Technology Reflections

Source: http://www.illustrationsof.com/49136-royalty-free-technology-clipart-illustration

I never thought about using twitter in a classroom before! I loved learning about the different ways that teachers can use this technology in this classroom through the different videos and articles that were provided. This would be a really fun thing to use with high school age children to post reminders and resources for learning and there's a countless number of ways that you can use this type of technology with your students. As an early childhood educator, though, I can't really use this technology with the students in my classroom. On the other hand, I think that it is a really great idea for teachers of young children to use technology to connect to parents and keep them up to date on news and information about the activities occurring in a classroom or school, though. It provides a quick and easy way for parents to have an idea of the happenings of your classroom and the different events that may be coming up. I think that I will most definitely use this technology in my future classroom in order to keep in touch with busy parents.

Before having to create a podcast for this class, I never actually fully listened to a podcast. I had no idea what they were about, or the purpose behind them. After listening to a few podcasts, I saw the potential that podcasting would have in a classroom. For older students, like with twitter, podcasts could be very beneficial learning tools that could be utilized in a classroom. Teachers could make them for students to help them understand certain topics, or students could even make podcasts in order to demonstrate their learning and knowledge. These could be used with younger children, but may not keep their focus or engagement as long as a video or something visual would. On the other hand, I do think that podcasts could be used as a great resource for parents. As a teacher, I can make podcasts to post on my classroom wiki that can help parents understand various aspects of development and learning that could aid them in helping support their child's growth. The only problem with this is that making a podcast can be kind of time consuming if you're not used to making them. I think that if I get a chance and a specific purpose to use a podcast for my classroom, then I will.

My future classroom is very likely to have a SmartBoard on it, therefore I think that learning how to use it in class is great practice since I'll probably be using it a lot. I feel like I didn't learn as much about SmartBoard as I could have. Seems like there are many interesting things that can be done with a SmartBoard that I didn't learn or find myself. I wish that we had more time to work with this technology in this class so that I could feel more confident and competent in it's use.

Since I've had the iPad for an entire semester with the College of Education, I've had multiple opportunities to work with iMovie for different assignments in my classes. As with many of the other technologies used, I feel like this could be used much more beneficially with children older than kindergarten. Maybe I just haven't seen enough technology integration with younger children to understand the capacity and ability of children at this age. I just feel like older children would be more able to construct and synthesize different technologies that would provide more learning. It would be interesting though, to see what kind of iMovie a group of young children would make over a certain concept. I think I would give it a try in my future classroom.

Before this class, I had never heard of Inspiration or Kidspiration. I really liked the setup and use of Inspiration, and think that it's more useful for older children than younger children. I might even end up using this program for my own classes in the future. It is a great concept mapping program! As for Kidspiration, I think that it would be an awesome program for children to use to organize or express their thoughts on different subjects. It can be used as a teaching tool, a learning tool, a game or activity tool, it can do everything! What I don't like, though, is that if you do create a game or activity for your students, the program cannot check or evaluate their work and let them know if they are doing it right or not. The teacher has to keep an eye on everyone's progress to ensure proper understanding and knowledge is coming from the utilization of this program. I think that I probably will use this program in my future classroom. It looked hard and time consuming at first, but then once I actually started creating my lesson it was so easy!