In going back and rereading my first blog post, it is clear to me now that I had so much to learn. Before taking EDM 310, I knew a decent bit about computers and technology, but I didn't have a good understanding of how to incorporate this technology into my classroom.
This semester, my eyes were opened to all of the never ending resources available through technology. I didn't know anything about podcasting, blogging, iPad applications, smart boards. After being in EDM 310, I now feel that I am familiar enough with these things that I could successfully use them in my classroom.
In my future classroom, I hope to have enough iPads that my students could each have one, or at least share them in groups of two or three. I will use iPads for research. They could use icurio to find information they needed for any project we have. I will also use iPads in centers. There are so many apps available that are educational games students could really benefit from. I also plan on using a class blog, and I plan to let my children create their own blog if they want (and with their parent's consent :) ). During center time, the students could work on their blogs, writing new posts and uploading new presentations.
Another important resource I will use in the Smart Board. I will use it to teach my lessons with. I will also use it to pull up educational YouTube videos for my students to watch. Smart boards can also be used for interactive lessons. There are smart board apps and websites I have found where the children could actively participate in my teaching. I think this is an awesome thing to use, because it gets the children involved and hopefully will keep their attention more easily. I will also allow my smart board to be a center. I will let the students use to to practice their spelling words or practice their math problems. Since the smart board has all different symbols, shapes, and multimedia objects, it is a great tool for math.
I also had NEVER thought about pod-casting before. I didn't even have a clue what it was before we had to use it in this class. I am so glad I had the chance to use it and learn about how useful it can be. It is such a useful tool for the teacher to use to communicate with students outside the classroom. It would be so helpful for me to be able to just record a pod cast of my lesson to send to student who was out sick. It is also something the students can use. They can use pod casting to tell everyone what they are learning. They could use it to summarize information they learned on a project, ask questions, and share their thoughts.
Lastly, I learned so much about iMovie. I do not own a Mac, so there is no way I would have known about all the things you can do on iMovie. I learned how to record, edit videos, and make a book trailer. I also learned that on Macs you can use iBook author to create your own book. I think this would be an awesome thing to get students into. They could use it for projects instead of just using PowerPoint or Prezi. It would be something completely different and cool for them.
I plan on using all types of technology resources available to me in my future classroom. I also plan on using project based learning. I think it is a great way for students to learn. This way, they are actually making since of the information themselves. It is much more beneficial than me standing up there, telling them everything they need to know. Over the course of the semester, the ideas I had about my future classroom have completely changed. I didn't have a clue when we first started out. Now, I have ideas stirring inside my head, and most of them include the use of technology!
Well done.
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