Week #13

These past few weeks, there hasn't been much technology use going on, but there has been some communicating through the Internet and writing up papers on google docs. The Internet is a great source of communicating, and for the most part is pretty fast. Being able to communicate in more ways than one is so convenient and helps have things written down and documented. During my Field Experience, our cooperating teacher has been emailing lesson plans, worksheets, links, ideas, and much more for us to have in our future teaching career. It is so great to be able to have them on file, and to also make a hard copy of them just in case. Emailing them to us, instead of finding them in the filing cabinet, making copies, this way just works so much better. Emailing also through this Field Experience has been pretty convenient also, where we didn't see the teachers for three it was a good way to stay in contact. Emailing ideas, worksheets or projects to my colleagues that went well in my classroom is a great way to help other teachers also have great experiences. The other day we needed an immediate answer to a question from one of the UVU instructors so we text messaged them, and got an immediate response, which was so helpful. Emails may take a bit longer, but text messages is a bet faster, and basically does the same thing.

Blogging is also another great way to keep people around you updated, and to send messages, invites, or announcements out to a wide range of people. It's also a great way to post reflections, or learning logs for school, which would be a great idea for younger elementary students to become familiar with. It would be fun to be able to blog some homework or different things through out the week. The kids seem to get more interesting and willing to do the assignments or listen in class if it's just worksheets all day long. Blogging can also be great for journaling, and being able to make a hard copy book of all the yearly events and announcements that were blogged through out that year. Being able to post a Voki onto a post on the blogger was a lot of fun, and made the post a lot of fun. Putting a Voki on the class blog for announcements, would be so fun for the students. You could also do class announcements or an object of a lesson on a Voki to start off the beginning of class is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom, and it's not hard at all.

I hope I have an opportunity to use technology in my classroom, and the students will enjoy the interaction and the excitement it brings. It would also be so nice for schools to get some new technology for the teachers so the students lives can be enriched with technology and so can the teacher as they teach their lessons.