What I have learned

This class has been filled with tons of great information and sites for me to implement into my future classroom. I would not know about many great educational sites and programs without this class. Something I am so grateful to have learned in this class is how to use Smart Boards. I know that as an educator I am most likely going to have a Smart Board in my class, so knowing how to use it before I have a teaching job is so beneficial. Several great sites that I will take with me to my classroom are: Voki, Glogster, Word Clouds and Bit Strip. There are so many educational ways to implement technology into a subject, it is just being brave enough to do so!

I will definitely have my students create word clouds in my classroom. I am planning on teaching lower elementary and it seems like something that they would definitely be able to do. I also really enjoyed writing in a blog. This is something that I could implement instead of science journals. The students could blog about recent science experiences or just post questions they have. Something else I believe lower elementary kids would really enjoy is me giving my direct instruction using a Prezi presentation. It seems to be a little more interesting than a power point presentation and anything that keeps their attention longer is great! I was a little bummed about this class being a Monday night class, but I am so grateful for it! I definitely learned a lot and have great information about educational sites to take into my classroom from our class Wiki accounts. Overall, it was such a beneficial class! Thanks for everything Mrs. Burdic! See you on Thursday nights this fall :)

The Future of Technology

We are truly entering a new era when it comes to technology! Things are improving and schools are always upgrading to the next best thing. As of right now, schools are including smart boards, ipads, skype and many more things into their classrooms. I believe that before long every school will have these things and virtual classroom might even be something that some school invest in.

I like technology, but just a little bit here and there. I definitely get sad thinking about it taking over the classroom because that does not make someone a good teacher. I will use technology in my classroom such as, smart boards, virtual tours, laptops for research, etc. I will use these things when appropriate, but I will also focus on direct teaching and hands on activities. It definitely impacts me, as a teacher of the future generation, and I am sure I will have to go to many trainings to learn this new technology!

Academic Honesty

This topic was very eye opening to me. There are many things that I have done in my schooling that I never would have thought were considered as academic dishonesty. This is SUCH an important thing for teachers to teach their students starting at a very young age. We need to be instilling academic honesty in our students at such a young age because it is something they are going to run into throughout all of their years in middle school, high school and college. Teaching academic honesty is just another way to teach positive values to your students.

If the teacher is not resembling academic honesty in their own lives, their students might not take it seriously in their own lives. This is such an important thing for teachers to reflect when they are showing the students information. We have to model the types of behaviors we want our students to resemble in their own lives. Students know that it is wrong to lie and take things that are not theirs, so relate real- life situations to academic honesty when you are teaching your students to value it.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a tremendous growing issues in schools today. I would define cyberbullying as bullying through electronic devices, such as text messages, facebook messages, spreading rumors online, or breaking into someones account with means to cause them trouble.

Some websites to help educate students on cyberbullying are:

STOP cyberbullying

StopBullying

KidsHealth

SafetyWeb

Cyberbullying

Digital Citizenship for Teachers

Digital citizenship is important for students, but they will have no idea what it is unless teachers are modeling it themselves. In today's teacher world, many teachers could probably get in trouble for violating digital citizenship. From getting permission to show a video or citing a source that you use in your classroom, teachers need to be aware of what they need to do to ensure they are staying true to digital citizenship. We need to make clear the rules of digital citizenship, but if we are not modeling it ourselves, then our students are going to think it is okay.

As a Christian educator I believe digital citizenship is so important for you to reflect in your classroom. We are trying to witnesses to those around us and if we are modeling dishonesty we are not setting a very good example for our students and co-workers. Even with the little things, we need to make sure that we are citing our sources that we use in our teaching because other wise it is stealing. If you think about it this way, would you want someone to use something you wrote without citing that it is yours? We have a reputation to uphold and practicing digital citizenship is one way to do this in our classroom.

iMovie Presentation

Here is Rachyl's and I's presentation on rainforest awareness!

Voki Rainforest Introduction

Here is my second Web 2.0 project. It is a voki giving an introduction to a lesson on the rainforest and the specific kinds of animals found there. I think Voki is a great hook for your students into a lesson. Enjoy!

Voki