Digital Story Reflection

Provide demographics of school, number of students in class and who your cooperating teacher is.

This elementary School is located in the Alpine School District. The community within the school boundaries is overall wealthy upper-class individuals. There are many business owners from this area. About 16% of the schools population is on free and reduced lunch.

There are 602 students enrolled at the school. 95% of these students are Caucasian/white. 5% of the students represent many minorities. Minorities represented at this school are Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, African American, and Pacific Islander. Around 2% of the students are both minorities and economically disadvantaged. 12 students are limited English proficiency.

The school has an average of 24 students per teacher. 49.6% of the students at this elementary school are boys, 50.4% are girls. This school has an average of 29.4% full-time teachers for the 2010-2011 school year.

In Mrs. Z’s fourth grade class the students are all around 9 and 10 years old. There is one student who skipped first grade and he is 8 years old. 17 of the 33 students in Mrs. Z’s class are boys, and 16 of the students are girls.

1. How is your relationship with your cooperating teacher? Explain.

a. My relationship with my cooperating teacher is good. She is a young teacher so she easily relates to what I am learning and experiences throughout my time in the classroom. She is easy to talk to when I have questions or need clarification. She gives me tasks and tells me multiple things at a time so that when I finish with one I don’t have to keep going back to her for more direction.

2. How does he/she feel about the technology piece you created?

a. My cooperating teacher really liked my digital story. She liked that it helped students to realize real-life connections. It caught the attention of the students right at the first.

3. How does he/she feel about the lesson you completed?

a. She really liked it and felt that the kids loved it. It was a great visual way to connect math concepts to real-life scenarios. She liked that I was able to relate it back to day-to-day life.

4. How did the training session go? Explain.

a. The training session went pretty well. I have a PC and most schools use Macs, so we had different programs. But we were able to learn from each other as we experimented with the similarities and differences of Photo Story and iMovie. I was also able to talk to her about Pioneer Library and the many resources that can be taken from there.

5. How do you feel about this service-learning experience?

a. I felt that this service-learning experience was a good thing. When I start teaching there will be different things that I know how to do and different things that other teachers will know how to do. We will be able to collaborate and use one another’s ideas in our own classrooms. This helped me to experience how teaching another teacher would feel like and the importance of being able to learn from one another in collaboration teams.

6. What did your cooperating teacher gain from the experience?

a. She was able to learn how to put together a digital story. In college, she had learned how to make a digital story so it was a good refresher for her. She learned about the pioneer library and the different resources that are offered on there.

7. What did you gain from the experience?

a. I gained a deeper understanding of how beneficial collaboration can be. When I get into a school for my first teaching job, I will be surrounded by teachers both young and old. It is so important to be able to learn from them. Other teachers will be able to gain ideas and knowledge from my perspectives, and I will be able to gain ideas and knowledge from their experiences and perspectives.

8. Was it worth why or why not?

a. I believe it was worth it. My cooperating teacher really liked my digital story and the idea of being able to make learning or reviewing into a digital visualization. Kids are so drawn to technology that it is very beneficial to be able to utilize it in any way possible without distracting away from the message or learning experience.

My Beliefs

I believe that the use of technology in a classroom setting can be extremely effective. There are so many opportunities and tools that we have access to at this time because of technology. Technology has made it possible for us all to have access to answers to any question and information on any subject. All it takes is just a simple click. Children know so much more now than I did when I was their age. They have so many more resources right at their finger tips. Children are so knowledgeable in technology areas, that they can be utilized for so many things. Giving a child an opportunity to take on the role of a teacher is one of the most effective teaching styles I have seen and been a part of. I know for myself, that I can learn so much about what is out there by listening and allowing children to teach me and to guide exploration just as I expect to do for them in every other subject. Even as young as age 3 children know how to use different technologies. They are raised on it. Because they are so used to it, and they know so much about it, I want to use it as an effective tool in my future classroom. If I chose to go against the use of it, I will be fighting a war. I believe that good behavior and management increases as students are worked with rather than against. We cannot always work along side of them. But when we can, we should.

Lessons Learned

I learned a lot by watching the videos and reading the articles. There is so much information out there about technology that I have never seen or even heard of. The information presented in the "Did You Know" video was amazing. I have always known that China and India are a lot bigger than the U.S, but I never realize how big of a difference there really was. We are so far behind on what is going on and being taught in those two countries. The statistics of the high achievement levels compared to ours is incredible. We are so far behind, but we are trying our best to make a difference as educators. This information really struck me. It worries me that we are so far behind and that the education level of students of the same age are so incredibly diverse around the world. The New WWW, was a really good article. There are so many resources out there that students are getting their hands on everyday. I am only 19, and I still know very little about what is out there. I cannot imagine what it will be like in a few years as more and more technology comes out. With this, educators and adults can either fight against the use of it or try to move with it. Students are going to use the technology whether we want them to or not, so we should learn to use it as well. If I knew enough about it and am willing to learn, then I could integrate it and use it as an effective tool rather than a distraction or distruption in a classroom setting.

Strengths and Weaknesses

According to the NET standards and UNI survey, I am very behind on my knowledge of technology. While reading over the standards there were only a few things that I even understood what was being said. I am not aware of how to get the necessary funds that would be needed to get certain technologies. A strength that I have is using technology to assess. There are so many inter actives online that I know about, and there are so many that I would love to learn about. These are extremely beneficial is practicing new knowledge and accessing current understanding levels of every student. I am unsure of new technologies. I do not use or even know much about video conferencing. I have very little knowledge of adaptive technologies, and uses for them. Both in the NET standards as well as the UNI survey, I need to think more about students creating things of their own. I want to find different resources that students can use in order to create projects using technology. Students love using technology, so with the use of it in my class I think it would help in many different aspects. I would also like to learn more about adaptive technologies. I have heard a little bit about them, but it would be beneficial and useful to know more. Here is one online tutorial that will help me learn more about Videoconferencing. This website provides a tutorial on use of different software, and it shows comparisons of different products. Another resource that will help me to strengthen my weaknesses would be one that helps me with grants for supplies. TechnologyGrantNews has different grants that teachers can apply for. They all have to deal with technology in the classroom.

March 20- Digital Story Progress

For fields, I am teaching a math unit on customary units of measurements. I was trying to think of different ways I could use my digital story to help the students with learning, and I decided to use it as a sort of review. For one of my lessons, I was asked to do a short unit review that would help get the students ready for the unit test. I thought this digital story would be a fun thing to incorporate into my lesson.
My digital story is showing that we really do use math. It isn't just one time in class while learning it, but we see the math everyday in everything that we do. I wanted to make this real. So rather than going to the internet for pictures, I chose to take the majority of the pictures by myself. There are a few that I got online, but for the most part my pictures are of things that I see everyday that can be tied into customary units of measurement. Even for me, it helped me realize how often I truly rely on knowing customary units in my daily life.
I was able to find sound clips from Soundzabound that work well with each measurement. The sound clips are very different styles from one another, but they are all fun. Each measurement type has a different song just like it has different units involved. But they are all fun, just like each type of measurement can be seen in similar items.

March 10-Digital Story #2

I never knew that by using songs that we have purchased for presentations and different things was considered copy-right. I learned a lot about the copy-right laws in class yesterday. It amazes me how many things go into it and how many things are affected by it. One thing that really surprised me that we learned about was that by showing a movie in class actually is going against copy-right.
During the lesson, I was thinking about all of the different resources that I have used for different class projects. I didn't realize that all of that time I had been going against individual's licenses and copy-right. This new knowledge will allow me to hopefully be able to get used to working with copy-right laws before I get out into an actual teaching job. I have always known that copy-right is a lot more than plagarism, but that is usually all I think of when copy-right is brought up. I will now think of all of the other tools/resources that are protected under this law.
With knowing how to create licenses for my own personal use and why I would want to, I think it is important to create one for projects that I may complete. I now know that I need to contact and get permission for a lot of the resources and tools that will be helpful in my future classroom. It will be good to know that in the future if I want to use a purchased media file (movie or music) in my classroom, I still need permission from the company. I think that it is important to allow others to edit and revamp my projects. I think that better ideas are created and brought to life when more people are involved so I would be grateful for new insights on personal projects.

March 2- Digital Story #1

I never really understood what a digital story was. It is interesting to see how they are used. I learned a lot more about different subjects and events by simply watching the few digital stories that we viewed in class. It is neat to me to see how displaying information in the digital story allows for a lot of different types of media to portray the event or subject matter in personal, different, and unique ways.
Using the digital story as a way of introduction to a particular subject would be very useful. Many of the ones we watched were very powerful and left you wanting to know more or see more. Utilizing this tool would be a great benefit in classroom settings. It will help to get the students more excited about learning. It also allows for a few minutes to recall previously learned knowledge or connections that individuals might have with specific subjects.
I still am unsure on how the whole process of making one is. But depending on how difficult it is, it could be a good way to have students present their knowledge. It would be a good representation of understanding and connections that might have been made from the learning experience. It could be utilized for every subject for ways of introduction, assessing, reporting, or just a fun assignment for students to be involved with.

February 16- Vidcast Reflection

The name of our vidcast is , The 5 Senses. The core that is addressed with our series is Standard 4; Objective 2 (Describe the parts of living things) in Kindergarten Science. We are describing the parts of living things. In particular, we are focusing on the five senses of human life and the body parts connected with them.
Throughout our vidcast we are exploring sight, smell, sound, touch, and tast through different pictures. In our vidcast, we have a picture of the body part correlating to the particular sense followed by two slides of pictures that represent how and what we use that specific sense for.
The reason that we chose this topice for our vidcast was because we wanted to be able to teach students about their five sense and the things we use them for each day in a way different than lecture. Each sense is connected to a specific body part. To show this we are using visual representations of each of these. Sight is with our eyes, smell is through our nose, sound is through our ears, touch comes from our hands and feet, and tast comes through our mouths. In our vidcast, we are showing the relationship between the sense and the corresponding body part for that specific sense.
We use every sense every day. But there are also individuals who do not have the sue or control over all five of those senses. Those individuals who do not have all five senses are able to use the other four senses to make up for the one(s) that they may be lacking. For example, individuals who do not have the ability to hear are able to communicate through sight. And those individuals who are not able to see, they are able to use touch and sound to help them in their day-to-day life.
Potential drawbacks would be that we are showing only specific things for each sense. Many of the pictures are mainly used for the particular sense that we are showing with them. But they can also be confused with the use of other senses. For taste, we are using many food items. But for food, we use different senses other than simply taste. We use taste, touch, smell, and sight for it. Sight is used for almost every sense, so we tried to focus on things that can only be seen, things not able to be touched or smelled.
For extended understanding this series would need to include other vidcasts displaying some items that we use multiple senses for. It would be beneficial for the learning experience to see these differences and the multiple ways that each sense can be used. We could use one picture of an item followed by the different senses that may come into play when that item is sensed. This could lead into a discussion about how one sense may trigger another one. For example, many times when we see things that are new and interesting we instantly want to be able to hold it, to touch it. Or when food is being cooked in another room, our noses pick up the scent and our taste sense is activated. Almost always, one sense causes another sense to take place as well.
We would use this in our classrooms as an introduction to our five senses. Because our vidcast is limited to under two minutes there are many things that are not included that would be necessary in the learning of our senses. It holds just the basic understandings for each sense. The best way that this would be used would be as an introduction that would easily lead into a classroom discussion.
Students would be able to gather personal knowledge about their five senses after the vidcast has been shown. This would be a good base for a discussion. Studentss would be able to look at individual items that they like or dislike through their senses. (i.e "I like tasting pizza, but I don't like tasting spaghetti.)
Maddy and I worked well together. We were able to split up the work evenly to do on our own, and then we easily combined it all once we were ready to produce our vidcast. We each took half of the pictures and different sections that we would speak on. After we had every picture and all of our ideas gathered, we put the final project together. Once all of the slides we in with the desired transitions and timings, we recorded audio for the vidcast.
I would like to have the opportunity to take this series farther. It would be good to be able to add upon the topic as lessons and discussions move on. Knowing how to make something like this will be nice to use in future classrooms. The use of a vidcast would not only be a great tool for instruction, but it would also be a great tool for the students. Getting them more involved and creating their own series about knowledge that they have gained about specific subjecst, would be a fun project and assessment for the class.

February 9- Vidcast 1

We are planning on using photostory for our project. We are going to make a vidcast about the 5 senses for a kindergarten class. We will have pictures for four of the senses, and then we will have music for our hearing sense.
The different tools available are cool. The jing program would be super helpful when trying to teach my mom stuff with her blog. It would also be nice as a tutorial for parents or students that are new to a program that will be used in classes or for different resources.

February 6- Podcast

I had never really heard or knew what a podcast was until this week. I learned that there are many things that are considered to be podcasts.
This would be a great resource for absent students or diverse learners. It can also be a fun resource to use within a lesson plan. To be able to incorporate it into an activity would be fun and a simple interactive.
Using podcasts as a way of presenting reports would be fun. It would be fun as a student to be able to record your own voice. Children like to hear themselves and they would be able to do that in a productive way. This would also be helpful in collaboration meetings. If someone is missing or something is missed during the meeting then having it recorded would be helpful. This way it can be posted online for later reference.

30 January- Google 2

I am learning about how to set up a website of my own. I have been able to play around with a few different page layouts, ideas, and themes that will work really great in the future.
It is nice to be able to play around with multiple tools that are going to benefit our future classrooms and working environments. I think the homework page that we put on our site will be super beneficial to work with as I continue through my schooling. A lot of times my planner turns into a big jumble of to-dos that I have to sort through to discover what is homework and when it is due.
This will be a beneficial resource as a teacher, not only for students and parents, but for myself as well. It will be nice to have something to update each day or week that will keep up with what is going on in class. Getting information for absent children and concerned parents will be easily accessed- what is going on in class, classroom announcements, or what homework assignments are coming up. I think parents are going to really like this part. When I was a student in elementary school, I was so tired of school that by the time I was home I would forget to have papers signed or not remember all of my homework that needed to be completed. It will be nice that everything will be so readily accessible for the students and parents.

22 January- Google 1

The only google tool I have ever used is blogger. In class learning about all of the different things that google has to offer was neat to me. The google docs is going to be an amazing resource as we go through the program. It is such a great way to work in groups without one person doing the whole thing and it is on a document type that everyone can use. I do not have Microsoft Office, so group projects often require alot of copy-paste into Open-Office. Google docs is going to save a lot of time.
Using the different tools provided by google docs will help in my future class. Students will be able to work on presentations together. They will all be able to work on it, with everyone at the wheel. Many times group presentations require the group standing around the one on the computer. This tool will help everyone be an active part in the project.
Assigning students writing projects with google docs can help with editing. I remember printing and re-printing papers multiple times until the document was finally what I wanted it to look like. On google docs, the student would be able to share their paper with the teacher. The teacher could then do some editing and the student could fix the problems without printing the paper once. This would help with some budget issues as well for many schools. This tool will also be helpful when working with other teachers. Other teachers will be able to see and change your lesson plans, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. With the help and input from other teachers lesson plans could become much more meaningful and useful.

13 January - Why Teach?

I had a great elementary school experience. I had great teachers and they are part of the reason I want to teach. I want to make a difference in peoples lives, what better way to do that than to teach. I love working with children. I have been helping and working with children younger than me since I was 8 years old. I have loved getting so many different experiences, and I have learned so much from each of them. I am excited to continue to learn from children as I continue working with them.
I have went back and forth on what grade I want to teach, but I have been thinking early childhood now for a while. I worked in a daycare for over two years with a class of three year olds. Teaching them new things and watching them understand is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. The way their eyes light up when they make connections, do something new, or even when they are just playing is something I look forward to. They are so full of life and love. Young children have such a big desire to learn, and I cannot wait to help to facilitate that learning.