This past week was my second week in the classroom. This week I had the opportunity to teach and see different ways that I could bring technology into the classroom.
As a future teacher I realized the importance of technology use and how it is important for parents to have access to classroom information through the internet. In the class that I'm teaching in the teacher has set up a website with the homework, links to books, and the classroom calendar. I have resorted to it many times to review the assignments that the students have so I can plan accordingly. Also it has been nice to see upcoming events within the classroom on the calendar and also to see the events that are occurring school wide. I have found a classroom website extremely resourceful and a good reason for students to not have excuses for not knowing what we did in class or that they lost their homework. The students also use computers daily to write papers and look up websites that follow the lesson for the day. My favorite tool we've used are smart boards. I love this tool and hope that one day I will have it in my own classroom. It allows you to be able to write pretty much on a computer screen that is projected on the whiteboard. It just uses a special pen and then You can erase and pull up a new page by the touch of a button. I had no clue that these were being used in the elementary schools! It is such an upgrade from chalkboards to whiteboards and now to smartboards!

As I have been in the classroom I have found my favorite ideas to be the personal classroom website, the smartboards and the use of vidcasts. The students seemed to love making them and learned a lot about uploading videos and using their own creativity while using technology. I really am planning on doing a lot of classroom presentations and activities by having the students create vidcasts. As I've said before, Make sure I'm educated in technology so I can teach my students and keep them updated!

IN this video it shows how students classrooms are much much different than they were in the past! The student showed how they use interactive technology that allow them to move and learn through hands on experience! They showed the use of a wii. I never thought of using a wii in the classroom because the fact that it is for video gaming! The whole message was advertising for the website nextgenerationlearning.org.uk! It talked about ITC learning and how to incorporate it within your own classroom! I hope that I will be able to have access to all of these tools! The students seem excited about learning and engaged in what they were studying! As a teacher I don't want to be giving lecture after lecture, I'd rather be engaging in learning as well and helping my students get the most out of their education through hands on tools and technology!

I found this video to be inspiring and interesting. I have never really thought too much about the difference between teaching and educating. To teach is just showing how to do something. To educate is to really give instruction, intellectually, morally and socially. They are a mentor, an advisor and they guide their students to be their best. Something that really caught my eye was this quote by MLK; "Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education. As an educator I hope that I can help my students find learn more than just core curriculum. I hope they discover part of who they are and learn that they can accomplish what they want in their own lives.

What?
Over the past few months I've learned everything from creating my own website, collaborating on google docs, how to blog effectively, how to create podcasts and vidcasts and how to make my own WebQuest. Now I am headed out to see how I can apply this information that I've been taught to teach the students who I will be working with.
So What?
Now that I am going out into the real world of teaching and going out to be around the kids that I've been going to school for I am realizing how important it is for me as a teacher to be up to date with technology. I walked into the classroom where I will be teaching and realized how advanced in technology the school was. Each desk had their own mac computer. They had a nice projector with speakers. I realized that I wasn't stepping into the same type of classroom from when I went to school, I was stepping into a classroom of the future, or what use to be the future. These students might have more knowledge about technology then me. That is what I realized and that is when it hit me that I need to know, I need to be up to date and current with the change in technology.
Now What?
Now as a future teacher I've realized my duty to my students. I need to be prepared before I step into the classroom, as well as being a lifelong learner. I can't just stop at what I'm learning now, because as the years pass by technology will only become more advanced. I need to be wise and choose the tools that will best educate my students, as well as help them to learn the core curriculum. I need to know that technology is everywhere and that it will benefit my students to know as much as they can before they are thrown out into real life circumstances.
I hopefully will have students who not only will understand the information, but will be able to help me learn as they discover something new. I can take advice from other teachers, as well as look at examples from the internet of what other advanced classrooms are participating in.
The future lays in the hands of our teachers and how they will prepare the children for the future. By being up to date and a life long learner then I will be able to be more beneficial to my students then just sticking to what I already know from the past.

I liked what this video had to saying about letting our students blog. A few of the key statments it made that stuck with me was: for ownership, for excitement and for conversation. I feel as though these are all key in the process of helping a student learn. When a student has ownership over something they feel more important and that the tool they are using is more important. When a student is excited about something then they are more capable of learning because it is triggering an emotion inside of them that will spark their attention. Lastly I feel it's important for students to learn to communicate with their teacher, their fellow classmates as well with themselves. If they are able to have an open path of communication I feel as though they will be able to know their strengths and understand what they are being taught. Conversational skills are key to helping a student build confidence in themselves and to help them believe in what they can be! Blogging seems to hold important values that will allow a student to progress as a person by setting goals and seeing what they have accomplished because they wrote it down and saved it!

What?
We recently learned about podcasts and vidcasts. They are both tools that can be used as tutorials or to cast a lesson as a visual or audio tool. They are both useful tools that can be used when a student has missed a lesson, or if you have something you would like to show your students to grasp a concept.

So What?
As a teacher I find both of these to be fantastic. I know that there will be many times that my students will be sick out of school or on vacation and with important lessons that can only be grasped visually I can record and post on my classroom website. That way my students can keep up with what is going on in class and be able to perform the tasks required at home. I also find vidcasts through youtube to be amazing. There are so many great videos that can help me connect my students and that I can use as hooks to get a student excited about a new topic! There are also fun videos that can help lighten up the mood of my class and help get their wiggles out! I know as a teacher I will be using vidcasts all the time.
Podcasts on the other hand I am not 100% sure that I would be using this as much because I believe so strongly in visual presentation. I do believe if we learn a song in class that I would like my students to use as a study tool that I could use a podcast to help them remember the words and tune.

As a teacher with the future in mind I feel that it's my duty now to find the most useful vidcasts and podcasts online that can connect with the curriculum of the grade I'd like to teach. I can start now by saving the links in a file that I can resort back to when I feel it's neccessary to use them. I also can practice making useful videos and learn how to do different editing that I can teach to my students as they progress with the technology that they are using.

I can also keep a file that I can store the ideas of vidcasts that I'd like my students to make and what types of lessons would be most effective to help them understand a topic more effectively as well as have fun with the experience. By using tools such as these I will be able to touch on several different areas of learning and help them to learn teamwork, how to creat handson activies, creativity as well as core content. I look forward to using both these tools one day in my own classroom!