"My Beliefs"

                 I believe that in the century we live in technology is a part of our lies, and that everyone needs to use it to keep of with the fast paced world. Even though sometimes it might seem another thing to add to curriculum you need to add it in often. It helps students develop communication skills, technology skills, and high level thinking. It provides the classroom with diversity, current learning materials, and at the same time it's interesting. It helps teachers reach different learners and makes learning more meaningful and fun also. With having NET Standards and the UNI surveys shows that this knowledge is very important for teachers especially to know about.

                 The world having this creation of new technology readily available is effecting children of all ages k-12. The Millennial article was interesting in showing the percentage rates of those using or have used a computer at young ages. When these students were questioned they said in the future they would want to see more digital devices, more access to computers and Internet, intelligent tutor/helpers online, and ways to learn and complete school work with technology. I think that it's great that students are dreaming big, but also with everything always being a instant gratification, it isn't healthy. Although its useful and very resourceful their needs to be rules and guidelines set to age groups. They are constantly in another world on the Internet and not in the here and now. Technology needs to be seen as a privilege not a gift.

                        

                           

Lessons Learned

        My thoughts about technology and its use in curriculum are that its very important and children should know how to use it. With technology being such a part of everyday life it's crucial to have basic knowledge of its importance. My concerns about it is that technology and its speed keep becoming more available and faster to locate. With that anything can come whenever anyone wants and is accessible. I was also concerned to hear that students are having a disconnect between personal and school writing and that its a big issue. 

   Things I found interesting are that there is such great tools out their and I had no idea,for example The Ethics game created by the past supreme court justice. Math and reading are the two subjects that would benefit the most from learning technology. From one of the readings it said that a program called, Class Act Portal is a new way to use high speed 3g Internet to create learning that is real, rich, and relevant. In a other article it states that children stay engaged and on task longer when doing technology out of any subject.

"Strengths&Weaknesses"

My strengths in the NET Standards were the first three standards. These demonstrate a good understanding of technology operation and concepts, plan and design of effective learning environments and experiences through technology, and implementing technology into curriculum plans that include methods and strategies. My strengths in the UNI surveys were knowing how to operate a computer and use its different features, files. Also being aware of computers and computing technology in business and society and having observed devices to help special needs children. I also know that there are sources online that are information and useful, and can tell which sites are accurate.

My weaknesses in the UNI survey are the areas of troubleshooting computers, video conferencing, using databases to analyze and produce reports, use of spreadsheets and calculating information, and basic computer terminology. In the NET standards the high skill levels of assessment and evaluation, productivity and professional practice, and social, legal, and human are the areas of weakness. The two goals that I've decided as a beginning teacher are based off of my weaknesses and how I can improve: To learn basic computer terminology, so I can teach students the information and understand questions that arrive. The second goal is to learn how technology can be used to do assessments and evaluation strategies, by applying them to student subject matter. Also knowing a variety of assessment techniques for my own use.

The two online tutorials that I've found to help me improve my weaknesses are first helpwithpcs.com. This site will help further my knowledge of basic computer terminology by giving me proper definitions, and provide examples of them. This site has all the computer terminology from A-Z so it will be a good resource to refer back to. The second tutorial website is http://tie.smartlibrary.org/newinterface/segment.cfm?segment-2277, which is a website that tells you why technology is used to assess and why it is useful. They gives you all the background information and examples you could need. This will help me get a better view of technology uses for assessment for the classroom and students. This will be a great resource for my weakness in this area.

Reflection #6 and movie clip

How'll digital stories help me communicate with my students' parents?
Digital stories will help me communicate with my students' parents by showing them the videos covering the material that will be used that week in class. I'll post this on our class website so that they can review them. This way when students tell there parents about class and how they watch a video they won't wonder what they watched.

In which ways might I employ Digital stories to acheive classroom objectives?
I could have my students work on making a digital story using computer skills that I taught them. You could fulfill the technology standards this way also. I could find past stories on art and its influence on Roman history showing live footage from the sistine chapel. As a teacher, with my colleagues we could make a story on a subject area that doesn't have as much project materials and information to engage the students in. It could help you make the beginning of the unit seem exciting to the students.

Millenial Generation clip
This movie clip was interesting and brought up some really good questions for students to think about. It was good to hear a number of students opinions and remarks for each question. It helps get you thinking of what the future will bring as far as technology and it's exciting. It would be a good clip to show to older students I way think for them to see why its important to have lessons and do work on computers. In the dicussion you could do a similarties and differences of the time now compared to the time their teachers were in middle school.

Reflection #5 and Video clips

In which ways might I employ digital story skills to achieve classroom objectives?

         I could use digital story to achieve objectives by finding videos on the indians and then incorporating them into your unit. This will help the students get a real life example of the time and what happened. Also they will feel of the emotions and strength and the topic will become more important and they'll want to learn more. You could also make one for your class as a instructional video to teach them about a certain process like the parts of a flower or the water cycle and help them connect it to a visual.

How will these digital story skills help me collaborate with my colleagues?

          These skills will help me with my colleagues in that we can be more computer illiterate as a whole. We can finds clips and digital stories and see they have a message we want to be heard. A message that portrays help, completion,  and confidence.

Did you know? movie clip

         It is a awesome video that really gets you thinking about how fast our world grows. Showing and relating technology to babies being born and how their world will be different was a good strategy. The strategy that pulls you in and commands your attention with graphics, stats, and music. I t really makes me want to be fully computer illiterate and teach my students computer skills. So that they can get up to the knowledge to technology in the 21st century. I think it would be a great idea to show the first half of the video to students to show them the world they live in and how the need more technology smarts is great.

A Vision of students today, movie clip

         At first I thought this was a really weird video and a different approach to view college life, but its a cool way to capture it. We have so much technology at our feet and opportunities, but we don't always take advantage of them. Why spend money for class and never go? It's crazy to think we complain about having homework and slow computers when half of the world won't earn as much as a laptop costs in a entire year. It is a good video for older students to see and to realize how lucky and special we are even though it seems hard and crappy. It's to complicated for elementary students to comprehend and they wouldn't get much of it to help them.

Reflection #4 & Video Clip

How will these skills help my students create?  They'll help them create a document of what they've learned and how they grew because of it. They can decide on how they want the outline to be like, the types of music, and who will narrate the story. They can all work together and use their imaginations and see what can come when each student creates together. The end product can be used by other teachers or even by the students in the future.

How will these skills help me collaborate with my colleagues?  They can be tools to help another class out in a need to discipline and instruct them better. The whole grade can use the same stories while studying a unit. It will promote more meetings for the teachers of what the students need to accomplish and how they can improve their instruction. 

Why are these tools so popular with my colleagues?  It changes up the monotony of lecturing, but most importantly because they teach a topic in a new way. The stories instantly connect with feelings, happy or sad, and experiences that they have seen other people or themselves go through. Students get the whole experience of a topic in audio, visual, and emotions then the would from just reading a text and answering questions.

In which ways might I employ these skills to achieve classroom objectives?  I can employ these skills in a many ways in relating to objectives. First each topic could include a digital story about a person, experience, or issue happening during the time period of the topic being studied in class. A digital story could be about violence and how it has hurt the person talking and this could possibly help the bullies in class see what they really are doing. It could also be on a certain objective, say the water cycle, and the story could help them remember the correct steps it goes in.

What are the pros and cons of Digital Stories? The pros are that the stories are unique, diverse, and connect students to real life experiences. They change up daily class routine and teach learning through three of the senses. I t connects to children much better then having them read quietly in a book. The cons are it takes to much time to make your own digital story in order to use it in class. If sometime you wanted to randomly pick a video the site could be down or the story could not play. 

Nasa Digital Story

This clip was unable to download on my computer I tried it twice, but it wouldn't convert over. I tried looking it up on google and thought I found it on the nasa site but I wasn't sure how to tell. Also I looked it up on teacher tube but the videos had nothing to go about darwin. I bet it was a neat story that would get students interested in what space is and what happens there. Boys for sure love space and the vibe it gives off of exploration and finding new information over time.

Tech #2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ksa.bitesize/ is a technology site for all ages of students. It has English, math, science, reading, writing, and spelling activities. You can choose to just do the activity for each subsection or you can also take a quiz on it. For first grade I know they learn about keeping our bodies clean, and on this site they have an activity about our teeth under the science: living things tab. It is a child friendly site with a picture for each topic and so many options. The activity games are fun and different, as well as, the colors  incorporated on the site. Students might need assistance finding the site and the correct tab their activity is under, but teachers can explain whenever they have technology time. Students can have fun on here even if it is for an assignment or not.

 I can see this site being of use in the classroom for many reasons. When the class is assigned computer time each student could access this site. You could instruct them to pick an activity the class has learned about and then take a quiz on it. Students could receive points for finishing class goals or being on task when a substitute came. The points start to add up and when they reach a certain amount they get extra recess time. This recess time will take place in your class and the computer is incorporated into this time. This site is one of the few they can get on to use and practice subjects. Also for each activity if it correlates with what they learned in class the teacher can post it on her website or blog. That way when they get home their parents can help them get on and do the activity. It is a fun way to learn and test knowledge of different skills. I think the children will really enjoy it.