lesson one.

I must admit, I was very overwhelmed this week with the start of classes. After completing the assignments for this week though, I am excited about all of the different resources I will learn about in this class. I know that when I have my own classroom one day, the lessons learned in this class will make me a more technology savvy educator--and in today's world that is definitely important!!

Weekly Assigment: 

What did you learn this week that you will use immediately in your classroom?  
For starters, the YouTube video, "A vision of Today's Students", was an extremely valuable lesson on what exactly I will be facing once I enter the classroom. Right now I work as an instructional aide in the classroom, where we use technology on a daily basis, but after watching that video I learned the importance of catering to the needs of a technological student. I plan on looking into the world of podcasts more as a way to work with my students. I have my own reading group and I think it would be really neat to allow the students to record themselves reading at the beginning of the semester and at the end--just a neat way to track their progress and make them proud of themselves!! I also want to try to incorporate e-books into my reading group as an added at home resource to aide their reading.
 
What steps will you take to implement this into your classroom?
I think the most important step is to get the parents on board with using more technological resources. If parents know the benefits of the resources available and are shown exactly how to access them, then the parents are more likely to make sure the students are accessing resources such as the e-books and podcasts. I think utilizing tumblebooks in the classroom is something I can definitely do now. I will first need to provide parents with information about tumblebooks, and provide some sort of tour of what tumblebooks provides. Then I would need to lay out what tumblebooks or lesson plans would most benefit my students. 

What challenge(s) will you face when using this in your classroom?   
The main challenge I feel I would face with asking my students to use tumblebooks, is in cases where students have little to no parental involvement OR do not have access to computers/Ipad/Tablets at home. In some cases my students lack parental involvement or concern in their education, so asking them to help their child access these tumblebooks might be a challenge. 

What will you do to overcome the challenge(s)?   
 To overcome these challenges I would have to first figure out which students are not getting to access the tumblebooks at home. Then I would have to figure out somewhere in my daily plans that those students could use the classroom computers or Ipad to view the tumblebooks. This is something we already do in our classroom, so I do not feel like it would be difficult to find the time.

Tech Explorations

TE1-1Wiki-pbworks.com

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	I had always known that were different networking sites available for educational sharing, but this site makes it look so easy. I really like the idea of the teacher being able to post notes, powerpoints, newsletters, etc. all in one place. This definitely makes it easier not only on the parents/students but on the teacher too. I have recently become very interested in the idea of student-centered learning and like that pbworks.com can allow students to post things to the classroom network as well, not just the teacher. I had no idea that site like this existed that allowed cooperative collaboration of teachers, parents and students.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	I feel like areas of this would be hard to use in my field (elementary education), but definitely in a high school classroom this would be a great resource. It allows the teacher to post information such as class notes, rubrics, syllabus, etc that the students could always access. I like that the site says that the information could be accessed from different places, and in the world we are in today, people like to have their information at their fingertips. I also like that the site would hold students accountable and also allow them to post things on the site that could contribute to the class. I know that I have really enjoyed the online class format, and think it is something I would have really benefitted from even as a high school student.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	I would initially say yes. I know that there was a fee to go past the basic edition, and since I did not sign up for that I’m not sure how great the free one would be. I do think it’s nice that an entire school or organization could sign up for pbworks.com to make sure that everyone is on board with the sharing and collaboration that the site provides. I know in the school I work in, only about ¼ of the teachers have their own classroom pages with information for parents, and they hardly update them. If the entire school could be on board I think this would be an excellent resource to use from year to year. Once parents and teachers were used to it, they could feel comfortable using it each year.

 

TE 1-2: Ebooks/Tumblebooks

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	From exploring tumblebooks, I learned about the world of e-librarys and the way you can incorporate an elibrary in the classroom.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	I think that tumblebooks would be a great resource in a school setting, especially for struggling readers. Since the book has the option of being read to the student, it would be interesting to see the progress the child would have with reading certain words after they had heard the tumblebook read to them a few times. I also liked the lesson plan resource and the teacher resources available such as the book review layout, worksheets, and word jumble. This is something that is definitely easy for the teacher to access, or even assign for the student to work through at home. There are also videos and games provided.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	Overall I felt like tumblebooks was quite easy to navigate, and would be an easy thing for students to use, even at home. Students today love anything that involves technology and tumblebooks proves to be a good resource for teachers to use. Common core standards are also provided, making it easy for a teacher to find the standard a student is struggling in and provide another at-home resource to help. I feel like the $499 yearly fee is not bad, especially since there are so many resources available.

                                                                                  

TE 1-3 Podcasts

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource.  Be thorough in your response.
	I have always heard of podcasts, but did not have any experience with working with them, so I feel like this tech exploration in particular was most beneficial. I first looked at AudioBoo, focusing on the types of ways that podcasts can incorporate student learning and participation. On Audioboo the students can post their progress in reading, speeches, storytelling and other assignments onto the website, and share the information that way. This is another way that students can participate in group discussions and have their own voice heard. Sharing these audio files with the parents in particular is a good way to let the parents track their child’s progress, as well as listen to the audio files at home and discuss it. Looking at Mr. Langhorst’s classroom web page I learned about
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting?  It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	Podcasts can be used as resource in a school setting in two main ways: with parents and with students. Podcasts can be used to share with parents what the class is working on, update them on the progress of their child, share important information and give them an at home resource to listen to with their child. Podcasts can be used as a resource with students to allow them to use technology to complete assignments. A child, especially in elementary, can also hear themselves read, and hopefully allow them to pinpoint strengths and weakeness in their literacy. Finally podcasts can be used as a study resource through studycasts and podcasts to make sure all students get the same information.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth.  Why or Why not?
	I like the idea that the podcasts are easy to access and free to download. This would make it easy for the teacher to send out an audio file and know that everyone should be able to access it. I really liked the studycasts used on Mr. Langhorst’s classpage and I think that would be an excellent resource for teachers, especially high school teachers. If a student was absent those studycasts would be there to help them with any information they missed out on.