Reflection Google Part 2

What?

I am currently learning about how to build a google site. I learned how to create a professional, free, and user friendly website for future students and their parents. We are currently assigned to completing a website for our future classroom using lots of tools on the website to create lots of resources for future site accessors.

So What?

Learning how to create this website means to me as a teacher that I am going to be using technology to create more resources for the students in my class. It also means that the parents will be aware of what is going on, ways they can access my advice and help, they will be able to keep up with an organized schedule they can follow, and therefore, they will be happy. The parents will be able to be as involved in their child's education as they would like to with all the tools to their child's success listed in an accessible website. As a student, learning how to create a website helps me reach my goals of becoming a better and more educated teacher. As a colleague, it will allow me to collaborate with other teachers in one more way. They can be aware of how my class is in order and feel comfortable with what's going on in my classroom.

We are learning how to make a website with google sites to be educated in as many technological areas as possible. This adds to the density of our knowledge, as teachers, of tools that can be used to help parents and students be active members of the classroom. This can apply to me today because my classes are gearing me towards becoming a better teacher, and learning about these technological tools will add to my nest of knowledge and resources to make a great classroom. All my other classes are attempting to add to this collection of knowledge in different ways, and this google site can help me be more aware of resources to access for organizing all my classes. This all means that I can be a more organized student, colleague, and a smarter teacher with lots of different sources of knowledge to tap into.

Now What?

This technology will allow my future students to be interactive members of the class in and outside of the room. This information changes my current schema by introducing my mind to multiple pathways to reach successful conclusions. It creates ways to perform my tasks as a student and teacher in more diverse methods. This particular new schema will change the type of teacher I become in the future by allowing me to explore more options to involve parents and students. It will help the class stay organized and aware of any changes. It will help me have the ability to make changes, be flexible, and yet still maintain professionalism and fairness. I can give my students assignments that can all have the option of meeting in groups in person or collaborating online using google documents. This would only work for the oldest grades in elementary, but either way, the assignments will be more likely to be completed on time and correctly because the parents will be involved and aware. I can let my students know that the assignments will always be listed on the website, and I can help them through whatever assignments they have via google email, blog post comments, google documents, etc.

This will help me be a better teacher because I am teaching them technology to allow them to function in a technology based world while offering them other learning opportunities within the basic school subjects. This information will help me be a better colleague because I can organize events with them, if they have Gmail, and I can organize class activities that include them. We could even share calendars with each other to collaborate our lesson plans. There are many doors opened with the awareness of Gmail and all of the tools that can be used to benefit careers and personal life via online organization. I am excited to get the parents thrilled about their child's education and feel comfortable with me as their teacher. I don't want anything in the classroom to be a secret, and I hope that by having lots of different ways for students, parents, and colleagues to contact me, and by having an organized and informative website, the class will have no child left behind.

Video Reflection: Do Schools Kill Creativity

In this presentation, the man speaking had several interesting views that I appreciated. In speaking to teachers he said, "all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them." He also said, "Creativity now is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same status." So, understanding that creativity is being squandered or at best pushed to the bottom of the learning hierarchy, and also understanding its great importance, can allow teachers to re-evaluate their method and philosophy behind teaching. When children are young, the worst thing isn't 'being wrong' like it becomes by adulthood. This is an example of creativity being squandered. It was also said, "We are educating people out of their creativity." The school system is set up in a way that the universities design the system in their image." The highest form of academic achievement seems to be the 'university professors.' I agree that this needs to change or else there will be an academic inflation where the only jobs available require masters degrees. "We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children." This quote sums up the entire article by expressing the need to reconsider our teaching techniques as a whole and as individual teachers. Why is art at the bottom, why is creativity at the bottom, and why are there less and less imaginative thinkers? Certainly we must "use our gift of imagination wisely." I found this video to be a very positive motivating speech that provided psychological facts and data supporting art. If art and creativity will help my students be successful and reach their individual potentials, then I need to consider it as a vitality to my curriculum and daily lesson planning.

Week 2 Reflection

What?

I am learning how to use Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Documents. This week, the assignments include Blogging, watching a video clip of President Obama, creating a welcome letter for our future classroom, and making a rules presentation, and using Google documents to collaborate with our partners online.

So What?

This technology will help the students have better resources to access, understand, and fulfill the curriculum requirements. It will also help the parents be as involved as they would like and to be aware of everything that is going on in the classroom. I am learning how to better incorporate online tools into my daily life and into my future classroom for better quality instruction and organization.

I can use this information to organize my class homework assignment schedules and due dates so I stay on top of my studies and do what I came to school to do… learn how to be the best teacher. These Google skills can help with everyone I collaborate with, including my colleagues.

Now What?

This technology means that my future students will have all kinds of tools to receive the kind of help and instruction that fits their learning styles best. This information changes my current schema because now my brain processes the possibility to tap on these resources to fulfill any challenge or task at hand. This information is slowly adding and connecting to other brain pathways making a web of information accessible by even more ways. These new online skills will impact my future teaching styles and allow me to attract my students to learning with their favorite thing… media.

Technology opens up a whole range of new lessons and ideas that can reach across the globe. One lesson idea would be to Skype a teacher somewhere else in the world, like Spain, and to have a question answer session back and forth with the class. This type of non-restricted lesson planning will help the class to be open to as many things as they are willing or want to learn about. Technology can help me outsource for the students in my class to receive other instruction than from just me all year.

As for my colleagues and the district I work in, it will help everyone collaborate on a highly organized level… if everyone has access to the kinds of technology and skills in the same programs. It would be helpful to coordinate meetings, assemblies, fieldtrips, and schedules apart from the physical individual classroom.

I am very excited and passionate about becoming a teacher. I’m constantly thinking of awesome lesson plans and ways I can get my kids to be excited about school and love their teacher. I’m constantly trying to improve myself so that I can use ‘model teaching’ for morals, values, and self-discipline. I like reading textbooks when they tell me how to be a better teacher, and that is really a rarity for me to even use the word like and textbooks in the same sentence, so that’s a good sign. I feel smarter everyday. I think its because I want all the assignments I’m doing to help me become Miss Schlauder, so they are doing just that.

Video Reflection: Obama speaks to children

Something I wrote down from the President’s speech that I liked was this: “ Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer…And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.” I liked how he talked about the students’ worth in such a positive light. His speech involved examples/stories of many people who had hard times and overcame them by getting an education and never giving up.

I did think the speech had some unprofessional content because he shared his personal life experiences and even said, “When I was your age, I was a little bit of a goof-off. My main goal was to get on the varsity basketball team and have fun." I didn’t like that he said this. When I was young and people talked about overcoming mistakes, all I thought about was that I could make those mistakes too and turn out fine like them.

There were some articles written about this speech that discussed that issue of some parents and some teachers not allowing the speech to be shown in the classroom because of a possible political agenda. If I was a teacher at the time this speech was going to be presented, I would’ve liked for my students to see it. After watching it, I don’t think it had any political ‘polling,’ so maybe I would have recorded it and showed it to them later if the parents were ok with it. Giving the President of our country the benefit of the doubt, I think he had pure and good intentions of getting the students of America a motivational boost, and I support that fully. I never remember an opportunity to have the President of the United States speak to me, as a student, and I think it would only improve the value and importance of each student's feelings for education.

Video Response

This video of Dalton Sherman wasn't really my 'style' of motivation or getting excited to be an educator, but I was impressed by his talents in speaking and skills in presentation. The praise he received from the crowd will help give him confidence throughout his life, which will have a positive effect on his learning foundation. Positive memories in education especially including sufficient praise from their teacher will create a positive pathway of learning in their own system of gaining knowledge. The support Dalton received was more of a motivation to me as a future teacher than his actual speech. I appreciated the support shown to him by the tremendous applause and praise from the audience. Teachers should certainly do that for students that are extremely talented, but just as important as that, teachers need to praise individuals' personal successes no matter how small they may be. Even if it is just finally remembering to put their name at the top of their paper- stickers, smiley faces, and praise. If it is as simple as raising their hand to speak or capitalizing the correct words in a sentence- praise, stickers, smiles. Children shouldn't ever be made to feel that they have to do something truly extraordinary and exceptional to be recognized by the teacher. Praise is so important in guiding children's confidence in their ability to learn. Giving students effective praise can encourage them to learn in the most positive way; this was the lesson I learned from this very talented student.

Week 1 Post - Visualize

Journal Entry from a future student:

Dear Journal,

This morning I woke up without my Mom having to 'pull out the jaws of life'(as she says) to get me out of bed. I rushed downstairs to eat some cracklin oat bran cereal. My brother says it looks like bird food, but it's my teacher's favorite, so I really like it.
Today at school, it's my turn to do my silent reading in the reading tub. Miss Schlauder has a red bathtub in her room that's filled with all kinds of pillows. When someone gets a certain amount of points for reading, they get to sit in the read tub during class reading time AND teacher read. It's going to be such a good day.
My birthday will be the next best day because whenever it's a student's birthday, Miss Schlauder does something really funny. During Social Studies, she dresses up like someone from the history we are studying and she sings 'Happy Birthday' in their language or style or sometimes she even does a dance with the song. Last year, I heard she dressed up like a mummy because they were studying Egyptians and she sang a spooky happy birthday song.
Oh oh oh, and guess what else our class does! Once we all get 10 'caught being goods' for helping each other or being nice to someone else, we get a class goldfish. My older brother says they got three goldfish last year and one had a red spot on its belly so they called it a Japanese name because the Japan flag has a red dot in the middle.
I like my desk. Because I don't have junk falling out all over the place. I get my own cubby where I can put the extra things I don't need all the time like my art supplies and reading books. It has my name on it. I really like my name.
In the 2nd grade, I tripped over someones backpack and my hands stung all day. I was really embarrassed, but in this class, we keep our backpacks on hangy racks around the room so it's not so messy on the floor and dangerous.
I like the color blue. I think Miss Schlauder likes it too. Maybe I'll ask her today what her favorite color is. She says she's like an open book because when you ask her a question, she tells you everything, but I don't think she really looks like a book at all.
I used to hate spelling tests because my pencil always broke because when I get nervous I write really hard. But now I kind of like spelling. There are two boxes on the counter by the cubbies that say "sharpened" and "not sharpened". When ever we get a broken pencil, we put it in the not sharpened box and take a sharpened one. It's really handy.
I'm starting to like English too. Miss Schlauder brought in a picture today of when she was a little girl. She used to carry around a pink blanket that her Mom made for her. Well, today she also brought the actual pink blanket that was in the picture. We brainstormed together about questions we had about the blanket and we wrote it all down on the board. Then, we got to think of our own favorite childhood 'artifacts.' And we wrote some questions other people had about them. The writing part was easy because all we had to do was answer all the questions other people didn't know about our favorite thing from when we were little. I brought my stuffed animal gator. It has a tee shirt on it that says 'Someone in Florida loves me.' Hmm. I don't know who that person is.
Well, I better put away my writing journal. It's 10:30 and the 'transition song' just came on, so that means in 5 minutes, it is time for Math.
Bye!
F.S

I decided to try to get the feel for what I would like my future classroom to be like through the eyes of my future student. I did this for multiple reasons. First, I would really like my students to enjoy and appreciate my class and respect me as their teacher. In every personality/job test I have ever taken, they all say that I need praise and continual support, and if I receive both, than I will flourish. If I don't, than my talents won't be useful. It is important that I am passionate and enthusiastic about teaching. If my students can feel how much I love to learn, that I like them, and that I want them to learn, then I think my talents will be very useful to the classroom.
The second reason I used the journal entry approach to explaining my vision of my future classroom was to put come up with a few ideas and try to think how a student might respond to them. I will probably use a survey at the beginning of each school year to evaluate the kind of rewards, games, and types of things the class is most interested in. I did this as a teacher assistant and found that in the 'other ideas' column, there was listed goldfish, class parties, and a few other unique ideas, so I will try to continually come up with new motivational and fun ideas for the students.
Other things I tried to focus on in this journal entry were elements of safety in the class and an element of comfort. The students can feel more safe when the room is organized and there is walking space(clear paths). Also, by having a specific place to put their belongings, they will have less anxiety about losing things as kids often do. The element of comfort was the bathtub full of pillows for reading. This also included the idea of only having logical consequences. If you do your reading well, you get to do your reading in a comfortable place. That matches. Some teachers offer extra recess for completing their math assignments on time, but this consequence is neither logical or natural and will not be an intrinsic reward. Physically, by having an element of softness in the classroom, it emotionally adds positive warmth that the desks can't offer.
I want to get my students excited to learn and excited to come to school. I want their parents to be happy with their children's happiness. I want my collegues to feel welcome in my classroom and to feel able to take ideas from my class and share their class successes with me so that we can all incorporate a much more positive environment that will have less behavioral problems.
I don't mind what grade I teach, but I love english, writing, and art, so an older class could get into writing a little more deep. I will embrace honesty and optimism and set class goals that maintain a higher class moral.
I want the students to feel safe, respected, happy, liked, and smart. These are the class goals I will strive to facilitate as their teacher.