Technology Philosophy

As I embark on my new adventures I am taking a second look at my educational technology philosophy. For those who do not know I will be teaching technology (which includes the use of computers, software and including it into the curriculum) for second through fourth grade in the Bronx borough of New York City come this fall. After receiving the news that I would be teaching technology I have started to think about what I want my curriculum and instruction to look like. Thus, I have started to define what I think is important. Here it is.....



Teaching technology in the 21st century.


First and foremost, technology needs to be integrated. Technology needs to be come part of the ever day inside the classroom so our students can be up to date on the latest technology outside the classroom. Along with integrating technology on a daily basis, the technology integration needs to work along side the curriculum. If we are integrating technology in time, it needs to also be in line with the curriculum. Everything in the curriculum can be done with technology one way or another. As long as the technology is not being pushed into the classroom without a purpose, the instruction will be purposful. Next, our students need to learn to type. Typing is an important skill that each child should learn, in multiple situations. Typing programs are vital to typing correctly, but real world experiences (typing papers for class, 'im'ing, and other real life situations) are the most valuable time in learning to type efficiently.

New Product

I got a comment on the blog at some point that points out a different type of interactive white board. Check out the comment under the SMARTboard post to check it out. Here is the blog of the person who posted it to me, Education and Technology. Thanks for checking out my not so updated blog.

SMARTboards

What is a SMARTboard you ask? A SMARTboard is an interactive whiteboard produced by the Smart Technologies. The SMARTboard is a white board that acts like your comptuer screen. If you are an educator and have no seen one of these you need to, they will change your feeling on education as a whole. But please make sure to be shown by someone who knows how to use the software or they can be a bit overwhelming and confusing. One blog group that I found is podcasting their lessons about using the SMARTboard every day is the SMARTBoard Lessons Podcast blog. This site offers many insites to the board and how it works. It is also nice that they include lesson plans that you can work straight off of in your own classroom. I know I will be keeping my eye on them in the upcoming months (even without a SMARTboard in my student teaching classroom).

Blogging Teachers

This is a list of my fellow classmates blogs. They were put together in the same fasion as mine with many more websites and different views on each subject we tackled together.

Jason

Angie

Angie's del.icio.us account

Traci

Sarah

Jacque

Math and Technology Integration

In my current 5th grade class I am working with students who are not able to reach the fifth grade standard. These students are currently working at a third grade level. The students will shortly start fractions. I found two websites that I believe I would use with my students to help them understand fractions. In this fifth grade class there is not the usual third grade materials, so computer will be a big help in teaching the students fractions. The first website I would use is Parts of a Whole. This website helps the students visualize the parts and wholes. I really like this because it helps in showing the difference between cutting the same amount of area into different number of pieces. After the students have a firm grasp on Parts of a Whole, I would use Visualizing Fractions to help them learn to make the fractions. This is a way for the students to be able to test their knowledge. I think that it is important for these kids to use the computer instead of physical manipulatives because this way they do not feel how far they are from their peers (by using third grade materials).

Primary Sources

This is a list of primary sources for the Oregon Trail.

Treaty of Fort Laramie
This is the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The kids can look at the document up close and personal as a picture.

Diaries And Journals OF Narcissa Whitman 1836
This is a diary of Narcissa Whitman and her travels on the Oregon Trail. This is a primary source document because it is a journal of someone who traveled on the trail.

PE/Health and Art/Music Websites

PE/Health
KidsHealth
This is a website that links to internal websites. I like it because there are different sites for parents, and teens. The kids link has many different resources and situations for kids.

Health Kids.gov
This is another part of kids.gov. This website is a government website that has website for kids about health. The topics range from air polution to food safety.

PE Central
This website highlights many programs from around the country. It showcases what people are doing in their gyms across the country.

PedagoNet
This website has daily activities and PE games. It has a list of many games that teachers can use in the gym for their class.

Art/Music

Art at Kids.gov
This is the art part of Kids.gov. The activities on this page focus around the history of the United States.

Crayola Creativity Central
This website is the offical website of the Crayola brand. The site has everything from coloring activites to art and crafts. This website is fun for kids because it is a brand name that most of them know and it is appealing for kids.

Dallas Symphany Orcherstra
This is a fun website for kids that is music based. There are plenty of games for kids to play from music math to pictures of instruments to color.

Sing Along Songs
This is a website full on sing along songs for kids. The songs are broken up by category, a-z list, as well as guess that song.

Science and Math

Science

Bill Nye the Science Guy
Bill Nye is a trusted scientist who became popular on tv for his wacky show that taught science. The website includes "did you know" facts and home projects that kids can do.

Kidsites.com
This is a website with tons of kids websites. This page is the science page. These links range from "How Things Work" to "funology". These websites also give many ideas for projects for kids.

Science on Kids.gov
A website list with a governmental emphasis. The emphasis includes websites that deal with agriculture and air quaity. Some of the websites have projects that students can also do at home.

Exploratorium
Exporatorium has a list of some wbsites for kids. This website is interesting because it is sponsered by NPR. The websites are good resources for kids and adults alike.

Math
Everyday Math
This website is full of games that link to the Everyday Math curriculum. The website is broken in to grade level, unit number and lesson number. This is so nice because kids an play games that go with the lesson in the curriculum.

SBGMath
This website is put together by a school district. I like this website because it has math games as well as a section to explain who is on each coin and why.

Cyberchase
Cyberchase is a widely known kids website. The website is good because it is visually attractive to kids and has noises to go along with the games.

Cool Math 4 Kids
Cool Math 4 Kids is a very bright and attractive website for kids. The games are fun for kids and help them learn at the same time.

Social Studies and English Websites

Yahooligans
This is a popular wesite with kids and schools alike. It has categories of pictures, sounds and video. It is also broken into subjects. This is an attractive page to students and parents alike.

Awesome Library
This website is great because it is quick and easy to find information by subject. I would only reccomend this website for older students because of the simplistic nature of it and that it links to long papers not geared towards younger kids.

PrimaryGames.com
This is a website with social studies games. These games range from guess that flag, name that state and name that president. These games are good for extra time fillers and free time games that are learning games.

PBS
PBS is always a good place to go for information. The site has a search tool for all grades and all subjects. This particular page is their social studies page. There is any and everything you could think of from teacher resources to kid places.

KidLit
This website is all about childrens literature. The one feature that I like the most about this website is the area that features childrens poems under poetry. This can help enspire kids to write and read poetry.

Hubbard's Cupboard
This website is very kid friendly and has lots of resources. I liked to the resoures page because I thought the best part of the site was childrens author page. This page links to websites about different authors.

International Children's Digital Library
I use this site again because it is a great resource for both digital books and books in general. The library has a great search engine that can be used for any books on and off the site.

Kidsread.com
This website features series, authors, games and trivia. The best thing I saw about this website is the trivia part. With each activity that is attached to a book they actually show the book cover next to the trivia so the students get the link between the web and the book.