Sunday, May 6, 2012

Project 16

Final Blog Assignment

Project 13

For Project 15 and 16, I was in the group Team Fantastic. For project 15, we did a lesson plan on second grade social studies. For our final project, we did a video on How to Fail EDM310. When we collaborated on our projects, we stayed simple and just used Email and SMS message. On our SMART board lesson, we also used the NoteBook software that we had downloaded on our computers. We had a great group and our projects went perfectly!

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Blog Assigment #13

No cell phones allowed
For this assignment, we were to go technology-less for 24 hours!! Needless to say, I failed miserably. I do not know what life was like before technology. I have never noticed how much I actually use and depend on my phone and computer. The longest I made it without picking up my phone was about 10 hours. I was asleep for 6 of those hours. I can live without the TV and such for a whole day but definitely not my phone. I have an iPhone so everything is in the palm of my hand. I use Facebook, Twitter, and text the most. I do not think that I have an adequate reason as to why this is so hard for me. Maybe it is habit? I do not really remember a time when I did not have access to a phone or the computer. It is almost like breathing for me. I do it and not even realize. I wonder how many people honestly succeeded at this?? I am not sure how my students will react when they come to my class. I hope to let them engage with technology throughout the day so hopefully they do not go into technology withdrawals. I think it is great that we encourage and teach the use of technology in the classroom. Depending on the age, as soon as they step foot out of school, they will turn to either a phone or a computer! So let's engage what they know with what they learn!

Final Report on PNL

C4T #4

The teacher that I got to read to posts from this week is Jenny from Auckland, New Zealand. She is a primary teacher who has been blogging since 2009. In her most recent post, she mentions taking up photography. She was inspired from a Facebook friend about using her iPhone to snap some pictures. She displays some beautiful pictures of flowers she took using her phone. They look great! The moral of her story was about the differences between simple cameras and expensive cameras. "The happiest people don’t have everything, they just make the best of everything." This is a great quote to remember. We should all remember this in our future classrooms. We need to make the greatest impact on our students with whatever resources we have available.
Google+
Jenny also posted about Google+. She overheard a family member having a hangout session with her class. So Jenny started thinking about how Google+ could be used in her classroom. Do you think it would be a good idea? I think it's great to introduce new things to the classroom. You could add the students into your "circle." I want my students to be well rounded in all things. I would love to introduce them to this!