Digital Story Reflection

What - We worked on our digital stories today. It was nice to get class time, I learned how to add sound from garage band and how to put a picture on powerpoint and then add it to our story. This is a fun project. 

So What - We are doing ours on the civil war, I think this would be a great eye opener for students. Digital stories are a great way to introduce a new subject and get students excited to learn. Its a great learning tool as well. they are time consuming, it not something you would be able to do every day. I also think it could be effective to have my students make their own digital stories as a learning tool. Instead of writing a report they could make a digital story. 

Now What- I loved making our digital story. I will definitely make digital stories in my own classroom as a way to introduce topics. I will also have my students write their own video.

Video- I used my friends computer and it would not support this video. It asked me to down load a new media player which, I didn't want to download something on her computer that she wasn't going to use. sorry 

Field Experience

During field our class had 20 computers in the classroom. It was amazing how much we were able to use, it increased our ability to use discovery learning. Its hard to imagine teaching without the computers. The school also had a lot of access to technology through the school. The teacher is getting an endorsement in technology. We had our students record a song about the branches of the government on garage band. The students are great at using the computers, I had a student teaching me shortcuts I can use on my mac. I was truly impressed with their ability to use computers and other technologies.  The class loved this assignment and made some great songs. Field was so much fun!  

Field: week 1

What: we were introduced to our teacher, students, and class this week. Our teacher has 17 computers in his room, it is really awesome. 

So What: Our teacher has 17 computers in his room, it is really awesome, as a result he able to do some amazing hands on lessons. He was teaching about different forms of governments and had his students pair up and use the computer to find as many forms of government and write a definition about them as they could. The kids got really into this because it was a competition. It was great. 

Now What: We are planing our lesson integration technology, the plan is to have the students write a song about the branches of the government and record it on garage band. I am really excited to do this with our class.

My Beliefs

I believe that technology can and does change education for students, technology is a great way to enhance the learning environment. It is important that teacher stay updated with the latest technology. Technology can make classes fun for students and help them to feel successful, when they may have self esteem issues. I have really enjoyed some of the things we have learned in our class, my favorite is the digital story and I think it is important that teacher keep educating themselves. Technology should be integrated into the classroom when ever possible, it encourages group participation and challenges students.  

Lesson Learned

     I really liked how the tools for change slides gave the old ways for teachers and students and the new ways using technology. It really put things in perspective for me, technology really has change the way we learn and I think it is wonderful and that teachers need to embrace technology. I thought the video about social networking was really cool, how they told all of the benefits of using social networks in classrooms. I never thought of the benefits in class, we have talked about it in class yet I never heard any reasons why.  I enjoyed the list of online acronyms, I thought it was funny that people know them, I didn’t even know the ones he said everyone knows, like IMHO and AFK. I’ve never been a fan of acronyms but it might be nice to know them as a teacher. The other memorable article for me was the study about students that do some writing outside of school of some sort. I found it interesting to see the percentages of students that did writing after school and the small percentage that felt those writing effected their writing for school.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths and Weaknesses:

            After completing the survey I have found that some of my strengths are I am able to use word processing to compose documents and print materials. I use the internet often to communicate with others. I am able to use the web to access information. I’ve never done a, video conference but I think that I am good at and am comfortable playing around with technology until I can get it to work as I needed. I feel that a big weakness of mine is, terminology I don’t know the proper terms for computers and software. I also feel like I have a weakness when it comes to computer software and I have never used a spread sheet. Their is always something to learn on the web.

As a teacher I would like to get a technology endorsement. These classes teach a variety of information on tool you can use in an educational setting. Also along with getting this endorsement, you get extra computers for your classroom. This would be a great advantage for teachers. Youtube has lots of video that teach about spreadsheets. If I ever needed to learn how to make one I would just find a few videos on youtube. 

Week 9 reflection

What - This week we learned about digital stories. What they should look like, and to use them in the classroom, ect. We saw some really cool digital stories and discussed what we liked about them and what we didn't. My favorite video was the one on the Holocaust.

So What - Digital stories will be a great tool to use in the classroom. Many of the digital stories we watched as an example left me wanting to learn more about the subject. Its such a great way to start a unit. If we can get students wanting to learn about a subject it will make your job as a teacher much easier.

Now what - I thought digital stories were so cool. I'm very excited to learn how to make one. This would be great to use as a preview to a lot of units. Literature, social studies, science, ect. It would also be really awesome to have your students make their own digital story. They would love it and learn so much researching their topic. Digital stories are so far my favorite thing we have learned about in class.

Video- I'm and not sure if it is just me but the video brought me to a page that wasn't available. I was excited about watching a NASA digital story.