Workshop Two

Looking at this week's reading for my Technology in Education Class the topic of 21st Century Skills was the main topic. How to prepare our students to succeed in the 21st century using many skills that were not taught in previous classrooms. The main skills focus on problem solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, technology literate, flexible, innovative, globally competent, and financially literate. Personally I feel well prepared to help my students with these skills. My school corporation is very into jumping on board with programs and skills such as these that they feel the students need to be successful in the future. Our school district started at the high school level when they instituted New Tech high and then they have just spread the skills from their. With the support and training that they provide, I feel like I am not only prepared but encouraged to teach these skills to my students.

Just like every other subject I teach, I hope my students leave my class with the skills that they need to succeed. I know that some of my students who are immersed in 21st century skills even at home will be more likely to be able to apply the skills they learn, but with the programs we are using and the constant modeling and use of the skills in my classroom I feel I am preparing them to the best of my ability.

I feel like my strengths help my students acquire and learn positive problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, communication, and collaboration skills. However, teaching 4Th graders there are so skills that I do not know how relevant they are yet. It is hard to teach both Indiana history along with being globally competent and they are bit too young to be worrying about financial literacy.

All I can do is my best like in every other thing I teach my students. Modeling is always the best form of teaching especially in the elementary classroom. Making sure I am showing my thinking in terms of critical thinking and problem solving skills, along with letting my class collaborate with me on important topics and communicating with them is my best form of teaching.

Week 1 Computers in Education

Currently I teach 4th grade in a small rural community in the middle of Indiana. My school is actully on the cutting edge in terms of technology and I feel lucky to be a part of it's integration into our student's curriculm. As a teacher, I however feel like I have plenty of equipment opportunities to provide my students with a great technology curriculm, but I struggle to find the time to create successful projects as well as the support for ideas and help with integration. I also struggle on finding the most important things to teach to 10 year olds when many of them haven't had much in terms of technology curriculm in the past. Also, many of the NETS standards involve ideas that are hard to grasp for 10 year olds (such as copyrights laws and citing sources).

In my district there are many different resources available for teachers in terms of equipment. Each room has 4-5 computers, a smartboard, and one specials time a week for computer lab. We also have in each building a video camera, digital camera, elmo machines, and electronic clickers. However, with this comes many barriers. First of all, the equipment is there but there aren't many if any opportunities to learn about how to use them or when to use them. Also, our districts 3 technology directors are in charge of not only teachers issues but also the issues that arise with the entire junior and senior class having laptop computer for each student as well as a new tech high school. This often means that issues that arise at the elementary school level are bypassed until the other issues are taken care of and it can often be several days or even longer before your issues are taken care of.

As I was reading through the devotional for this weeks class it was all about the times when "fear not" is presented. Fear not most often refers to that God is watching over us and taking away the things to which we might feel restricted if we let doubt or the devil enter into our lives. Going without fear into the unknown allows us the chance to experience things and give our whole heart which allows us as teachers to give our students opportunities they need even though we may not feel qualified ourselves to teach them.

Looking ahead there are many things I hope to get out of this class that would be useful to both my students as well as my collaborative team. I hope to get some new ideas of ways to use technology in my classroom and help younger elementary students understand the importance of technology and safety while using it. I also hope to help my team develop atleast 2 new technology projects to incorporate into our science and social studies units for second semester. Finally, my last goal is to learn how to use a set of the interactive clickers and find some ways to try them within my classroom.