Journal 6



I went to the website of the school district that I attended from elementary school to high school and looked for class pages from the elementary school I went to. While our class pages used to be built into the district website, teachers now use Google Sites to provide information for students and their parents. I chose a 3rd grade class page from Plank South Elementary School to explore. All the information that is available on the page is also open to the public; the teacher includes their daily schedule, a school supply list, flashcards, booklists, math homework help resources, and spelling lists. The page includes links to other websites that parents can access in order to assist students and provide supplemental material to ensure their success. A screenshot of the homepage is included below:


Although I won't be teaching, I will have to use technology to fulfill my responsibilities as a school psychologist in the future. I'll need to use computers to administer tests, input information about students, and collaborate and communicate with colleagues. It's also important for me to have a good grasp on the way that teachers use technology to better understand the needs of students and their classroom experiences.

The technology that stood out the most to me at the Tech Sandbox was the SMART board. We had them in our classrooms growing up, but the new features that it possesses lends itself to an even more complex use of it in the classroom. For example, the augmented reality component of the SMART board through the SMART notebook allows teachers to manipulate images that show up on the board; using the cube, the teacher can rotate an image of the human brain to show off different parts of it to their students. Students can also participate by playing games through the SMART board's software and write on the board using the pens provided. 

Comments

  1. HajeenOctober 19, 2018 at 10:14 AM

    Sounds great! I need to go and see the advanced SMART board. :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Journal 2

Image
I've been using Microsoft Word as a student longer than I can remember. There were take home and in class assignments that required the use of word in a variety of ways. Some teachers would have us use it in the most conventional way (writing paragraphs/essays), while others would have us use it to make charts, brochures, and documents with images and word art embedded in them. As for my teachers' use of Word, I never saw them using it in an interactive manner in class, but it was obviously utilized to make handouts, tests, quizzes, and homework assignments. Even now as most classes have gone digital and don't necessarily use physical handouts, professors still use word to make assignment instructions that are posted on Canvas. Copyright and fair use have always been a confusing and complex topic for me. Growing up, my teachers always told us that it's better to be safe than sorry. The concepts were never really explained to me as a student, so I generally cited every...
Read more

Journal 1

Technology has long been a part of education. Although everyone has a different idea about what constitutes technology (eg. a calculator vs. a VR headset), it's presence is always intentional.  It is inevitable that students and teachers will interact with many different types of technology in many different environmental contexts. There are a variety of reasons why teachers and students use technology in the classroom, with some being a choice and others being out of necessity. Within the classroom, technology can be used either as an integral part or an enhancement of a lesson. For example, if a state standard in math is that all students must learn how to plot points and graph on a calculator, then the use of technology is essential. On the other hand, a science lesson on the structure of a cell could be enhanced using a virtual reality program that takes students inside a cell to identify different organelle. In this case, technology is used to compliment the lesson. Technolo...
Read more