Motivational Video: "Pay Attention"

This video is a really great way to show teachers how important integrating technology into their curriculum really is. Since many of our students today can be labeled as "digital learners" why do teachers still refuse to offer their students the opportunities technology can provide? This presentation really gets you thinking and will hopefully motivate you to more effectively use technology in your classroom when you are a teacher in the near future.

Half-Way Reflection

I've learned a lot about technology use in the classroom so far from this course. I feel like I've gained a lot of resources that I can use in my future classroom such as websites where I can make lesson plans, find lesson plans, generate quizzes, and much more. This has probably been the most important thing I have learned in this class. I sometimes feel overwhelmed with all of the work that comes along with this course, but for the most part I feel that it is helping me become a more successful educator.

Internet Use in Elementary Classrooms

I feel that the internet is an amazing tool for a teacher to use. There are so many resources available on the internet and it would be silly to not take advantage of this. Some pros of internet use in elementary classrooms would be finding lesson plans, fun and educational clip art, as well as allowing students to do research on any given topic. While I feel that there are many more pros to using the internet in education, there are most certainly some cons which include safety- there are a lot of inappropriate sites on the internet that may not be blocked even with privacy settings, and you definitely don't want your young students coming across these. Also, using the internet too much can take away from teacher-student relationships as well as peer relationships. If I were being interviewed and asked how I would use the internet in my classroom, I would say that I would use it for several things. I would use the internet to come up with different ways to organize my classroom, such as seating charts, I would use the internet to generate quizzes, tests, games, and puzzles. I would use the internet to come up with fun lesson plan ideas and to print off clip-art and signs. I would use the internet as a tool for my students to do research and to help them come up with topics for projects. I would allow my students to use the internet to come up with new ways to do presentations and use graphics such as searching for sound and video. The opportunities for using the internet in an elementary classroom are endless, and I will most certainly use as many of these as I can in my own classroom.

One of my favorite teacher websites I have found so far would be Discovery Education: School Resources which is sponsored by the Discovery Channel. On this website, you are able to generate your own puzzles, you can search through the thousands of lesson plans in the lesson plan library, you can look through the clip art gallery, and there is also a section called "Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators" which is a list of sites for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. There is so much more to this site as well so you should check it out!

Kindergarten Standards

I feel that having standards for what kindergarten students need to know by the end of the year has both postive and negative aspects. I think it's a good way for teachers to set goals and have high expectations for all of their students, but I can also see how these standards can be restricting. No classroom is going to be the same, especially the make-up of your students so it's hard to say these group of kids will know the same exact material as another group of kids. I think it's great that kindergarteners are learning more and more because it shows that these children are in fact capable of accomplishing more than what was previously asked of them. I think there should definitely be standards for what kindergarteners need to know before leaving the grade level, but I do not think these standards should be restrictive because all children are different and there are exceptions to every rule.