Scavenger Hunt

Digital Collection

Using technology in the classroom is both exciting and scary! I really enjoyed learning how to embed a slide show within a classroom blog. By uploading images on the blog of a class field trip, a class project, the normality of our academic day I see this as an exciting way to share our academic learning with families.

In addition, using a scanner is such a wonderful way to save evidence of all the hard work a student puts into a group project, an art assignment, or to track the progression of learning over time. This information could be used with any or all of the students during parent conferences and/or M-team meetings. By recording a student's work digitally, it will permit the information to remain in a tidy and organized fashion which is easy to retain and to transfer over time as needed to parents, new schools, or other resources depending on the situation.

As we have more and more access to technology in planning our lessons and creating materials for instruction I look forward to having a better understanding of how to add images to these documents. Our students are visual creatures by nature, and having the ability to make lessons visually interesting is a great way to encourage engagement thereby reducing inappropriate behavior during instruction.

I look forward to playing around with these techniques outside of TPTE 486 and to try out within the classroom.

Digital Collection TPTE 486

Google docs & Collaborative Lesson Plans

Collaborative learning...a concept inwhich we have learned through research supports the social aspect of learning in both the cognitive and constructive theories of education. However, most current teachers were not encouraged through their early education to work in teams. So how do we teach our students this strategy when we ourselves may not have it in our repetoire? Through exercises just like our exploration of Google docs. By practicing the methods ourselves.

I have appreciated the Education program's conscious attempts to model the evidence-based practices as professionals we have learned help our students acquire knowledge more effectively. By utilizing these methods as the "student" vs. the "teacher" I think the benefits are two-fold. First, by using it during instruction we are privileged to see the method modeled by instructors who already had the opportunity to practice implementing the concept. Secondly, as the student, I think it provides an insight to what our own students will experience; to experience the uncertainity and discomfort of trying something new I believe brings a level of empathy to our own instruction which benefits our students and heighten the quality of the instruction itself.

I also enjoyed the opportunity to work with a colleage collaboratively in a manner which worked well with both of our schedules. Often times special education teachers do not have the same planning time as the general education teachers with whom we share common students. Google docs provides an opportunity to brainstorm and create collaborative lessons for both the general education classroom with the benefit of modification insight from the special education instructor and a way for the special education instructor to make greater modifications within the resource classroom lesson while maintaining the themes and contents of their homerooms while they are out of the room during direct instruction.

I hope that I will be able to utilize this tool to its full potential once I enter the instructional classroom.

Google docs: refining my learning curve

Arrrgh! I am so frustrated with Google docs at the moment! While trying to work on the joint lesson plan within Google docs none of the formatting seems to want to cooperate. It was my understanding that two individuals could work collaboratively at the same time as well as at different times on the same document. Nothing I am trying to do will work. My partner and I can only determine that it is because we are both trying to work within the document at the same time and as the system saves on its own it overrides the second person's efforts within their own pc.

For those that are more versed with Google Docs, we would love you to share any ideas or recommendations you have learned to make this experience more pleasent.

Webquests Reflections

I enjoyed the class on webquests. I found the idea of combining classroom lessons and technology skills together exciting and innovative for today's students. Although my students will approach this with little thought to the levels of skill involved to utilize a webquest lesson, as an instructor who has not spent much time with technology before reentering the University I am still working on finding that happy balance between knowing how use the technology I plan to expose my student to and my fear of them knowing more than me.

Wikki's

I appreciate the general concept of wikkis, yet I would have to agree with Lakin that as a compulsive, and at times controling personality I find wikkis to be a little difficult to work within. I see that the ability to share the work load and add additional insight has great benefits to a large project, I'm just not sure how often I would use this tool outside of TPTE 486.

The reality would be, my personal journey to embrace new experiences and acquire new skills helps me to have current and empathetic experiences to share with my students as we explore this topic within the classroom. How can I expect my students to stretch out of their personal comfort zones and try something new to expand their knowledge if I am unwilling to do the same.

So.... wikki sites here I come.

Continuing thoughts on Website evaluation

How resources are obtained today when students do research is so different than before the Web. In the past, students began learning how to understand dewey decimal system and card catalogs to identify and locate information on a given topic. Today, students type a word or group of words into the Google search box and away they go. As a more senior learner, I using the manuel system initally I do not recall there being a great deal of concern regarding the reliablity of resources. If you got the information from the encyclopedia or a text written on the subject reliablity was not questioned. Now individuals have access to a larger variety of information, all of which may not be accurate or reliable.

As teachers introducing students to the glories of the World Wide Web, it becomes a part of our instructional duties to show students how to weed through the plethora of information provided during a topic search and evaluate not only the information presented, but the source of the information. Like teaching students the building blocks of writing a grammatically sound paper with nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. placed in the correct order I feel that as we teach students new and differing topics we must now include the building blocks of how to research safely and how to utilize reliable sources to gather information from.

I appreciated the website evaluation execise in TPTE 486 because it provided a clear well organized checklist of the types of things to consider when visiting a site. It helped me form a better idea of all the components such a lesson would need to include in my own classroom.

Website Evaluations...Reliable Source?

As a non-savey tech user I like simply laid out sites. I also like sites which format out handouts to save time. Check out Kathy Schrock's site for teaching children how to determine if their site is reliable.

Portfolios...Pros & Cons

Although I have not totally bought into how the PLP portfolio will benefit during inital interviews for teaching, as a teacher begins to gain experience and comfort with their personal field of expertise I see great potential for "Showcasing" personal talent with digital lesson plans, video examples, and Evidence Based Articles within the resources to support a particular instructional style. The ability to introduce yourself and answer many of the basic questions during an inital interview through an electronic portfolio seem wonderful especially during these difficult economic times when traveling just for an interview is not always cost effective. I approached creating a portfolio of learning standards met in Reading Ed 430 with skeptism, but found that once I established a rythmn in the format I liked the finished product much more than I believe I would have a hard copy.

As a special education instructor I see portfolios as a great venue for documenting progress and nontraditional assessment products through video, digitally preserved classroom work, and compact collection of IEP resources and documentation. The legalities of how to protect individual information is the only downfall I see, simply because there is no presidence on the topic at this time. Here would be an excellent place for professional instructors to be proactive and help administrators place protocols into action before events ever occur.

Lastly, I like having a timeline of professional development and growth that would could be established using a portfolio, with the multitude of informational venues which can be stored in one location. A professional would be able to record their grow, assess, and reflect on their skills independently.

Learning Expectation for TPTE 486

During the course of TPTE 486 I hope to learn some of the technology techniques which my children and students seem to know how to use intuitively. By the end of the course I would not only like to know what resources are out there for a teacher to have on hand for engaging students, additionally I would like to have some rote knowledge of being able to competently access them for use when on my own.

I have used a Smart board in the classroom during one of my practicums, creating a Powerpoint presentation with staggered incoming points & sounds. The Powerpoint wasn't terribly difficult to make, but I would love to know some short cuts for production over the time consuming method I used. (Hey, but it worked in the end, and my student's didn't know I spent three days creating it.) What I didn't know was how to use the Smart board well, so I would like to have more knowledge on this resource's capabilities & how to utilize it with some level of efficency.

Creating a working knowledge of topics such as blogging, posting class assignments on multiple venues, typical software resources available for general education and special education professionals along with where to check for creditability in relationship to the cost from a reliable education source are a few of the other topics I would like to see brochued during instruction if time and resources permit.

Informal Intro to TPTE 486

I was born in North Carolina and have lived in four states total so far. Knoxville, TN has been a long standing residence for most of the time. I am a single parent of two girls, 16 and 11. They are my pride and joy, they also create lots of premature grey.

I have a bachelor's of science in Early Child Development from UTK, and have worked with children between birth and 21 years of age all of my professional career. I am currently a post-bac in Special Education Pre-K through twelfth grade with a secondary degree in general education K-6. My professional experiences include; ten years of Pre-K teaching and early intervention services, eight years of Community Mental Health working with children from Pre-K through twelfth who were diagnosis with some form of emotional disorder providing planned and crisis respite intervention and education to families.

I have always had a predisposition for working with children who have been diagnosed with some type of learning disability helping them to meet their fullest potential by providing or locating all possible community resources available for assisting a student become the most self productive member of society they are capable of becoming.

When there is down time I am cheering on my girls in either volleyball or basketball. Between them and my two surrogate sons I claim as mine most of the time I am at football, volleyball, or basketball games/practices/camps or the car traveling to one of the above most of the time. Occasionally we run away to the mountains for a hike, but my family thinks that they are part polar bear & would rather live in Alaska than Flordia so we often do outdoors in cooler climates than summer. Everyone but the 16 year old girl would quickly consider taking a teaching position in Anchorage vs. Knoxville or Charlotte. And there are NO SNAKES there, which makes ME very happy.