From+My+Heart

A Reflection About This Wiki

December 12, 2010

A letter for anyone who stumbles upon this website and wonders what it is all about,

This semester has been crazy, delightful, and I overbooked myself. I will never again take seven classes and work at the same time. This class was supposed to be the “extra” class, the one that I did to get the added elementary school endorsement on top of the early childhood endorsement. It however, has turned out to be the FIRST college class where I have turned out a product that I am actually proud of.

Yes there are still improvements that can be made to my wiki, and some of the lesson plans, but deadlines must be met. I could polish and prune until the end of time, but eventually the product has to be turned in, even if I swear I could have given it just a bit more shine.

I have always loved using the computer to create. I did yearbook in high school and I love digital photography. However, I also took three years of photo class and I love film all the more, because you have to sweat just a little more to have your photograph turn into an art form. However, to manipulate an image, nothing compares to the wonders of Photoshop. Shooting with film is where I learned my control and the basic elements of photography, and the computer allowed me to share my photography with the world. If you want to see some of the images I created in high school click here. This class reminds me of learning how to both take a photograph and then shape it using technology it to give it the best presentation possible.

I look at this class as taking the best of technology and fusing it with the ingenuity of the creative human mind. Yes, we share our work through the computer, but we still had to write the scripts for our work before we put them on our wiki for the world to see. This is the best use of technology. Technology is a tool; nothing more and nothing less. It is how this tool is used that can determine if technology plays a positive or negative role in our lives.

I have told many people about what we have been learning in this class. Four or five of these people are teachers themselves. They have all said that they would like to incorporate more technology into their own units. Perhaps one of them will take this or a similar class.

As for what I have learned about being a teacher from writing all of these units, the biggest thing is that education will be turning a corner. Students from a very young age will be able to use technology and in order to make it interesting and fun for students; teachers will need to keep up on the latest technologies to help engage students in learning. Looking for high quality websites on the internet will also take some research. There are a lot of websites with subpar activities and content that students will run across. To teach students how to identify a high quality website will be an important lesson in research, as more and more research is done this way in every aspect of life.

In creating this wiki, I am most proud of learning how to use Audacity. I spent a pretty good of chunk of time learning how to edit podcast and make the volume of the music similar to the volume of my own voice. Now that I know how to use Audacity I am planning on using it in some of the future projects I do, both on the web and for my personal use.

The next time I write a unit and use technology, I will have to take into consideration of what skills the students already have when using technology. I will also take into consideration what units most adaptable to use technology with. Finally, when developing a unit I must take state standards and my own goals over what the students need to learn into consideration.

I am most concerned that young students (in early childhood) may not cognitively be ready to do the projects that we did in this class. I didn’t type really well until I was in middle school, even with lots of typing practice. I believe that not every student at a young age will be able to use computers in depth to complete the skills being asked of them. As a teacher I cannot have unrealistic expectations and I can only teach within a student’s zone of proximal development, not above it.

As for the challenges in teaching, my biggest concern is how to get between 20 and 30 students to complete the level of standards they are supposed to be meeting at the end of the year while managing not to neglect any of them. I will have to give every student the individualistic attention that he or she needs…all in a working day. To overcome this challenge, I will need to assess every student to make sure they are getting the information that they need. I will need to be communicating with parents and guardians to make sure everything is going smoothly in the home. I must trust the students and realize that when I have a problem with something in the classroom, that I am not all alone and that I can ask for help from my fellow staff.

I am excited at all the possibilities that technology brings into the classroom, especially in communicating with other classrooms and seeing the learning that they are doing. I am also excited to see the work that the children will get a chance to create on the computer. They will have more pride in their work when they have an active hand in learning rather than passively sitting behind a desk. Hopefully I will make learning more fun for students with the use of technology in the classroom.

As a teacher, I am excited to see the students excited about learning and all that it has to offer. I want to give students a chance to cultivate their passions. I want to let student know that I care not only about them as learners, but also about them as people. I hope that each child that walks through my classroom also comes away of a memory of a meaningful lesson taught in my class, whether it be academic, social, or over another tangible experience.

I want to live in a classroom where action happens, where students create, play, and actively participate. I do not want a classroom where students are expected to sit quietly doing deskwork. Instead, I want a classroom where students get out and observe nature to learn a lesson about science, play around with manipulatives to understand a new math concept, and who escape to another world when reading and writing. I also want to intertwine lessons. Art, music, technology, and getting out of desks will be encouraged in my classroom. My classroom will be set up to be organized and homelike. Literacy will be interwoven into every other subject and there will be books to satisfy every child’s interest and to meet every child’s reading level. This is my goal and dream for the class I want to teach.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">The difference I want to make is simple. I want to motivate children to learn and I want to be an effective teacher. In order to do this I will have to do more than give lessons. I will have to form a relationship with every student and care about the whole child. It is my philosophy that no matter what, every child has something positive to offer to the world. As a teacher, it is my job to help a child find and cultivate that something. To leave a positive imprint in each student’s life is my upmost goal as an educator.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">Yours Truly,

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">Lisa Jordan