Chapter 6 Blog

I really liked the way she did things for this classroom assignment/project. She integrated technology into the lesson very well. Of the technology standards for students listed in the book, the teacher used a lot of these key points. The students demonstrated a sound understanding of the nature and operation of technology systems. They knew what they were doing on the computer because the teacher asked them to come up and do things on the computer and they all did it correctly. From this, we can conclude that the students are also proficient with the technology. The students practiced responsible use and when they didn't understand something, they asked the teacher or someone around them to help instead of trying to do it themselves and messing things up. When they practice technology use, they get better at it and develops a positive attitude towards technology and giving them the courage to learn and do more. The students also used technology to enhance their learning and increase production by using tools to find out information on their project. When they found the information they were able to use other computer tools, such as PowerPoint to create their visual project. Even though it did not show the students using Epals in the video, the teacher said that it's something that they have been doing in the class on the computer to communicate with other students from around the world. They collected information from Yahoo as well for their project. Overall, this teacher did a very good job of teaching the lesson. One thing I would change would be to tell the students about all the instructions first and then let them do their work. She made sure they knew what they were doing at first and then let me go to do their projects and then went back and gave them more instructions. I felt that some students weren't paying attention to the second set of instructions because they were already focused on their work. She let the students pick their topic, but also made sure students were placed into groups where they could get in as much learning as possible. The students all had something they were suppose to be working on when the computer were taken and was a great student-teacher interaction. She said that she also collaborates with other teachers to share and bounce ideas off of each other, which is also great! After viewing the video, there isn't much of anything that I would change from what she did. She did a great job and I hope to integrate technology in the classroom like she did someday.