Blog #4

Quotes from 3 & 4:
" I want to be a leader in creating a place where each of you becomes more keenly aware of the possibilities in yourself, the people around you, and the power of knowledge. I this place, I want us to find together a good way to live."
This quote is important to me, because I truely belive as teachers we need to show kids and strongly point out how great they really are, they are the worlds next generation and they are capable of so many things. Students also need to realize the power of knowledge by learning what the world would be like with out it! They need to find their strengths and others' strengths, everyone is good at something. The last sentence of this quote I also really like, because if teachers and students find a good way to live together at school, it will help students more to find a good way to live as part of a community outside of school as adults.

"We don't just keep them busy. We are giving them an opportunity"
I think this is a an awesome quote, because as teachers we need to remember we are not there to "keep kids busy" but we need to give them an opportunity to succeed and feel accomplished. Students need to excel in the classroom. Busy work is pointless, as teachers we need to make sure that what we have our students do needs to give them an opportunity to test their knowledge and make it grow!

The teacher states this quote after listing the class goals/rules/ideas "You'll see those things in me as your teacher. Ill expect to see them in you as individuals and in our class as a whole"
I really liked this statement by the teacher because it shows that she is going to abide by these so she expects her class to. It shows team work and that the teacher only expects out of her students what she expects out of herself. The teacher is straight forward with what she expects and I feel that is very important for students to know what exactly their teacher is looking for, this way they can do their best in the classroom. It shows the teacher is looking for a tight community calssroom from the last part "our class as a whole". It shows that she expects the whole class to work together to make the classroom work and a successful learning enviroment.

Blog #3

AMAZING! This would be the word to describe Silvia Allen's vistit to our classroom. She seems like such and awesome person. She is so talented! I was so engaged with everything she had to say, I could tell she has a deep passion for teaching. If I can be half the teacher she seemed to be, I will be delighted! She has me sold on morning meetings. After hearing all her experience with them, it seems hard to believe that any class can function through a day with out a morning meeting. I never knew there are so many things students gain from a simple morning meeting. There are so many benifits! I am looking forward to participating in morning meetings with my own class one day, I can't wait to see the outcome first hand. Anyways, I definatly earned how important creating class community is too. This ties into morning meetings. In morning meetings students learn how to interact with one antoher, accept everyone, make friends with students they would not normally play with, and most of all become comfortable with their peers. If the students are comfortable being themselves in the classroom they are more likely to succeed because they feel comfortable participating and answering questions. The students will be less stage freight and more outgoing in the classroom. This means they will dare to take risks! I dream of a classroom where all my students communicate with one another, help those who need help, and dare to say the wrong answer, this would make a successful learning enviroment. I wish my teachers would have help morning meetings so I myself as a students would have dared to participate more. I was always the shy, quiet one and still can be today! I feel like if I would have practiced morning meeting skills early on I would not struggle as much with participating in class disscussion!

Ch. 2 Blog

2a: "...Emotions Trump Learning" What I feel this quote means is that, our emotions rule our learning ability. We will only learn what we feel we can. If we are nervous or scared in school our learning is going to be greatly effected in a negative way. However, if we feel happy to be at school, comfortable and excited, our minds will be more likely to soak up the knowledge during class time and we will be more involved. I feel that this is why creating a "safe learning enviroment" for students is so stressed. If they do not feel safe at school negative emotions will be created and it will put a damper on their learning experience. I believe with positive emotions students will greatly succeed in the classroom.

Chapter 1 Blog

1a: I really liked this quote from the book. To me, it means if we as teachers are willing to get to know our students and create ties and connections to them along with the rest of the class, they will be more open to share their knowledge because they feel more comfortable in their surroundings like they would around a family member. This will help students be themselves knowing that they are different but somewhat the same. If you allow yourself to make ties with the students as a teacher, you will be able to better help your students and help them in the best ways possible. An "ahh" popped into my head while reading this, when I was younger I was super shy. When my teachers would ask me questions about my life outside school i would feel more comfortable and more important. Just the simple ties my teacher would make with me really helped me be myself in that certain class. I think it is very important to make ties with our students.

EDEL 3250-01

This week in computer, we continued on with digital stories! Me and Mailie decided we wanted to switch our topic, because Rosa parks wasn't working too great for us. Some of the pictures kept blurring when we viewed it, and so many of them were copy writed we couldnt find enough to make it to our time limit. So we went to somthing quite similar since we could still use some of the pictures we found. We decided to do the topic of segregation. We are just goint to talk about when it began the causes and effects and when it ended. It should be quite interesting. So we are kinda taking a time consuming risk and starting over EKKK!

I have had the chance to view a few of our classmates digital stories and there are some really good ones! Me and mailie are done writing our skit and are still gathering and putting the pictures in the correct places and working on how the pictures will enter the screen and exit with all the differet effects. It hard to get down to business and choose waht you want because there is so much variety its fun to play with all the different options.

So its finals week! Yikes! We have so much due. This semester has flown by, I have enjoyed learning all the was to integrate technology into my future classroom. I still have to be creative and think of how I am going to integrate Technology into our two lesson plans that are due for finals, but those might be kinda fun to write! Well one day at a time and this is my last blog for the semester! Peace out :D

EDEL 3250-01

So this week in computers we continued onward with our digital stories. Malie and I are doing our digital story on Rosa Parks. We feel that Rosa Parks is a good topic because she changed how the world works today by doing one silent act. When she refused to give up her seat on the bus it changed our world history forever. She ended segregation for the most part so we can all live equal lives. I think its amazing she had the courage to do such a thing.



We have actually had some fun creating our digital story. Malie found alot of cool pictures from google of Rosa Parks and also pictures that represented her and showed what she went through along with the layout of the bus where she was sitting which i thought was way cool. While Malie found the pictures I was writing the script and I learned so many cool things about Rosa and learned what an awesome person she was. Before making this digital story i really didnt even know who she was, I had just heard of her name.



I think Digital stories are a way useful tool in the classroom. When I was in field I found an awesome one of Life during The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl. It really reached out to the kids and gave them a real sense of feeling of what it would have been like to live through those times. I think Digital Stories are a great hook for a lesson and really spice things up. I look forward to finishing ours and being able to use it as a learning tool in the future.



For my video post this week, I watched a clip on Bruner because I needed to learn more about him to do a presentation for Psychology. It was a demonstration of teaching prime numbers using beans a type of "Discovery Learning" Which Bruner is a true believer in. It was interesting and made me agree that discovery learning is a very successful technique to teaching students!

EDEL 3250-01

Field was so crazy! So much has been going on between field and Thanksgiving. One thing I am thankful for is Technology! I didn't realize how much teachers use technology until I was finished with my three and a half weeks of field experience! One thing I thought was so awesome during field and was brand new to me, was a promethean board. I had the opportunity to use it a few times during field. The teacher uses the promethean board as her main teaching tool. The class does their daily grammar on the board which is known as their DLR's. The kids can come up and correct the sentances on the promethean board, it was like drawing on a computer screen. My cooperating teacher also taught her class math on the promethean board each day. She would have a problem on the board and then after the students attempted solving it, she would click and drag away a shape that was covering the answer and then the answer would appear allowing students to check their own work. I thought the promethean board was one of the coolest pieces of technology i have ever saw.

Mrs. Rigby my cooperating teacher also gave me a chance to work with their grading books that were also online. They used a program by the name of powerschool. I realized how much of a time, space and writing saver this program was. It made entering grades alot faster not only did it keep it very organized it also figured out all the percents automatically. Another cool feature powerschool had was it color coded the students who were struggling in red then yellow then Green for good. It made it easy to see what you were working with. I really liked entering the grades on powerschool and hope that the school I work for one day with have the same feature!

One thing field really made me open my eyes to, is the importance of technology in the classroom. The class I was in had technology integrated in almost 100% off the time. I think that technology is the effective way to teach this generation of students. Technology is what they know and have been immune to their whole lives. I enjoyed the time I had in field and now have a better idea of how to prepare myself for being a teacher one day!