Shannon Hale

One of the exciting things about hosting the "Our favorite books we didn't write or publish" panel discussion was meeting Shannon Hale. I've loved her books since before I even thought to think about the person who created them. They are the kind of book I get lost in, and am totally at home in. Here are three of my favorites:

If you visit Shannon's website you can read about writing the stories, ideas for using her stories in the classroom, Shannon's blog, and a list of books she likes. http://www.squeetus.com/

Where was I when my classmates took this photo? And why didn't I think to ask Shannon for a photo?
Shannon's new book which I can't wait to check out:

http://www.squeetus.com/stage/books_austen.html

I've never met an author before and I'm so thrilled to own my first signed-by-the author book:

Coming up next: The books Shannon shared during the panel discussion.

Check out my guest post at:

UVU Forum on Children's Literature

For Dr. Peterson's Language arts methods class we are required to do 20 service learning hours. One of the things we could choose to do was help with the Children's literature conference. My assignment was to coordinate the "Our Favorite books we didn't Write or Publish" panel discussion. I communicated with the panelists to get their three favorite children's books, created a power point presentation so the audience could see the covers of their choices, and moderated the discussion. This was a fabulous experience. I got to work with many fabulous students in the elementary education program, and meet authors, illustrators, educators, and an editor from New York.

When I graduate and have my own classroom I think I may want this blog to be geared to parents and students. With that in mind I plan on introducing you to the panalists and thier work, and spotlighting thier websites and blogs, and the books they talked about during the panel discussion. Eventually I'll have a side bar with links to author's and illustrators blogs and websites.

Coming up first: Shannon Hale!

10-2 B cohort makes ice cream

Jamie and Erica taught us about....something....diferent states of matter? And we made ice cream in ziplock bags, fun and yummy.

Sara, Dianna, Jenny

Patti, Mary, Caitlyn

Lorri, JJ

Heather, Hillary, Sarah

Gaylyn, Kayla

Dr. Tuft

Leslie, Doug

Ashlie, Allie, Emily

Allie, Emily, Michelle

Expository Writing

Wow! We are already in of field experience classrooms. The semester is so close to being over and I'm disapointed to find that I haven't kept up with the reflections I intended to do.

For our genre presentations my group did expository writing. We wanted to have some examples of student work to show. I asked steve if he would help me. He was at first reluctant, but he agreed and was soon enthusiastic. He made a true false flip book based on his recent science unit on erosion.

Language Arts

Today was our first class period with Dr. Peterson. She was our (Brittany and I) field experience supervisor. I'm so excited for the things we are going to learn in her class. I am especially excited to learn strategies for teaching writing that let students create with out being encumbered by mechanics. Not that I've decided the mechanics of writing are unimportant. Just that sometimes the strategies for teaching them inhibit young writers. So I'm looking forward to "Words Their Way."
I've already read "A Writers Note Book" and found myself itching to start a list, ponder a funny thing my kids said when they were small, or record a memory. The thing I'm going to love about being a teacher is participating in the same activities we encourage students to engage in.
We wrote a poem. First we examined items that Dr. Peterson had brought for us. Then we used a formula to get us started. We could write about any or all of the items.

Looks like
Sounds like
Feels like
Smells like
Seems like
Is (or doing)
? (ask a question of the item)

It one of the first things to add to my writers notebook, a rough poem. That's like a rough draft-it's not "finished."

Plain and unadorned
soft, comfortable, familiar
...of home and work.
You seem less than we know you are.
Have you wondered this yourself?

Books

I bought my books today. I've started reading and am so excited for everything we're going to learn this term. When I went back to school I thought I would do okay with my own classroom then. I still think that is true, but also it is not. I'm learning so much and the ideas in my head are getting bigger and bigger. I'm anticipating the stretching and changing that we're on the verge of experiencing as we explore new ideas, strategies, philosophies, content, and viewpoints.

One of the things that makes me be excited to be a teacher is the opportunity it gives, and will continue to provide, to be constantly learning and exploring.

self selected activities

For our science methods class we are required to spend ten out of class hours on science education related activities. I thought I would log my hours here.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Viewed Planted Earth DVD
2hr

Thursday, January 08, 2009
Explored Discovery Channel/Planet Earth website
½ hr
Puzzles, games, amazing graphics, biomes, all things about the environment, and global warming
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/planet-earth/planet-earth.html

almost finished!

I'm five hours away from being finished with the semester! Woo Hoo!
Check out this blog of a friend of a friend who is a first grade teacher in SLC: http://kristisorenson.blogspot.com/. Her stories of her students are hysterical.

Technology Research Article #2 Dabbleboard

Dabble board is an online white board. It has very basic functions but would work well for making graphic organizers, or simple handouts. If your school doesn't have graphic software you could edit photos in FotoFlex, upload them to Dabble board and create organizers, timelines, and photo stories. Your creations are stored on line and you can share them through email or simply give the url to anyone you want to view it. To view a simple organizer I created click here: http://www.dabbleboard.com/?b=rebeckawright&i=0&c=70bc246df42b0d27a83c8cbfcc4b0c5b337f2b13.

Dabble board also has a good help page. I used it as a quick tutorial and there wasn't anything I wanted to try that the help page didn't cover. This resources is good for all student ages. It is simple enough that a first grader could use it but useful enough that fifth and sixth graders would enjoy using it.

Technology Research Article #1 FotoFlexer

I was at the lab working on our webquest when I wanted to edit a photo. At home I use paint shop pro. I knew this wasn't on the computers in the Loft computer lab. I googled online photo editor and found this great tool. You can find it at http://fotoflexer.com/. You can upload photos from your computer or from several different online albums such as Picasa, Photo Bucket, or Flickr. FotoFlex has an easy to use interface, good basic effects, and some fun and funky things too. For our web quest we wanted to change the contrast of a photo so it would make a better background for text. We were able to do this easily. I also played around with a couple photos to make some interesting photos/graphics that could be used in student online or print work.

Here is our pyramid photo before and after it was turned into a cartoon.

And here are several variations of a photo of my son.

This is a great online tool that I'm excited to use with my students; easy to use with great results.

Ancient Egypt Webquest

Visit my "Teacher" web site to find a webquest on Ancient Egypt.
http://my.uen.org/206243
Look under My Documents, Click on egypt web quest.

My Beliefs

I believe that technology is a vital part of an elementary education. Technology is at the center of the way students live today. Integrating it throughout the curriculum helps them learn and create now and prepares them for the technologies of the future. Technology is also a valuable differentiation tool. Students who struggle academically can produce more work of a higher quality if they are provided technology supports. Finally the use of technology in the classroom is a strong motivator. When students use technology they are more excited about classroom work and learning.

Although I believe technology should be a component of elementary school learning, I believe that teachers must use caution. Students need scaffolding to ensure that technology is not abused and content is appropriate. The other area that teachers need to be aware of is that students need to learn skills and strategies for when technology is not available. Technology is a fabulous tool but should not become a crutch. I believe that an important way to achieve this balance is through arts integration. If drama, movement, music, and visual arts are integrated to the same extent that technology is integrated this balance is much easier to achieve.

Lessons Learned

It was interesting to learn and reflect on how students view technology. They view technology as such an integral part of their lives. This is mirrored in our society where technology is so key. The articles highlight permeation. I am a fan of technology. I love when it saves time, makes tasks easier, helps create excellent products, and makes it easier to connect with others.
I attended the arts infused conference at UVU. Dr. Johnson’s keynote address on teaching iBrains was provoking. This and some of the PDP articles make me concerned with just how much time students spend plugged i

The PDP articles made clear how advantageous technology integration can be. I was interested to see some technologies, such as iPhones and social networking websites, highlighted as educational that I hadn't previously viewed this way. I was also excited to see some advancements that may be coming soon to schools such as digital textbooks and portable student devices.

Strengths & Weaknesses

According to the UNI survey and the NETS standards my technology strength is that I am comfortable using a wide range of technology. I have designed instruction where students utilize technology they already know how to use. However, I have not designed instruction for teaching students how to use technology.

Two Technology skills I would like to develop are creating data bases and using spread sheets. A goal I would like to accomplish as a beginning teacher is design instruction and develop strategies for teaching students to use technology.

I could use this tutorial to help me prepare to teach my students how to use Microsoft Excel (http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/excel/), and this list of student spread sheet activities and lessons(http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/comp/spreadsheets/). This tutorial (http://www.geekgirls.com/menu_databases.htm) would be helpful in learning how to create and use databases. And this lesson plan (http://www.norman.k12.ok.us/092/techscope/languagearts/detectives.htm) could help me teach my students data base skills.

More web quest

I've been reviewing the sample web quests and how to put the web quest together seems pretty easy because we already know how to use power point. The difficult part will be making a cohesive experience and task, which are aligned to standards. Our group seems to be a little out of focus, or maybe it's just me that is out of focus. It is becoming more clear the steps we will have to take to finish the project. When we did digital stories you encouraged us to design the story in a story board first so We're taking the same approach with the web quest and designing a backwards design unit before we begin the actual web quest.

Web Quest

A web quest is much more involved than I expected. The research and planning we are doing rivals the research we did for our backward design lesson plans for field. The good thing about this project is we have lots more people to help get it done. Our group chose the topic immigration in post civil war US. This topic is very interesting. We are going to have the grasp assessment be that the students create a scrap book that they might have kept if they had immigrated to the us during that time period. I'm really excited to learn the process for putting the web quest together.

End of Field Experience

Before when people would ask me what grade I wanted to teach I would say, "Anything but sixth grade." Mostly that's because sixth grade girls can be so snotty and that makes me feel snotty. And lots of times before I've been dissatisfied with how I handled situations like that. So guess where my field experience assignment was. That's right, sixth grade. Well This experience may have changed my mind about sixth grade. Our class was fabulous. On our last day they had a "surprise" party for us and they made speeches :) Here are photos of some of the cards they made for Brittany and I.

Technology Interview Reflection

This interview assignment highlighted how electronic networking is key to the way people communicate in our society. We asked our cooperating instructor, Mr. Soto, to introduce us to the technology specialist at our school. Mr. Soto sent him a quick email asking when and how we could contact him. Mr. Welch responded to his e-mail within ten minutes and asked him to have us contact the student teachers in Mrs. B’s room for his responses to the interview questions. We looked them up on face book, asked if they would help us out. They forwarded to us Mr. Welch’s responses to their questions. The interview showed that there are many resources available in the school that our co-operating teacher does not utilize. I assume that he is not the only teacher who isn’t aware, or chooses not to utilize the resources available. This realization has led me to set a goal for myself to make myself aware of the technologies available in my school, learn to use them and let them benefit my students. I am beginning to see how necessary it is for students to use technology frequently and well. I’m glad for the things we are learning and the difficulties we are overcoming now. This will help us be in the right place, so to speak, for the difficulties we will have to overcome later as we strive to give our students the skills that are essential in our eWorld.

Technology in elementary schools

Some things I learned during field:

Many schools have a lot of Apples or Macs because that company gives computers to schools to encourage parents to buy the same. I was lost on the mac and had to ask a student to guide me....Might want to learn some things about macs.

There are codes and unwritten rules in schools that pertain to computer and lab use. Our cooperating teacher dosn't use computers in his clasroom (although he has personal technology and his own classroom technology). So he wasn't familliar with the rules and codes at our school. Our first boo-boo was not understanding the procudures for the lap top labs. Each lab has 16-22 lap tops. There were 28 students in our class so we thought we would need both lap top labs. I think this irritated other teachers. And then when we got to actually use the laptops the students told us that they have a lap top number, always use the same laptap, some of them share--So we only needed one lap top lab. The first day we had the laptops our co-operating teacher had arranged for the teachers who had them last to drop them off at his room. One of them was brought to us locked and the other unlocked. When we returned them I couldn't remember which was which so left them both unlocked because I was afraid if I locked the wrong one someone would have forgotten the combo and been irritated with me. Well the teacher who always locks it made a point of locking it when we returned it and the teacher who brought it to us unlocked seemed unconcerned to have it returned the same way. I think our cooperating teacher just decided that generally this is to much to navigate and dosn't use the lap top labs.

Reflection

We taught our first lesson today in our field experience. It went pretty well. Our supervisor was there to observe us. The trickiest thing was that we reserved the lap top labs so the students could type their paragraph in the word processor, but the lesson took so much longer than we thought it would. We have to finish the lesson in the AM but we don't have the lab reserved so the students will have to write on paper and HOPEFULLY type the next time we've reserved the lab. We might have to squish things together. I don't want to delete things from our plan --ugh-- because we worked so hard to meet the requirements for all of our classes, so we can't leave out any technology, creative arts, or primary sources. But our teacher is a language arts/math teacher so we need our reading and writing activities too. Well we'll see.
Our cooperating teacher is wonderful. He's very helpful and flexible. We haven't started our interviews yet, and are hoping to be able to work on them after we teach our last lesson.

Reflection

Our cooperating teacher never uses the laptop lab in their school. He has a personal amplification system. I don't know what they are called, it's like a mike that hangs around his neck. He plays DVDs through his laptop to the giant TV in his classroom. He communicates through e-mail with us and with parents. We had the laptop lab in his classroom preparing for our lesson. we couldn't find the word processor on the student laptop. The laptops are Apples and my partner and I have only ever used PC. So the teacher called one of the students over to show us how to use it. :)

It's sometimes frustrating that no matter how much time you spend testing your technology and trying to plan for every contingency, something is bound to go wrong and the technology will keep you troubleshooting rather than teaching. Or it will get left in the dust for paper and pencil even though you spent most of your planning time trying to placate your technology. Well such is the time we teach in........You can't live with out it and living with it brings you Ulcers. :)

Lots of stuff

Wow! I can hardly keep track of everything I need to be working on. The two things I'm focusing on for instructional media are the technology rich lesson plan and the technology interview. We were having trouble with our lesson plan because we were thinking of technologies that would be good in our lessons but they worked best through out our unit plan not squished all into one lesson. Thankfully, Dr. Waters said that this was okay. We are going to begin the unit with a video clip, the students are doing two writing assignments in a word processor, they are doing a web quest and downloading a photo to illustrate their writing assignment, and they are going to use a digital camera to capture the performance assessment. I'm really excited about the way technology is supporting our learning out comes.
I haven't begun anything for the technology interview. This afternoon I'm going to take a look at it and make a plan for completing it.

More Google Sites!?

This week in class we worked on another Google sites assignment. In a previous reflection I told the world how I felt about Google Sites. All of the things we have to do for this assignment can be done on my UEN and I think UEN lookes nicer and is already organized well for this purpose. So maybe I will want a classroom website on Google sites if I'm unfortunate enough not to have access to UEN. Like, if I end up teaching at a privare school. I don't know if you have to teach at a public school to use my UEN?

On a HAPPY note, our digital story is finished. I'm getting ready to burn it to a CD, but it is also published here for all to see.

Our Digital Story