Scenario:

Some of my strengths as an educator are that I am flexible, patient, and knowledgeable of the material I am teaching. I am also very persistent, I am fully aware that we have to fight for what we believe in but we need to be open-minded. However, I find that my strongest strength is my experiences. I understand that no experience in life is the same but I do believe that in order to connect and build a relationship with our students, we need to tap into our past experience. A weakness that I have and need to work on is that at times I become close-minded. I know that this is a weakness because we are not always right and we don’t know it all. As teacher and human beings we keep learning throughout our lives, it is something that never stops occurring and if we are too close-minded we will miss out on very important information or insights.

I see myself in three to five years working in an Elementary School where I am needed. I see myself teaching a very diverse classroom and maintaining a comfortable and welcoming environment for all my students. I also see myself back in school to get my masters in counseling or special education and possibly my doctorate in administration. Most of all I see myself starting a family with my husband. I do not know where I would be living at the time since my husband is military, but I do see myself as a happy and effective teacher wherever I am residing. However, all of this can change in a matter of second because we never know what life is going to throw at us.

When learning new strategies, I first have to know about the research that has been done on it. After I do this I go back and think how this strategy will benefit my students and if it can be altered to fit the needs of all my students as individuals. I do the same when it comes to learning about new software. I have to know about the research that has been done on the software and how it fits the needs of my students. I also need to know how useful the software is and if my students can use it problem free. I need to become knowledgeable of the software before I can think of using it as an Assistive Technology.
Technology can dramatically change the way students learn and their academic success. Students with special needs are greatly impacted with the use of Assistive Technology in the classroom. With technology students who are hearing and visually impaired have a better chance on being successful outside the special education classrooms. Technology gives teachers an opportunity to have a full inclusive classroom. Also, technology engages the students in learning and captures their attention, especially since they are growing in a very technological world.

In my education, technology has made me a resource and has linked me to different resources. Technology is a very important part in my life. It has allowed me to do research more efficiently and become more knowledgeable on different subjects. I am also able to communicate with family as well as teachers thanks to technology. Most importantly it helped my reading comprehension by using audio book don the Internet. It permits me to multi-task using one screen and many pages at a time. Technology has its ups and downs but it has definitely helped my education just like it will help on the education of my future students.

I would encourage the faculty to use different types of technologies in their classroom and practice by sharing with them my experiences and their outcomes. I could also demonstrate how easy they are to use and how efficient they are. I can share with them testimonies of how my students have benefited and succeeded by using different technologies in the classroom.

So far I have used Prezi, Animoto, Google Maps, Tagxedo, Wordle, Voki, Voicethreat, and Glogster in my practice. I have used these resources to provide my students with a more differentiated instruction. I have also mainly used them to introduce a topic or an activity that we were going to do in class. I have become very efficient using this resources and I wouldn’t have any problems instructing my students or other faculty on how to use it.

Here are some things I have done with Prezi, Animoto, Google Maps, Tagxedo, Wordle, Voki, Voice Threat, and Glogster:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

View narration map in a larger map

My WOW Moment:

My AHA! Moment this semester was when I switched from Google Sties to Weebly. This was my WOW moment because at that moment I truly understood how important it is to try new things and how some of them might be so much simpler than others. It was really cool to see how much faster it was for me to do all the work through Weebly and not Google Sties. My website ended up being something that I am actually proud of and something I would want the public to see. I also liked how we can storage our work in a website and it being so accessible. In addition, I liked being able to call my self a resource since I have lesson plans posted for people to see and get ideas from. I really liked feeling like confident making my website and I know that if I would of stocked with Google Sites I wouldn’t feel the same. That is why my AHA/ WOW moment was when I changed from Google Sties to Weebly.

This is a screenshot of my website thanks to Weebly:

Podcast Favorites:

Through the spring 2011 semester we had to watch a total of 12 podcast. At first I was very reluctant to watch such an amount of videos. However, I have been able to learn a great amount through the videos. I personally liked the episode called rural 21st Century Learning made by driving questions. In this episode the team talked to the Walton Rural Life Center about how they implement technology even though their focus is on farming. I liked this podcast the most because it allowed me to get a look into how technology is used under unusual circumstances. It would have never occurred to me that technology is used in farming. I also liked how the school actually took the students out to the farms and allowed them to experience it one on one. It was really cool to see how this team, driving questions, took random and unusual topics and explain how we can incorporate technology.

Driving questions took topics like smartphones, music, and new first year teachers and elaborate on how technology affects them. I found myself doing all of my podcast from them because of their efficiency on discussing how to implement technology and how to even use it. I found this team helpful because they also have podcast of new first year teachers or first time technology user discussing how they struggle and what resources they used to become more technologically savvy. I would definitely keep driving questions and keep listening to learn more about technology.

This is a screen shot of itunes with the driving questions podcast!

Semester favorites:

Throughout this semester we have been introduces to a great amount of resources and tools for our teaching career. However, I liked Animoto and Prezi the best. This is because I find those to sources the most useful in the classroom.

Not only were we required to know about these resources but we were asked to try them out and in some cases incorporate them into lessons. I have used both, Animoto and Prezi, in lessons plans that we made for our Core Teaching Lecture and Lab. I enjoyed using both of them in a great level. These two resources actually made me want to incorporate more technology in my classroom. One reason is because they are both engaging and not boring or monotone.
There were many resources and tools that I am still not sure why we have to know them or how to even incorporate them into a lesson, but that is not the case for Animoto and Prezi. I believe that these resources are extremely important to take under consideration, especially for new teacher who are not very teach savvy because it is so simple to use!


Here is an example of what I have done with Animoto:

Create your own video slideshow at
animoto.com.

Here is an example of what I have done with Prezi: