Final Blog...bum bum bum

This will be my last and final blog entry..for now. I have learned a lot in my computer applications class, such as new applications that I can use as a learning tool in my future classroom. I look forward to embarking on my journey as an educator, but am SO excited to have a break for the summer. Everything is handed in, and my portfolio if finally done!! I thought that would never happen :) This has been a great class, and I look forward to learning more as I pursue my Ed Tech minor at the University of Northern Iowa.

Digital Portfolio Nightmare

I have had quite the trouble with this digital portfolio. It is due this coming Monday, and I am starting to freak out. It is a lot of work, but I know that it will be put to good use in the future. I feel as though I have most of it done, and then I come to a section that has yet to be completed. So much work, for a benefit that will come in the future. This has been a great class, and I have learned a lot. But honestly, it will be a relief when it is over. I have been stressed about finals and can't wait for all of this to be over. 

My portfolio is under construction, and I find the most difficult part is typing out all of the reflections and aligning the standards. This is difficult for me, but hey, I guess as a teacher I have to get used to busy work like this on a regular basis. Yay for Educators!!! :) 

Delicious

Delicious is a great way to incorporate social bookmarking into the classroom. As a teacher, I hope to use this as a great tool to keep my personal lessons on file. This will make it easier to incorporate these lessons and keep them on file for a later date. In my classroom, I will have my students use this as a bookmarking tool to keep their research files straight. For instance, if I need to have the students turn in a bibliography for a research paper, they will be able to keep all of their resources they used on file without having to try to keep track of them. This is a great site that I will definitely be using in my future classroom.

http://delicious.com/network/turnagem

Prezi Presentation

This is a small presentation I did over the unit I will be teaching to the class on April 23rd, which is GPS units. This was a great website to become familiar with as I will use it in my future classroom either as a teaching tool or a learning tool for my students' to use.

http://www.screencast.com/users/turnagem/folders/Default/media/55c7552c-0fb9-4dc0-9fd1-27801b7056d3

Is it Superman?...Batman?...No! It's Zotero!!

We learned about Zotero today in class. It is a really neat website because it eliminates sites such as Knightcite or other bibliography sites. This is handy because it can be a pain to sometimes go back in and remember websites that you were at previously. This also would be useful for not only educational purposes, but personal purposes as well. In the classroom, this would be helpful at all ages. No matter what the grade level, this would be a wonderful tool to use as a teacher or a student. Great website! I am glad I learned a lot more about it.

Google "Mess-Up"

You call it Google SketchUp...I call it Google MessUp. I did horrible on this! Although it would be a good tool in the classroom, I need a LOT more practice! :) 

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Today we learned about the application called "Twitter." I previously knew nothing about Twitter, so this was something that I came into completely blind-sided. I created an account before class, but that was about all. Basically, twitter just sends out updates about what people are doing. The kicker is, the update has to be less than 140 characters. This is basically like a "facebook" for the older, more mature technology user. 

Integrating this application into the classroom can reap a lot of positive benefits, or also cause a negative effects. An application that I found that would be useful in the classroom was called  "tweetscan." This is an app that weeds out all of the searches that don't have anything to do with your topic, and only give you the posts that deal with your topic directly. According to tweetscan.com, "In the innovative world of Microblogging, one site aims to organize it all. Tweet Scan searches Twitter, identi.ca, and other Laconica-based sites with more being added all the time." This would be useful in the classroom when having a book talk. For example, you could type in the title of your book, lets say, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and you would read what other people had to say about it. You could pick someone to follow, and either form a book talk group or club, and discuss your thoughts on the book. You can either agree or disagree with someone's feelings on the book based on their thoughts posted in their answer to "what are you doing?" This would be useful in the classroom because it would integrate technology into the classroom when it could originally have been absent.  This gets students who are constantly on the computer trying to sneak on their myspace or "facebook" a reason to actually enjoy getting online in the classroom and it be allowed. This application would come in handy for this type of project because it allows a "search" of posts made by people and the students in the classroom would be allowed to research someone to follow and comment on their book reviews.

This could also be a negative thing in the classroom because students would have free reign of the website "Twitter" and could basically search, or post, whatever they like. The teacher would have to monitor the classroom very carefully to make sure that this would be used for educational purposes only. The username the students would create would all be fake names, to protect the privacy of the students names online. The usernames would all be "exampleturnage" with the same tag for each student. This would make it easier to follow the students and also monitor their posts. 

I feel like tweetscan in conjunction with tweeter would be a great and fun way to integrate technology into a High School English classroom. It would be difficult to monitor, but I feel that students researching others' opinions on books discussed in class would encourage discussion and in-depth thinking about literature in the classroom. 

Ideal Classroom Project

The topic/project for the Ideal classroom was a very long and confusing process. It is a lot of information to take in all at once, and I felt very overwhelmed at the beginning of the project. There is so much information to cover, it is hard to sort it all out and get organized. We decided to use a music/recording room for our ideal classroom. We thought that music integrated into the curriculum can really make a difference in the succession of the students. We hoped to create an atmosphere that was fun, creative, but also educational. We did not want to limit ourselves to only studying music, but incorporating it into math, reading, social studies, and science.

The process that we used to create this final product was one of organization. We started off by collaborating our ideas and deciding what each of us thought an ideal classroom would consist of. When we put our heads together, we came up with the music room. It has been proven that students involved in music have higher rates of graduation than students not involved. By integrating music, it reiterates this idea of using music and creativity in the classroom. After compiling a "rough draft" of what we wanted in the classroom, we got to work creating a site to display every aspect we wanted. We created a google site and each contributed our ideas, explaining in detail to characterisitics of the students, the classroom set-up, and a rough draft of a potential floor plan. We thought that by using a website, it would make our ideas more organized and flow in a better way that is easier to understand.

Technology played a very large role in the collaboration process between my partner, Abby and myself. Since this project was due right after Spring Break, we had to use the access of the internet to stay in contact and to create this site. By both of us having access to our Ideal Classroom site, we could edit and create pages from over 100 miles away from each other. This was a project that could not have been completed without the aid of technology.

A barrier that caused a kink in our project was the essence of time. Because it was assigned over Spring Break, it was hard to get time to meet to work on it. So this project was mostly done collaboratively online. We met a few times to discuss changes/additions, but nothing too major. This really was the only downfall we had while working on this project. I felt we worked well together and our ideas on the ideal classroom were aligned in many ways. I felt that I learned a lot from this project about what I want my classroom to be like, and also compare it to what other future educators may want their classrooms to look like. This was neat to see the differences and also the similiarites come out in things such as where the classroom will be located, how many students in a classroom, what kind of technology is being used, etc. This project not only put into perspective what I want in my future classroom, but also gave me a chance to compare it to what other people want in theirs.

This project was extremely difficult in the essence that it was so detailed. I felt it was important to include all of the small details in our descriptions to really get a feel of what we wanted our classroom atmosphere to be like. Also, we were specific so it could display the effort we put into this project. I feel we did an exceptional job on our ideal classroom despcription and it was a great learning opportunity as well.

Using Blogs in the Classroom

Recently, I realized that a major switch was needed in my life. The major that I am currently in is elementary education. The entire time I have been at UNI has been a great experience, it just did not feel right. I recently discovered that I am going to pursue secondary education. I want to be a High School College Prep/English teacher. I have always been fascinated with poetry, writing, reading, and grammar. This choice has also impacted the way I look at the current classes I am involved with now. I have to make the most of my experience, even if thus far it has been not on the right track.

Recently while researching different blogs that could be used in the high school classroom, I found a couple that caught my eye. The English blog of this 11th grade teacher discussed different ways to integrate poetry into the curriculum. I found it interesting the way that this school chose to use a blog as an informative tool instead of a teaching one. This blog shared teachers' ideas instead of using it as a resource for students to help them understand not only poetry, but also integrating technology into their curriculum.

This has been an enlightening experience that has changed the course of direction here at UNI. I feel that now, my view of technology in the classroom will be extremely different and look forward to blogging about these changes.

Using Computer Software in the Classroom

Computer software has made a big impact not only on the everyday internet/computer users, but has also impacted the classroom. I think that technology has changed the course of teaching, as many would agree with me. Software is a good way to teach a subject interactivly and also make it fun for the students. Recently in our computer apps class we have been discussing computer software and the importance and need for it. I am still learning a lot about computers and also the different things involved with them (software, internet) but I feel that I have come across a couple web sites that would be great for kids to use.

I intend on working with special needs students, so the software I use must cater to their needs. In other words, I need an easy program that is individualized for each student. What works for one student might be completely wrong for another student. When looking for software that would work for the special education classroom, I had to keep a variety of things in mind. The different levels of comprehension in my room vary much greater than that of the normal classroom. I must pick something that has different levels of cognitive abilities.

I found a couple of interesting sites while searching for something that might work for my area of interest. It is called Professor Garfield. It is an interactive site that allows students to play games and also learn things such as putting items in sequential order.

I found many other sites that are worth looking at too. Very insightful day searching the internet :)

Starfall
Poetry
Online Books

Another Blogging Experience...Respite Connection

I have been working with a company, The Respite Connection, that has been supporting special needs children in Iowa. This company is a group of trained employees that work with children of all sorts of disabilities and basically just be a friend to them. There are set rules through the company such as the parents can NOT be at work while you are working with a child, they can only be doing things such as running errands or catching up on house work. The purpose of a repsite provider is to give the parents a chance to get some work done, and also have some time to themselves. The parents of special needs children often times do not get much time to themselves. It is my job to allow them to feel comforted knowing their child is in good hands. I provide respite care for these families in their home, or also at my home. It is up to the parents to decide what they feel more comfortable with.

I have had proper training and have been working with a client for 3 years. I feel that this experience has helped me with not only with getting to know the children better, but also with my communication with these children and my ability to also communicate with the parents as well. I feel that the parents really rely on me to tell them what happened while they were out, the activities we worked on, and how I helped their child.

I felt it was important to work on basic activities that cater to each child's needs. For Beth*, a child dealing with autism, I worked on using her words. She had a problem with just yelling when she did not get what she wanted. She eventually started using words and forming sentences, but it took her many steps to get to this level. At first, I made little cards for her to use when she wanted to say something or if she wanted something. The cards had pictures of everyday activities that she may need to ask or tell me to do. She would show me a card when she needed something. This worked out really well for awhile, and Beth really liked this method of communication. She felt that she could tell me what she needed, without using her words.

This was not good enough for me though. I wanted her to be able to tell me exactly what it was that she wanted, but using complete sentences. She started using words when I took her cards away. This made me thrilled!! She was using her words to tell me what she wanted for some things, but not others. And she was also not using complete sentences. But I left it at this with her. With Beth, you can't push her too far. She used her words about 75% of the time, and used the cards for others. She would say specific words, and use cards for others. I felt that she used words for the more simple words, and cards for the more complex.

We are currently still trying to get her to use her words for everything, but it is a work in process. Beth has been a huge part of my life, and communication has been the key aspect of furthering her development and bettering our relationship. If I could do one thing differently, it would be to come up with a transition between the cards and words. It took Beth a long time to get to use her words. So I would try to come up with a better transition activity. At this point, I am not sure how I would do that. I felt that the cards really helped her alot. And her parents were very thrilled with her progress as well. This was a great communication activity to use with any special needs students, and really taught me alot about communication and also about how to work with special needs students.

*the names have been changed to keep the confidentiality of my client

Living Life Autistic

While searching and going through many different blogs trying to find various information about special needs students, I found a new direction that I wanted to take. I discovered that I wanted to slant my searchings to gear towards HOW to help special needs students, not just teach them. Even though I am going into education, I feel that caring and compassion is essential in furthering the needs of these special students. I came across many interesting blogs discussing the need for this direction and compassion, many of the bloggers being parents of these special needs students.

Kristyn Crow's Blog called "Help Me, I'm Stuck in Autism" was an interesting perspective, putting us, the reader, in the shoes of an autistic child. This really was interesting and hit home to me because I have an autistic younger sister. It compared leading an autistic life to that of a movie I recently viewed, called "Awake." This movie was about a young man undergoing a major heart surgery and was put under a general anestethic. Come to find out, he was concious the whole time and felt immense amounts of pain. In Kristyn' Blog, she related this feeling to the life of an autistic child.

This writer liked to share her own opinions, but also gets ideas from observing her Autistic child. It was a very laid back blog post, stating her opinions and reiterating the theme of special needs students and more directly the title, "Help Me, I'm Stuck in Autism." As a future educator, I feel that it is important to know how the children we are working with are feeling, and try to empathize with these feelings the best that we know how.

I highly recommend this blog to anyone with an Autistic child in the classroom, or also parents, siblings, friends, and classmates of a child with Autism. I felt this was a good introductory blog to get my toes wet in this "blogosphere." It helped me understand more what this specific nuerological disorder is about and also would help someone completely unfamiliar to the disability understand the feelings a young Autistic child may be feeling.

The First Annual BLOGGING experience

Hi there. This is my very first blog EVER. I am kind of...I take that back...VERY illiterate when it comes to this whole blogging world. But hey, we all have to start somewhere.