Being a Teacher in a Digital Age

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In today’s society, technology surrounds us everywhere we go. For this reason, we as educators should teach students how to use this technology in a resourceful way. Technology can be abused by anyone and everyone. We should take the responsibility of giving children experiences with technology that effect their lives in a positive way. Technology can be used by students and teachers in a classroom setting. If someone is going to be a teacher that uses technology in their classroom, they too should be educated on technological devices. A teacher should not take advantage of the resources they are given. By no means, should the technology take over the role of the educator.

Chapter eight of the book, “Learning Identities in a Digital Age”, discusses how to teach in a digital age. One thing that stood out to me from the beginning was this,  “A teacher in a digital age is not a technical deliverer of an instrumental curriculum, but a curriculum-maker who draws upon knowledge and experience, and is able to improvise in pedagogic moments and relationships.” Every teacher should have their own philosophy of teaching that cannot be manipulated negatively by technology. A teacher should incorporate technology into their methods along with imagination, creativity, and purpose. Educators play such an important role in a child’s life so we should strive to make the most positive impact as we can.

I will strive to be a teacher that uses technology, but one that knows when not to rely on it. I will use technology in my classroom as an aid, not as a fall back. I will use it to engage students and to motivate them. I will use it for group collaboration and for rewards. Technology is a privilege for teachers today, as well as students. There once was a time when teachers were getting by just fine without technology, so I know it is not a necessity, but a blessing. Technology is a powerful thing. It can change the way a child learns and/or make a huge impact on their view of education. Technology could make a “boring” lesson not so boring. It could be used as a reward or challenge for an early finisher who needs enrichment. It could also be used as a source of remediation for a child who needs just a little extra help. As far as using technology for myself, I think technology will come in handy with keeping up with students work and grades. Also, I believe that technology can help me enhance lessons and lectures that will be provided to students. I hope to be a teacher that always strives to learn more about technology and to take full advantage of it when it is given to me.

In my Microcomputing Systems for Education course, I have learned so many new and exciting things to carry with me on my journey to becoming a great teacher. This course has furthered my education of technology tools and resources that can be used in a classroom setting. I have learned new things to help my future students, myself as a future educator, and my skills of working and connecting with peers/co-teachers. The use of technology is expanding each and every day. It is crucial for teachers to be aware of the resources that are out there so that we can know about it as well as prepare our students for what they will be working with as they grow.

Thanks for reading!

-A Teacher in Training

Interview with Mrs. Crawley!

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with a Second Grade teacher at Breitling Elementary School, Mrs. Deidra Crawley. She has taught at Breitling for five years and she is great! Just from talking with her for twenty minutes I could tell how invested she is in her teaching! She was able to give me some useful knowledge and advice from her teaching experience! Thanks, Mrs. Crawley for your time and words of wisdom! The link for the video of my interview with her is listed below! Thanks for reading/watching!

– A Teacher In Training

Interview with Mrs. Crawley

EVERY Classroom Needs These!!

If you don’t know what an iClicker is, you HAVE to watch this video and see! It’s a great tool that can be used in the classroom in so many different ways! Check out the link below! Thanks for reading/watching!

– A Teacher In Training

iClicker Video

SMARTBoard Demonstration

Hi there! Here is a quick tutorial on some of the basic uses of a SMARTBoard! They are a very useful technology resource and can be used for many things along with what I mention in the video! The link for the video is listed below! Thanks for reading/watching!

– A Teacher In Training

SMARTBoard Demonstration

Introductory Videos for Miss Hill’s Third Grade Class

Hey, y’all! A little something I learned recently is that making videos for your students and parents is a super fun and easy way to communicate your expectations for the school year! Here are some short clips of things to say to your students and parents of students to get them excited about a new school year! The links are listed below! Thanks for reading/watching!

– A Teacher In Training

Video for Parents

Video for Students

What Do I Think About SMARTBoards?

SMARTBoards, like every other kind of technology tool, have the potential of being useful resources in a classroom. Also, just like other technology tools, SMARTBoards have the ability to become distracting or confusing in the classroom. SMARTBoards are interactive whiteboards that are mounted on the walls of many classrooms today. They’re in classrooms ranging from preschool to college. They’re useful in the sense of engaging students, allowing them to interact, and giving the teacher options they never had before.

Just from playing around on a SMARTBoard for thirty minutes, it is easy to see that the things it is capable of are amazing. Things like drawing text on the board, playing with objects, being able to show quantities in a way that is easy for students to understand, having interactive media that includes sound effects with different objects, and also just having easy access to the internet. Along with all of these qualities, the SMARTBoard can be used simply as a projector. If a teacher has some sort of document or worksheet that they would like to show from their computer, it’s a simple hookup and it is projected on the screen. The SMARTBoard has four different colored interactive pens that a teacher or student have the option to use. The pens are placed low enough on the board where the students can reach them and have a turn interacting with the board. The SMARTBoard includes games for the students to play according to what kind of lesson is being taught.There are countless options that a SMARTBoard has to offer that enhance teaching and the learning for students.

Of course, just like any other device, there are some downsides. Some say it’s just a fancy whiteboard or blackboard. Some say teachers have access to all of the things that a SMARTBoard offers, without having to pay tons of money. Also, there’s always the factor that technology can fail. Internet connection could be lost or the board could be having some difficulties. This is the case with any sort of technology device a teacher uses in a classroom. This is why of course a teacher should have a back-up plan. Some say that it didn’t enhance the teaching much or that it didn’t make the lesson any more fun for the students.

In my opinion, I think the SMARTBoard is what you make it. If a teacher believes that it is a waste of money, then it will be. Until a teacher takes the time to figure out all of it’s abilities and give it a chance, they aren’t going to realize what it is capable of. I know in the past teachers did just fine without this device, but now that we have it, why not use it? It’s expensive, yes, but it’s worth it. It’s fun. Students will think it’s cool and they’ll want to be engaged. It gives teachers hundreds of objects, interactive multimedia, and so much more to work with. If a school buys a SMARTBoard for a teachers’ classroom, I think they should take full advantage of the great resource they’ve been given. You never know how much of an impact it may have on a students’ education.

Thanks for reading! – A Teacher In Training

THE Educational Technology Resource

(Photo) I had never heard of an “iClicker” until recently in my Junior year of college. It was in a theatre class I’m taking. I was thinking, “This is silly, what in the world are we going to use a remote for in this class?”. Well, we’re six weeks into the semester now and I see that this iClicker object is one of the best educational technology tools I have seen.Yes, we have SmartBoards, tablets, iPads, and apps for these devices, but the great thing is that all of these devices can work with the iClicker. The iClicker can be a physical remote, or an app that can be downloaded onto a phone or tablet. It doesn’t have many buttons, therefore it is easily used. There is a power button, a reset button, four arrows, a delete and send button, and five buttons with the letters A, B, C, D and E. This is for the use of multiple choice questions.

The iClicker is great for seeing if students are participating in class and if they are understanding the material. Sometimes in a classroom students can look like they are paying attention because they are looking towards the board or the teacher, but then they take a test and the results aren’t great and the teacher is left wondering what happened. The iClicker can be used in a lesson, for a quiz, or even a test. Every student would have a remote or use the app on their device. In my opinion, from experience, the actual remote is better than the app. This is because if all of the students are using the same wifi connection and it’s too much which makes the wifi slow down, then your lesson, quiz, or test gets delayed.

The way it works is this: A student purchases an iClicker remote. The teacher purchases a base and sets it up with the name of the classroom, such as “Ms. Hill’s Second Grade Class”. The student registers their remote on the iClicker website, and also registers it with the teacher’s base in the classroom. After this is done once, every time the student is in the classroom and turns on their remote to use it, it automatically pairs with that teachers base. Another great thing about this tool is that it can be used for more than one class. If a student has one teacher for English, but a different teacher for Science, they can still use the same iClicker remote for both classes. They just simply register the remote to both teacher’s bases. In the English classroom, it will automatically pair with the English classroom base and in the Science classroom, it will automatically pair with the Science classroom base. To use the remote a student will turn it on and the screen will show up the name of the base that it is paired with. The teacher will show a question through a projector or however they choose, with five answer options. The students will then select A, B, C, D, or E and the teacher will receive the feedback automatically through the base. Also, the teacher has control over how long the students have to answer each question. If the teacher thinks they need thirty seconds to answer one question, but a minute for another, they can change that according to how they want. Sometimes students can be unsure about an answer after they have selected one, but with the iClicker a student can change their answer until the time runs out.

The iClicker is resourceful because it sends the teacher immediate feedback. The teacher can see who answered correctly and who did not. It engages students because it is a fun way to answer questions. Also, if a student is shy or gets embarrassed to raise their hand to answer a question, this is a good way to get them involved in classroom participation.

Here is what the website had to say about how the iClicker works in an educational setting: “For educational institutions using i>clicker Integrate, students register their remotes within the LMS resulting in fewer errors, and faculty seamlessly sync class rosters and polling data without ever leaving the i>grader application.”(iClicker.com) The website also had some information of softwares that the iClicker can be integrated with. ”The PowerPoint (PPT) add-in makes it easy for instructors to create clicker questions in PPT that integrate with the i>clicker 7. At a minimum, instructors will be able to create questions and assign a correct answer within PPT. The PPT integration will be a plug-in that must be installed and will be compatible with PowerPoint for the Windows operating system. The PPT integration will only work with i>clicker 7.” (iClicker.com)

The product made by the iClicker company that a parent would need to purchase for their child would be either the iClicker 1 or 2. The iClicker remotes can vary in price. To buy one brand new they are about $45.00, or someone could buy a used one online. This is an inexpensive educational resource that would be very useful in any grade level and any content area classroom. So for all you teacher and future teachers, USE iClickers because they’re awesome! Thanks for reading! 

-A Teacher in Training

Clicker & Audience Response Systems – iClicker. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2015.

Think Like a Kindergartener

Recently, I have observed three different elementary classrooms. Those three classrooms being Kindergarten, Second grade, and Fifth grade. Kindergarten stood out to me like no other classroom ever has. I loved the age and the material that was being taught in the classroom. So, when I was told to find an article that pertained to the grade level I was interested in, Kindergarten was the first thing that came to mind. I simply typed “Kindergarten” into the search bar on Edutopia. Edutopia is a website that has a variety of educational tools. It has videos, articles, blogs, and discussions for hundreds of different topics. The website is meant to inform educators on ways to help improve learning for grades K-12.

The article that I chose is titled “Kindergarten Is the Model for Lifelong Learning” by Mitchell Resnick. The opening line reads, “Let’s keep teaching creativity throughout school and adulthood.” This line sets up the idea of the entire article. Resnick discusses that in the very first kind of Kindergarten classes, children were encouraged to learn, share, make friendships, and use their imagination to make up stories, paint, and build things. He says, “kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. Exactly the opposite needs to happen: We should make the rest of school more like kindergarten.” What Resnick means by that, is teachers should encourage students all throughout their school years to be creative and collaborative. By forcing students to think this way, they will form the ability to think creatively on their own and they will be more successful. Also, in kindergarten, the majority of students cannot wait to share their ideas and stories with their teachers and classmates. In the rest of school though, that majority turns into only half of the class wants to share their ideas and stories. If more students were encouraged to do so, great things could happen from collaboration. As students advance to high school and even college, they need different tools to be successful with the ideas that they have come up with.

For example, in the article the author describes a program that he created, along with his research group, called “Scratch”. Scratch is a digital learning approach where children can create stories, games, and share them with others on the website. Resnick continues to discuss a young girl who created a project using Scratch. It became very popular and the girl received a lot of positive feedback. Because of this, she continued on and created much more for the people who were loving her ideas. At the end the author says, “She is using Scratch to imagine, create, play, share, and reflect. In the process, she is refining her programming and artistic skills — and she’s developing as a creative thinker.” This, I believe, is the whole point of the article. It is to encourage older students to think like a kindergartner would. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas and stories with others because something great could come out of it! In the future, when I am a teacher, I hope to remember concepts like this in my own classroom. Whether I’m teaching Kindergarten or Sixth grade! Thanks for reading and don’t forget to check out the article!

-A Teacher in Training

Contact Me: ach1524@jagmail.southalabama.edu

Citation: Resnick, M., & Bedrosian, W. (2009, May 9). Kindergarten Is the Model for Lifelong Learning. Retrieved August 31, 2015.

Click here to view the article

Click here for instructions on how to make word collage

“Reimagining Learning”

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The main idea of Richard Culatta’s video, “Reimagining Learning,” is closing the gap of the digital divide in the United States. In the video, Culatta points out three challenges that students are facing in their schools and ways that those challenges can be solved. This video was both educating and entertaining. Culatta discussed ideas that I have thought about before, but that I have never really analyzed. He challenged me to think outside of the box on plans of how to enhance the use of technology in today’s classrooms. He stated that there are two kinds of educators: those who use technology in the classroom to reimagine learning, and those who use technology to digitize traditional learning practices. The visuals that Culatta used in the video were very relevant and made his concepts easy to understand. When he explained the two types of educators, he went into more detail about them, and I strongly agreed with his points. Some educators expect technology, such as eBooks and electronic note taking applications, to enhance learning. Those two things, however, are going to have the same effect on students that textbooks and paper have. On the other hand, there is an educator who uses the technology to do different things that students have never experienced before. Technology may be more expensive and more challenging at first, but the experiences that the learner will have makes it all worth it.

The three challenges mentioned in the video are treating all learners the same despite specific needs, holding the schedule constant without altering it to the learners, and trying to grade assignments that are submitted too late in the school year to be fixed. The first two listed here are similar because they alter things to learners’ needs. I could not agree more with Culatta on this topic. Not all students learn in the same way or at the same pace. We, as future teachers, should educate ourselves about the ways technology will help us help our students. Some will need a little extra time to grasp a concept. Some will need us to use a different technique to explain something. We cannot expect all students to learn the exact same way, and I think this video gave a lot of insight on how we can fix that. Technology can do great things in the world of education. It’s up to educators to make sure it is used to enhance students’ ability to learn.

The tools used by the universities that were mentioned in the video were very fascinating and informative. One tool showed how long a student hesitated on a multiple choice question before selecting an answer, and another tool could tell if students learned better early in the morning or later in the afternoon. Most likely, a teacher would not recognize those results without the use of technology. I would love to have tools like these to enhance students’ success in my future classroom. Overall, the video was enjoyable, and I would recommend it to any future and present educators. Thanks for reading!

– A Teacher in Training

Reimagining Education – Link to video reviewed above

ach1524@jagmail.southalabama.edu