my whole life and hope to teach in Knoxville after I graduate. I want to teach young children in order to give each child that comes through my classroom a positive outlook on school and learning early on in life! I believe that this will help them to be the best learners that they can be and will therefore give them the foundation they need in order to be successful throughout their lives.

In this class, I expect to learn the basics for many different technology tools. I want to learn more about blogging and websites, because right now all I can really do is type into the given text spaces. I do not know much about formatting. I also want to learn more about technology that can be used with children in the classroom such as interactive whiteboards.