WebQuest Reflection

I thought that the design of all of our pages worked really well. I think that they were designed to look great. I think the thing that did not work well is that our webquest seemed to be too simple. I think we could have/should have made it more difficult. It was hard to work as a team on the computers since one person was doing most of the navigating. It was nice to do it as a team because it wasn't as much work for each person. It since we could only have the file up on one computer at a time we just had each write things our or find pictures and email it to the person who was working on it. The next time I design a webquest I will probably make it a little more complicated. I will probably want to have the webquest designed to get the students thinking more deeply.

Google Docs!

Here are some of my google docs:

Technology Specialist Paper

Media Rich Lesson Plan Reflection

Reptile Webquest

Field Experience Week 3

Well, all of my avid readers, it is the last week of my field experience. I am sad to report this news seeing as it means my upcoming departure from the lovely and hilarious 4th graders and my re-entrace to my classes. Since I last wrote I haven't had too many new experiences. We recently taught a lesson using the book we read in Social Studies Methods, "Molly's Pilgrim" by Barbara Cohen. It went really well. We were talking about showing respect for other cultures. I really enjoyed sharing this with the kids because we do have quite a culturally diverse little classroom. We also had our final observation by our supervisor. Although during the lesson plan I thought that it was total chaos and that we would surely fail, she thought it was fine. I thought it went badly only because we were doing a group research activity where the kids researched another culture and made a poster to present to the class. Groups mean talking, and I see what Professor Ramirez means now about being EXPLICIT. When you are not, there are hundreds of questions. I sometimes try not to be too explicit. I mean you don't want to feed them their homework on a golden spoon right? Also, I try to leave them room for creativity, but when you do that the kids all ask is it okay to do this or that or the other. I am sure it will be a little easier when it is my own classroom because the kids will get to know me and I will tell them I want them to be creative and that they don't need to check everything with me first, but it would help to be more explicit. Other than that I am stressed about all of the homework due dates, and interviewing a technology specialist tomorrow, and an upcoming math test, but I will survive it all somehow. I think this has been a really great learning experience. The end of the field work is proving to be very bittersweet, but leaning to the bitter side. I really don't want to go back to our classes, I just want to stay in the schools and have fun (teach). On the brightside, we do have summer vacation coming up. I hope everyone else's experiences are going well. I have finally learned all of the kids names now that it is time to go. They are all really awesome kids and I can't wait to get to know more when I have my own classroom for a full year :).

Field Experience Week 2!

The field experience is still going well. We started teaching our lessons on Monday. Monday we taught our first lesson which turned out to be nerve-wracking since our supervisor came in to watch us on our first day teaching! The lesson on Monday was about what culture is. My partner and I were extremely nervous for the lesson because we thought that the kids might have no idea what culture was and we were going to be doing a KWL sheet. Fortunately, the kids knew a lot more than we expected and basically everything went well except that, what we had planned for our 45 minute lesson got done in about 30 minutes so we had to just add to it and make stuff up on the fly. All in all it went well, but we underestimated the kids. On Tuesday, our second day we weren't as nervous or stressed, but our lesson took longer than expected. This day we were going to work on studying Utah culture. First we read a book called, "U is for Utah," which we had anticipated taking 15 minutes, but actually took about a half hour and the kids were a little bored with the book. When the book was over we told the kids about the assignment they were going to be doing which was making a page for our own ABC book on Utah Culture. There are 26 kids in the class and each was assigned to a letter to make a page for our class book. Since the book took a lot longer than expected we had to use our time for today's lesson which was cut short anyhow for an assembly to just finish up yesterday's project. A funny thing that happened though, was that after we assigned the students the letters we handed out their Utah History books and told them to look up their letter in the Index for ideas. One boy said, "this sucks!" hahaha so I just said, "thank you," then he said, "Oh... I meant that there isn't anything good in the index for my letter." I thought it was funny, but maybe it's just me. It reminded me of our classroom management teacher showing us how kids were going to respond to us, "you're gay!"...etc. Well I hope the other stuff we have planned doesn't take up too much time otherwise we won't be able to get all of our lesson plans in! So far the kids are great fun and our cooperating teacher is really nice and helpful. I am so glad that we are getting out there in the field a lot earlier than at some other schools' programs. I will be sad to go back to our classes in a week and a half. I wish we could just stay at the elementary schools in a sort of apprentice type training rather than going back to classes. Oh well, that is not how they have decided that we can earn a degree. Hope everyone else is getting to have fun and enjoy their experiences with their students! Good Luck to all.

Field Experience First Week!

So far the field experience is going pretty well, but it is also overwhelming! We still need to plan a bunch of our lesson plans and do an insane amount of homework, but we'll make it through. On our first day in the classroom we were just kind of sitting in the back a lot of the time not knowing if we should be helping, but mostly observing. We did have some laughable moments trying to do some errands for our teacher in the supply/work room. For one, we were sent to make some double sided copies that we didn't know how to make on a copy machine that needed a password, which we didn't have. Another time we went down there to get some poster board, but brought back the wrong kind and had to go back again. Our cooperating teacher is very nice and is also laid back which is good, but I wish I could be a little more laid back at this point. I'm sure as we are there longer and get to know the kids and our teacher better we will become more comfortable. We will be starting our unit on Culture next week so that is pretty exciting. We will also be going with our class on a field trip on Friday to Thanksgiving Point to see a Dinosaur Exhibit. Well good luck to everyone!

Well, everyone else's blogs I have been looking through were a lot longer than mine so I decided to add a little bit more. Last Friday I went with the 4th graders to Thanksgiving Point on their field trip it was fun, hilarious and crazy. I am really grateful I got the opportunity to have the field trip experience because otherwise I think I would have had a panic attack going on one my first year teaching. The whole time I thought we were going to lose all of the kids or leave one behind LOL! Especially because I was with a different class than my regular one since my cooperating teacher had about 5 parent volunteers and another 4th grade class only had one so I joined up with them. Unfortunately, that mean I didn't know any of the kids so it was harder to keep track of them. We got done early at Thanksgiving point and one of the teachers decided it would be fun to take the kids to Cabela's! I thought this was weird because I have never been there, but when we got there and saw all the taxidermy (dead animals) the kids loved it! They probably liked it better than the dinosaur bones! hahaha. So far it has been loads of fun. We start teaching our unit on culture tomorrow and I am extremely nervous! I hope everything goes smoothly. Good Luck to everyone else.

Oh yeah and just to give everyone who reads this a laugh, the other day when I was taking our class down to the library I overheard a teacher yelling at a kid in the hall for repeatedly farting! It was hard not to laugh when she said, "It's not fair to the other kids who have to hear it and smell it!" I also kind of felt bad for him, I hope she talked to his parents about it! Maybe he has a digestive problem or something. I hope when I start teaching I still know how to lighten up. They're just kids.

Reflection

Reflection of Making my Video!

I learned quite a bit reading through articles about the great depression and by gathering photos to use as primary sources, but the most interesting thing that I learned about the great depression was that after the stock market crashed on black Tuesday it did not recover to pre depression levels until the 1950's!
I didn't learn all that much as far as technical skills, since I am pretty good with computers. However, I have never used the Photo Story program before, so I guess I learned how to use it, but it was pretty self explanatory. I did find it useful to learn how to make a a JPG file out of a powerpoint slide.
I learned that making the digital story, (planning it out) was not all that hard. I hope that I will remember that when I am in the classroom and use it as a tool. It took the most effort to come up with the topic, but when I get out their in the real world, as a teacher, I will already have my subject matter.
I also learned a lot through viewing everyone else's videos! I thought everyone did a really great job. I especially liked seeing the fun and more lighthearted videos just because when I was brainstorming I really couldn't think of any topics that were on the fun or lighthearted side.

Video

Click Here for more information on creating your own digital story!