SMART Board Reflection

After reading the article on the SMART website I now understand what the creators were thinking when making the SMART Board. One thing that I think is important to understand when using a SMART Board is to not try to use the SMART Board in every lesson you teach; Nancy Knowlton one of the creators of SMART Board says, "The interactive whiteboard is a special-purpose tool that is particularly valuable in whole-class teaching and learning, and some small-group work. It is not intended to be used 100 percent of the time." This was interesting to me because the creators understood that this is not the best way to do all types of teaching but it is affective in many ways. Another thing that I learned from reading this article is that SMART has been working on pushing education to become technology based and the SMART Board is just the beginning to their impact on education.

Reflection #2

Technology has changed the way that teachers are teaching and the way that students are learning. I noticed in one of my classes last week how important the overhead projector and computer are. In my class this last week the teacher could not carry out the class the way she had planned because these two systems would not work. This made class very challenging because it made it a lot harder to understand what was going on with the notes; therefore the class was not very productive. These two systems are very important to education today because they not only help the students follow what the teachers are talking about but also to keep the teachers on track. 

2011 class blogs

Sara Kochel
Jordan Henderson
Kirstie Walton
George Mazurets
Jessica Henderson

Reflection #1

In the first week back to school I have learned how technology is helping students by making school easier for them. After the first week of school I realized that I was writing down notes that were posted online for me to use, so being aware of how much extra work I began to download the notes on my computer and take it to class with me. In just the first week it has saved me a lot of time and has stopped me from doing work that has already been done for me. I am going to use this semester as an experiment to see if this form of note taking will help me in my classes, but just with the time that I have saved I can see why it is important for all students to have access to a computer and how important it is for teachers to post class notes and keep their online class outline up to date. I started this semester afraid of technology in education because I believe that it will take away face to face action but in just one week I have seen how beneficial technology can be to a student.

Turning On the Lights

After reading this article it troubles me to say that technology is needed in our classrooms today. I have always believed that classes that prepare students for their future always were the most beneficial for students, but I never saw these as tech classes in my high school these consisted of metals shop and woodworking. This article makes it clear the the future of America is based on what happens with technology, therefore I agree with a lot of the topics covered in this article.
There is only one major part of this article that really bothers me. The section titled "Plugged in and Connected," although I understand all of his points it is troublesome to me to have students in school on there electronics more than they already are because they lose the importance and skills of face to face interaction.  With a lack of face to face communication already in the United States I can see how this could be a bigger problem in the future.
There are some excellent points that are made in this article that have changed my way of thinking. First is the section, "The Boredom Crisis," I agree that we as educators can not treat all students the same and expect them all to enjoy the same topics. I also agree with letting the students have some say in what they learn because they know what they are interested in. These leads to the next part of the article that I really enjoyed "Where Kids Learn." This highlighted the point that students can achieve anything when they really put in the work but in order for them to put in the work they must enjoy what they are doing.
I believe that if we take what kids want to learn and guide them with strong and positive educators; technology will be a major help in the class room. Setting up a curriculum to better meet the needs of more students we will be able to prepare our students better for their future.

First Reflection

The first time I realized that I was interested in education was when I went to watch my Grandpa teach in his physics class as a young child. Growing up I got to hear all of his interesting stories from bringing home a dead whale for class to making a gun for class that he could show his class the properties of movement. The desire increased in the eight grade when I did a project on child hood obesity which showed me how big of a problem child hood obesity is in the United States. As a physical education teacher I hope to teach these kids how to avoid this problem and create healthy living habits. I'm hoping to teach elementary public physical education so I can install these desires early in students lives. I also want to become a teacher because I like to watch kids grow and expand their knowledge.
This semester I hope to learn how to use technology in the classroom and how I can use the new world of technology to improve my students learning. Specifically I want to be able to run a smartboard while being able to control a classroom. I also want to be able to learn how to use an effective blog because I know that all students learn differently and I want my students to be successful as they can be. The final thing I would like to learn in this class is about where education is going with technology and how much technology is going to grow in the classroom.