By: Jenna Hempe May 2010

Where did my student Where did my student teaching experience take teaching experience take place?place?

6-86-8thth grade math, science, and 6 grade math, science, and 6thth grade religion grade religion

What technology What technology resources were available resources were available to me?to me?•Overhead projector

•Laptop cart that was available for checkout and contained enough laptops for each student in the class.

•One LCD projector for the school that was also available for checkout.

How does a person integrate How does a person integrate technology when it is limited?technology when it is limited?

•Careful planning. Signing up for things like a projector or laptop cart ahead of time is very important so that you can count on it being available. •Making the best of what you have. This is something that I definitely tried to do at my placement. The following slides highlight examples of ways that I did this to the best of my knowledge.

Overhead Overhead ProjectorProjectorI used the overhead almost daily in my 6-8th grade math classes. In my classroom, it was very important for classroom management purposes to keep my eyes on the class and the overhead projector allowed me to do this. With the overhead, I did not have to have my back turned to the students.

How did I use How did I use it?it?

•To model how to solve math problems.

•To display different geometric figures using clear overhead shapes.

•To display blank graphic organizers that we filled out together as a class.

What was the What was the students’ students’ response?response?The students were very use to the

overhead being used in class. This is because my cooperating teacher uses this tool daily in his classes. The overhead was very beneficial for the students’ learning because it allowed me to model math problems while still being able to face my students. This allows me to make sure that students’ eyes are on me and also allows me to see their faces to look for visible signs of confusion.

It is also beneficial because a teacher can create instant visuals with it and display images right in front of the students.

LCD LCD ProjectoProjecto

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I also frequently used the LCD projector in my 6-8th grade math and science classes. In addition, I even used it during a religion lesson. At times, I found that when I did want to use it I could not because another teacher had reserved it. This taught me to plan even further in advance.

How did I use How did I use it?it?

Math: -To model how to solve multi-step problems. For example, I created quite a few PowerPoints that incorporated a lot of custom animation so that I could break apart the steps and click each time I wanted to show the next step for how to solve a math problem.

How did I use How did I use it? (continued)it? (continued)

Math: -To present my own PowerPoints that contained many things like data graphs, geometric objects, and grid paper. I frequently would project these images onto the whiteboard instead of the projector screen. This allowed me and my students to write on my slides and I created my own little makeshift Smartboard.

-To access math websites. I used sites that allowed me to show students how to use a protractor, gave the students problems to solve, and even created a math term quiz to check prior knowledge using http://mystudiyo.com/

Examples of PowerPoints I Examples of PowerPoints I made for math lessons:made for math lessons:

How did I use How did I use it? (continued)it? (continued)

Science: -To show images/videos from the Visual Concepts CD-ROM that the textbook company provided.

-To show videos related to the science concept we were studying. Videos came from places like www.youtube.com/, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/, http://www.brainpop.com/science/ , and www.howstuffworks.com/

-To play interactive games related to the science topic being studied to check for understanding of a topic as a class like a food web game from www.harcourtschool.com/activity/food/meadow_activity.html

How did I use How did I use it? (continued)it? (continued)

Science:

-To show http://earth.google.com/ , which went perfectly with our satellite lesson.

- To present PowerPoints that I created like a Jeopardy review game and directions to a “space mission” the students needed to complete.

-To project “bell ringer” directions on the screen for students to answer before class begins.

What was the What was the students’ students’ response?response?

The students really seemed to enjoy having the projector incorporated into class and some even stated that they loved the video clips we were able to watch because of the projector.

The projector was very beneficial to the students’ learning because it allowed me to use some great tools that had them very engaged and kept their focus on the lesson. The first day I used the projector, I noticed a big change in the students’ attention span and could really tell that they were really “staying with me”.

It is also beneficial because many of the tools I used and some of the PowerPoints I created allowed me to quickly check students’ learning and understanding of a concept. This could be done as a class through things like the Jeopardy game or the interactive websites or it could be done individually using a quiz like I created on mystudiyo.com

What was the What was the students’ students’

response…?response…?

Student Student LaptopsLaptopsMy school has a laptop cart that can be checked out with enough laptops for a classroom of a students.

How were they How were they used?used?I used the laptops for a religion lesson that had the students go to a couple of web 2.0 tools that I created. These will be explained in the next slides.

Web Web 2.0 2.0 ToolsToolsBlabberBlabber

izeizeBlabberize is a great free web 2.0 tool that allows a person to upload any image and identify the mouth points on that image to have that image look like it is talking. The image then speaks whatever you upload whether that be via a sound clip you recorded using a microphone or your cell phone.

How was it How was it used?used?

I used Blabberize in a religion lesson to introduce Daniel who was going to be the main character in our Bible story for that day.

The voice recording included background information about Daniel, but did not say who he was. The students had to guess who this person was after they heard the information about him.

Here is a picture of my Blabberize creation of Daniel.

MystudiMystudiyoyo

I also used Mystudiyo, which allows a person to create their own online quiz completely from scratch. The site provides different templates a person can choose from, but then the creator writes their own questions and pictures to go along with the questions. What is great about this site is that it allows a person to embed the quiz on a webpage or various social networking websites.

How was it How was it used?used?

I also used Mystudiyo in my religion lesson to create a quiz for the students to take after we read and discussed Daniel and the Lions’ Den.

I uploaded this quiz along with my Blabberize creation to a Wikispace I created for my 6th grade students. This Wikispace was another tool that I used and it was also free. The tool did a great job of organizing my websites and providing a home base for the students to go to in order to access websites I want them to visit. This way the students don’t have to type in a bunch of websites and keep track of them all.

What was the What was the students’ response students’ response

to the web 2.0 to the web 2.0 tools?tools?I really enjoyed showing the

students the tools I created and it was very evident that they enjoyed them quite a bit.

However, when it comes to incorporating technology a person’s reasons for doing so have to come down to more than just the fact that the students liked it.

I feel these tools enhanced students learning because they allowed me to “hook” them in in the beginning of the lesson and to activate their prior knowledge of the Bible character. In addition, the quiz tool allowed me to quickly check students’ learning because the quiz results were instant.