My Beliefs

When I took my first technology course I was honestly terrified. I believed that I knew the basic skills of technology, and I didn't know why it was important for me to learn anything more. I knew how to type a paper, research on google, and email- honestly what more could I learn. After my class I was honestly so impressed with what I had taken away with me. I honestly had no idea how important it was for me, as a teacher, to integrate technology into my classroom. I now know that technology integration is not just knowing the basic computer skills or software. It is so much more than that.

I cannot even begin to tell you how important it is to learn technology integration for my classroom. I think it is so important to become knowledgeable on technology, because everything is going technology based. That is just the way it is. As a teacher we have to remember that technology integration is not just about knowing the basic computer skills just like the article stated. If I am not knowledgeable on this subject then I am cheating my students out from so much. Children these days are in school for the majority of their time during the days. If they are not exposed to technology or technology integration at all then how will they ever be? It is as important for students to become technology literate as it is for me to become this way. I believe that there are things that I need to learn or do before I become a teacher, so that way I can better myself as a teacher.

I believe one hundred percent that every teacher should be using technology integration in their classroom, and if they are not using it to some extent then they are cheating their students out of knowledge that they need to be obtaining. One of the most important things that I think the student should be learning is the collaboration part of technology. It is such a great tool for the students to be using and learning. However, I think that if students are not exposed to this they will never get the opportunity to learn it. I had no idea about Google Docs or anything like that until I took the media classes here. It is so important that I keep furthering my knowledge with technology and improve the skills that I am not as strong on. I learned from almost every video, article and standard that as a teacher it is so important for me to be a lifelong learner on technology. As a teacher I will use technology integration in my classroom, because I believe it is so important for students.

Lessons Learned

I think one of my biggest concerns after reading and watching all of these articles and videos is that truly everything is going technology based, and I am worried that students are not being educated enough on technology. From my field experiences in the past I have learned that not very many teachers, especially the ones who have been there for a long time, integrate technology into their classrooms. I think that this is such a fault, especially the way things are going these days with technology EVERYTHING. One thing that I was glad I learned was the NET standards of educational technology. It was a great plus to see what my strengths and weaknesses are considering these standards. I think it is so important for me to become experts on all these standards so I can promote them in my classroom.

I also learned that when we use technology, as a teacher, it is our responsibility to know that integrating technology is more than just teaching the basic computer skills. I believe that too many teachers out there feel that if they have their students attend a keyboarding class that this is enough technology integration, and this is FALSE! Technology integration should support these components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction, and connection to real-world experts. I think it was so important for me to realize that technology integration is so much more than just the basic skills, and in order for me to adequately integrate technology I must be sure to support these four components of learning. This way I am deepening and enhancing the learning of all my students.

I think that this assignment was extremely important to make me aware of my strengths, this way I do not spend so much time in these areas that I am good at. Also, it made me aware of my weaknesses so that way I can spend time in these areas and better prepare myself for these. I think the most important thing that I have learned through this experience is that technology is never going to stop improving and changing. It is so important for me, as a teacher, to continue to become a lifelong student of technology. I need to continue to learn the latest and greatest to make sure I know it well enough to educate my students on it. The video "Did You Know" really opened my eyes, and made me realize that it is my responsibility to continue to grow and enhance my learning on technology or else I will be completely drowned with all the technology, which is not fair to the education of my students. I must continue to learn to the best of my ability so I can integrate technology and teach my future students all about technology.

Strengths & Weaknesses

I feel that my strengths according to the UNI survey are the Basic Technology Equipment Operations and Concepts. The one concern I had on part one was the "demonstrate awareness of resources for adaptive assistive devices for students with special needs"- I answered that I was an apprentice at this meaning that I have observed assistive devices in use; however, I feel that this is one of my weaknesses because I do not feel like a practitioner or expert on them yet. The second part of the survey I felt that I had a little less knowledge on. There was only one whole section that I felt I could be an expert on it was "tools to access information." There were some in particular that I felt like I need to work on. The are using video conferencing to communicate with others, using databases, using spreadsheets. I marked novice on all of these selections, and I feel that I should be come better introduced to these topics.

I feel that according to the NET standards I have both weaknesses and strengths. Some of my strengths would be demonstrating continual growth in technology knowledge and skills, apply technology to develop students' higher order skills and creativity, designing developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies, use technology resources to engage an ongoing professional development, apply technology to increase productivity, use technology to communicate and collaborate with peers. I need to work on a couple categories in order to become a more knowledgeable teacher. I think that I need to better learn how to use technology in assessment and evaluation, I need to learn more about the social, ethical, legal, and human issues (that way I am down pact and can teach my future students correctly). These are the two that I feel the least educated on.

Some goals that I would like to make according to the results I have learned from this research would be become more knowledgable on the social, ethical, legal and human issues with technology use, learning spreadsheets and tools like this better, and also learn how to better use technology in assessments and evaluations of the students. On UEN I found a couple of workshops that would help me better my knowledge on some of these goals. The first workshop is Excel 2007 for teachers held March 2 and 3. I think that this workshop would be me because it could help me better my knowledge my skills on spreadsheets to calculate and display information properly. I would really like to better my knowledge on this tool so that way I could share this knowledge with my future students and classes. Also, I think it would help me with certain tasks as a teacher to calcuate information and display data. The second workshop I found will help me continue my knowledge on the social, ethical, legal, and human issues standard. The workshop is Internet Safety for Educators held on Janurary 31. I think that this workshop would help me because one the the main objectives of this standard is promoting safe and healthy use of technology. I would love to learn safe ways to use technology so that way I can share this with my students. This way everytime we were using technology we could do it in a safe and healthy manner.

Edel 3250 Service Learning Project

Crissa Whiting & Ashley McDonald

EDEL 3250:004

Our school is located in Springville which is in Nebo School District. This school is a Title 1 school. There is a total of 611 students and 306 of them get free lunch. In our 6th grade classroom there was 27 students. Out of the 27 students there were 10 Hispanics and the rest were Caucasian. Our cooperating teacher was Mrs. Peck.
We feel that our relationship with our cooperating teacher was really great. She trusted us enough to allow us to take over many of the tasks during the day while we were there. We were able to gain a great experience from field, and we feel like we have learned so much more by going to the elementary school and applying what we have learned this semester in class.
Our cooperating teacher felt that our digital story went very well, and that the children really enjoyed the technology piece. She felt that it gave them a new experience. Mrs. Peck thought it was really great that we used the digital story because it gave the students a great visual aid which helps them learn and comprehend so much more. She also felt that the students participated so much more because it was something that they enjoyed learning and watching.
Our cooperating teacher was very thrilled with the way the lesson ended up. She told us that because it was a new experience for the children that she felt that they would be able to remember what they learned a lot better. Mrs. Peck also felt that the student participation increased in this lesson because the students were intrigued. We feel that from this lesson our teacher really gained the appreciation for technology, and how much it can really add to a lesson. She strongly believes in visual aids for her lessons so she was glad to see how many visual aids we actually used for the students.
We feel that the training session went very well. Mrs. Peck said that she was so glad to be able to learn something new about technology. We feel that is was so nice to be able to teach our cooperating teacher about PhotoStory 3 because now she will have more technology tools to choose from in the future. Our cooperating teacher was very intrigued throughout the whole training session, and she was taking notes the whole time. This helped us realize that she really was interested in learning about new technology skills. This is in turn made us feel very happy that we could broaden her technology skills/tools.
We felt that this was a great opportunity to share our knowledge of technology with our cooperating teacher, Mrs. Peck. Mrs. Peck and the school for that matter did not use or have a lot of technology in the classrooms. When we used technology in our lesson we felt like our students responded really well to the technology being used. We were happy to share our knowledge of digital stories with Mrs. Peck because it is a great and easy tool to know how to use. We also hope by teaching our teacher about digital stories that she will use them in her classroom more to have a change in teaching more often.
Mrs. Peck gained knowledge of how to create a digital story. She learned about PhotoStory 3 which is an awesome FREE tool for anyone to use. She also learned a new way of technology and how to integrate it into her future lessons.
We now have a better knowledge of how to create a digital story and how to use PhotoStory 3. We learned better by teaching some one else and we were more then happy to share our knowledge that we gained. It was also nice to share our knowledge because it showed Mrs. Peck how much effort we put into the digital story and how much we enjoy using technology to teach.
We feel like this service learning opportunity was worth it because we gained a stronger knowledge of digital stories and how to create one. It was also worth it because Mrs. Peck now has a new way to teach her class and future classes. Where our future students are becoming more and more involved with technology it helps to show our students that we are in tune with technology and enjoy it’s benefits as well.

Reflection #13

WHAT?: This week in field was our last two days! We taught last week so this week again we just mainly observed and helped out where our cooperating teacher asked us to. My partner and I did not see much technology used this week, basically just the use of the projector. We also taught our cooperating teacher how to create a digital story by using PhotoStory 3.

SO WHAT?: I wish that we would have seen more technology used this week, because with some of the teacher's activities I feel like technology would have been a great use. The class did a hunger simulation about countries around the world for Thanksgiving. I feel like a digital story would have been a great way to enhance the hunger simulation. There could have been some awesome photos used, and I feel like it could have told a story.
I feel like overall our training with our cooperating teacher went really well. She took notes the whole time which was nice, because I feel like she will actually use this type of technology in the future. The cooperating teacher really loved our digital story, and she was super impressed with how well the students loved it. I know that from these results that the teacher will try to create her own digital story sometime. I am glad to know that I helped her learn more technology skills so hopefully she can implement them more in her classroom.

NOW WHAT?: This next week we go back to regular classes. It is kind of bittersweet. I know we will miss the children. I feel really glad that we were able to teach our cooperating teacher about PhotoStory 3. I was glad our cooperating teacher could truly see how easy PhotoStory is to use, and that maybe she will use it her in classroom. I know that the children loved the change of lecturing, and the digital story was a great hit with the students. I feel like technology is so important for teachers to use in their classroom, not only use but to get their students involved with technology as well. Our world these days is based all around technology, and I feel that the future adults of our society should be exposed to this. In school is a great place for the children to see it, use it, and enjoy it. I know that from this experience I will integrate more technology than we see used by our cooperating teacher. However, I feel like it was a big plus being able to train her on PhotoStory because now she can integrate more technology into her classroom by using this great tool.

Reflection #12: Field Experience #3

WHAT?: This week during field my partner and I were able to teach our lessons. We were able to use quite a bit of technology integration in our lesson plans including: digital story, Power Points with pictures, projector to show maps and pictures, etc. Our lessons went overall really well, which we were happy about! We taught the students Greek art, architecture, and mythology.

SO WHAT?: For our lessons my partner and I wanted to make sure we used as much technology as possible because we felt that the children did not get to experience many technology integrated lessons. The only really technology they use is Power Points with just words and then they watched multiple videos for science. We really wanted to have the students experience something new with our lessons to see if it helped their comprehension or their participation. The students absolutely loved our "Tour of Greece" digital story. They thought it was a great way to learn about different architectures in Greece. The students also loved being shown pictures of the artworks, temples, maps, etc. I believe that it really helped the children's comprehension levels, because the next day we would ask them about what we learned the previous day, and they would remember almost all of it. We made sure that the children got to see pictures of what they were learning and also summarized slides because it helped them see the main facts/points and not try to write down everything while not paying attention. It is so important to summarize for the children and tell them the important things.

NOW WHAT?: I think it is very important to integrate technology into the classroom, and I believed that using technology a lot in our lesson plans really showed us that. The students cannot always learn with just a pen and paper and taking notes. It really helps the children to see and visualize what they are being taught. I think this helps the children remember what they are being taught, and it also helps them with their creativity. I know that as a teacher I will use a lot of technology for my students while teaching them or even use it as their assignments. I think that getting them to use technology for homework and assignments is critical because then they learn how to use technology and become so much more comfortable in using it. Without this class I would have never been able to use technology near as much in my classroom. We have learned so many awesome skills that will be great to use in my future classroom as a teacher and colleague.

Reflection #11: Field Experience 2

WHAT?: This week in class we got to help out a lot more with the children; however, we have not yet taught our lesson plans. This will be next week. This week we started going to the classroom in the afternoon. I seen a little bit more of technology integrated lesson plans, but I still think there should be a little bit more. The teacher used a PowerPoint to show the children some science things that they were learning about Isaac Newton, and they also got to watch Bill Nye.

SO WHAT?: I think that the PowerPoint was very nice for the children to actually see what their teacher was talking about instead of just lecturing. The PowerPoint consisted of pictures and text so it was a little bit of a mix for the children. I think that the PowerPoint may have consisted of a little bit too much text because you could hear when the teacher would switch slides the children would groan and moan about all the things they had to write. I think personally it would have been better to summarize the slides so that the children knew exactly what they needed out of them instead of trying to write the whole slide and missing so much information because the slide was changed before they could write it all. I think that as a teacher and even as a student when I make a PowerPoint I need to really make sure to summarize the slides just because too much text is hard for the audience to read or take notes on. Plus you find the children get really bored with a lot text. You could tell the children really did enjoy the PowerPoint, however. Which was a really good thing! The next technology integrated thing was the students got to watch a Bill Nye science video on Motion/Gravity. The students have to fill out a paper according to the video. I really like this assignment, and I feel like the children did to because it was something different for them.

NOW WHAT?: I think that as a teacher I still want to use more technology integrated assignments for my students. I think that realizing what needs to be changed in a classroom or even what should be kept the same will help me become a better teacher, because then I can incorporate these things into my classroom and make the changes necessary for my students. I think that the children really enjoy when they get to use technology or even see technology be used for that matter. I am excited to do our lesson plans next week. We incorporated quite a lot of technology for the children. My partner and I felt that this was important for the students in the classroom so that way they got to experience a new style of learning. I am really excited to show the digital story in our architecture lesson plan. I think that the children are really going to have a blast. Another thing I can't wait for is showing our cooperating teacher how to create a digital story. I feel that in a way she might not use technology in her class because she doesn't feel comfortable with it. I think that when we show her how to create a digital story it might open some doors for her! :) Especially if from our lesson she sees that the children really enjoy it. Next week we will let you know how our lesson plans turned out, and if there is anything we should change!