UEN

Isn't great in this day and age that we can rely on technology to help us in the classroom? Teachers now have a great resource they can always turn to, Utah Education Network (UEN). At http://www.uen.org/ you can make a webpage for your students and their parents to see. UEN can also help you as teacher with your class. It gives you the core curriculum and lesson plans for any subject and for any grade.

Setting up a UEN webpage will be very helpful as a teacher. It gives me, my students and their parents access to Pioneer Library, which gives you sources that help you with research, like SIRS. You can also participate in any interactives that will let you and your students go through virtual tours, play learning games, and much more.

Another great feature is I can put upcoming announcements up to keep everyone updated. I can show assignments or lesson plans, so that the parents can see what their child is learning in class. I can list help hints in helping their children with their studies. This website can help me as a teacher give the students and parents and much help and information as possible so that they always feel involved in their child's education.

So I am very excited to use this website as a teacher. I think it will be very helpful in the future. One complaint is that this website is very confusing and it would probably be best to hold a meeting with the parents to show them how to work the website. I still feel like I have a lot to learn as well and I also have lots more work to do to get my webpage up and working. In the end though I feel this website will be a great asset to my career.

Video Reflection: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
This video shocked me and it made me realize that we are not preparing our student for the change in technology that literally happens over night. I think this video do a very good job of making people aware of the demands technology plays on us.

More of Everything Google!!

This week was definitely interesting. We were shown more possibilities that gmail has to offer. In google docs they have a presentation feature. In this feature you can make a power point. This is an awesome feature because no matter where you go as long as you can get on the Internet you can find your power point presentation, therefore making it easy access to present in class. This week in class we were assigned to collaborate our efforts to create a presentation regarding 5 rules you would use in your classroom.

Between all crowding around a computer and our busy lives, using google doc's presentation feature was great. It allowed us to all use our own computers. We could also get on anytime to work on or edit the presentation and we could all do it all at once. When we were finished it was a simple matter of sending it to our teacher without all the fuss.

I think this feature will be very useful in the future. When I am a teacher and I need to present something to class I can show it on a power point. I can work on it from home and not worry about it not working the next day in class. I can just open my email and there it is!

Reflection- Everything Google!

This week in class was very eye opening! We worked with gmail documents, calendars, and igoogle. I never knew there was so much to gmail. I usually use my gmail as a basic email. I never explored all the possibilities gmail has to offer. You can use gmail document to write a paper and share it with your friends. Everything is there at your disposal while writing a document so it makes it a lot easier to send than using word processor. We also explored gmail's calendar application. I was very eager to try this because I am not very organized but now my whole life is scheduled out before me. I also set up a igoogle page that we put together in class. Using google has definitely simplified a lot of things for me. I am excited to get my igoogle to the way I want it. I have all the current websites I haunt listed for me. I have my google calendar in sight so I can check on my schedule.

So why is google so important for me to learn, you might ask. It is simply a tool I can use to keep things simple and keep technology in the classroom. I can use the google docs to have my students write papers and send them to me for easy access. I can use google calendar to keep my schedule for my classroom on task. I can also set my calendar so my students or their parents can see what is coming up in the future.

In class we got to watch video on using technology in the classroom today. It was truly astonishing all the uses for technology in the classroom. Most teacher today get frustrated by the use of cell phones in the classroom. The video suggested using the cell phone for pop quizzes. It just seemed to me that what the video was trying to get across is today it is so hard to get your students engaged in what is being taught. So a way to change that is to speak their language, so to speak. Kids today are all about technology (twitter, facebook, myspace, utube, etc.) so why not channel their excitement about technology into a better use? This video really changed my point of view on using technology in the classroom and ideas came to me that I had never thought about. I think it will be harder for me to include all technology has to offer in my classroom just because I hope to be teaching a younger age group but I will definitely try to think of all the ways I can engage my students through technology.

Ideal Classroom Reflection

If I were to dream up the perfect classroom it would start with a school close to home. Once I get to school it will be a beautiful, comfortable school. I would like to teach the second grade. My classroom would be large. You would walk in the room and there would be a reading center to your left. It would have a theme, like the reading hut. It would be a private place where students could use their rewarded free time reading. There would be book shelf full of books. There would be comfortable couches, chairs, or even bean bags and pillows. There could be big fake palm trees that books could hang from. It would be like picking fruit right from the tree. The scenery would be Hawaiian, with a sun and ocean back drop, like you are at an exotic paradise escape, relaxing reading a book. In the center of the room are the desks and they fit in the room nicely, not too crowded. I would like them place in tables of four so that the students can work together. In the front of the room will be a white board and just to the right of that my desk and work place. All along the walls will be examples of students work or bulletin boards of the latest topics we are working on.

My students would be angels of course! I would like to have a specialty like Spanish second language or house some special needs students. They would all be a pleasure to teach. Their parents would be caring but give their children some space. My colleagues would be helpful and nice. All the second grade teachers could work together and maybe just for certain centers or have combined activities. Everyday we would start out with a welcome, get the schedules understood. Then we would move from topic to topic using mostly a hands on technique. My classroom would be very technology friendly. We would have a couple computers for the children's use for free time or research. I would use a projector where you could see what I was doing if I was on the Internet or using a slide or video. I would try to teach basic curriculum with a twist. I would like to use a theme each year and base lessons on the theme. For example everything could be based on a historic event so they could be learning two things at once. I would also like to set up goals with the children at the beginning of the school year and we could all work toward them together. My ultimate goal is to teach the children respect and to have aspirations to be thriving society members because in the end isn't that what we are working towards?