Blog Post #11

Little Kids...Big Potential

The little kids in this video really do have big potential! Ms. Cassidy has done an outstanding job with incorporating technology into her classroom and her students are always being creative and they always seem to want to learn in her class. This is the type of classroom environment I will have when I become an educator. This is a prime example of what the education system needs to convert to because it keeps kids interested and they have fun while learning and they learn new things about technology as well as the subject material they are being educated about. This is exactly what I was talking about in one of my previous blog posts. I find it so fascinating that someone has accomplished this in the classroom! When they talk about Alabama, they are referring to elementary students from a school in Alabama, not EDM310 students. I'm glad that some classrooms have taken the initiative to have technology in their classroom and actually use it! I believe that sooner rather than later, there will be more and more technologically literate educators in the school system and really soon, the school system will have no choice but to convert to technology in the classroom. I can't wait to become an educator and hopefully help other educators move to this technology movement into the classroom!

Ms. Cassidy on Skype

I have to say, Ms Cassidy is very nice and very inspiring! I used to live in Virginia and it snowed almost every winter and it is very fun to play in. I do miss the snow now that I live in Alabama, but I was never a big fan of the cold anyways. So, Ms. Cassidy gave very clear answers to the questions and I did not know about not posting blogs or anything with the students last name to protect them. I was very glad that you did this Skype video with Ms. Cassidy because it answered a lot of questions I had. When I become an educator, I plan to have my students blog at least twice a week if not every day as a warm up exercise in the morning. I would of course have a class blog and a SMARTboard so my students can learn other things like handwriting, the alphabet, mathematics, reading, science, and history. Since I will probably teach second grade or under, I can teach my students things they will need to know for the next grade level. There is many improvements that technology can bring to the classroom if every teacher would become technologically literate. You have to know what to do before you send your students into the internet/technology world.

I would have to use more than one of her techniques, but if I had to choose one to use, I would use the video alphabet with other students around the world. I would pick a letter each week that we would learn vocabulary from and Skype with other classrooms one a day and allow the students to interact with other students about the letter of the week. I think it is very important to use all tools of the internet and technology because kids are more advanced in technology than the teachers these days, I have seen it first hand. If teachers do not get involved with technology soon, students are going to be teaching the teacher everything. I'm not saying that students teaching their instructor is a bad thing because it isn't, but teachers need to be prepared to teach their students the uses of technology and what to stay away from on the internet. There is always something we can learn from out students, but us as educators should be prepared to teach them more than they know about.