Digital Cameras

Having just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday, stores are now full of merchandise for Christmas. Many  of the items you may see out are the latest of their kind. I had the opportunity to take a look at some of the newly released digital cameras at a few stores. As I was looking through the various kinds, I remembered a story a classmate of mine had told me. She explained that there were several ESL students in her classroom all of which had very low language levels. Her CT began using digital cameras in her classroom, allowing those students to take pictures of the items in the classroom, around the school, and outside of school. The pictures they took were to document the things they wished to know the English words for. They then brought the cameras back to school, where the teacher printed off their pictures along with the name of each item in the picture. I thought this would be a great classroom tool for special education students as well. As a Deaf education major, I am always searching for ways in which to make my classroom and my students learning more visual. Cameras are a wonderful way to give students access to such visual learning.

TED.com

Over this past summer I was enrolled in a creative design course which explored the idea of sustainability and other environmental issues. My instructor used a variety of resources in which to present a great deal of information to us. One of the resources she chose to use was TED.com. This technology can be used to find information on a wide range of subjects. It's purpose is to explain various concepts, and ideas to an audience that may be located anywhere in the world. With countless lectures and interviews of experts on different subjects available to teachers and students, the limit to learning is endless. I have found this resource to a helpful in several subjects and recommend that others take advantage of it's uses as well.

Flip Video

This past week I had the opportunity to teach a "microlesson" to my TE 401 class. This lesson was a group project where five of us TE 401 students worked together to develop a lesson to teach to our peers as though they were fifth graders. This assignment gave us the chance to design a lesson and receive immediate feedback from our instructor and classmates. Fortunately the college of education allows students to check out various technologies in order to complete assignments. We used a Flip video camera to film our lesson. I had never used a Flip cameras before and was surprised at how easy it was to use. By recording this lesson we were able to watch ourselves later and see where we may have room for improvement. The camera had a USB drive built into it which made downloading the video to my computer fast and simple. With only a few buttons, the Flip camera is something I would recommend teachers and schools invest in. Students love working with technology. It gets them excited and involved in lessons. I can imagine that there are many uses for the Flip video camera in all classrooms.

Powerpoint

In my sixth grade placement my CT often uses powerpoint for her lessons. She says that the visual helps students to learn how to take notes.  have fund that the special needs students are especially dependent on this technology. I would like to suggest to her the use of Google Docs now that I have been introduced to them. I feel that she may benefit from putting all of her powerpoints into a Google Doc so that the various student volunteers in her classroom would  have access to her presentations prior to teaching their lessons. I know that this would have been helpful to me when I was preparing to teach in her classroom a few weeks ago.

Google Docs

I like the idea of using Google Docs instead of emailing copies of my work out to other people. I myself have had a lot of trouble with sending the wrong version of something that had been updated in the past. Having a "one-stop-shop" for documents and presentations seems like the perfect solution. Recently I had a problem with emailing a presentation to my CT for the lesson I was to teach in her classroom. The files did not match the program she had and we didn't realize it until the day of the lesson. Had we used Google Docs, the problem may have been caught early on. I hope to use this technology in my classroom in the future.

https://docs.google.com/a/msu.edu/?AuthEventSource=SSO#documents

Internship Placement

I have decided that I will be moving back home to Royal Oak next fall to complete my internship. Financially, it was my only option. I did however meet with my professor about my Deaf Education portion of my internship. She met with me to sign using American Sign Language. She wanted to see where my skills were in terms of ASL. She then explained that all students within Deaf Education interested in pursuing a Bilingual Degree may have the opportunity to go out of state for the second semester of our internship to work in a Deaf Residential School. I am ecstatic. I've always wanted to live outside of Michigan, even just for a short while to experience something new. This opportunity is something I've been looking forward to  for quite some time. The department has yet to decide which states they will be sending us to, so I could end up just about anywhere.

UNICEF

Last week I had the opportunity to teach my very first lesson. I am placed in a sixth grade classroom, and was assigned a social studies topic to teach. My CT decided that I could teach the students about Globalization. I was terribly nervous, but ended up doing very well. My Ct's feedback made me a lot more confident about my teaching abilities, and eager to teach again. At the end of my lesson I gave the students the opportunity to collect money for UNICEF at Halloween. I passed out the UNICEF boxes to each student, and collected them the following week. To my surprise, the class raised almost $100! I am of course very excited to share with them how well they did.

Wonderwall

While on a field trip to the MSU Children's 4-H Gardens, I was introduced to the use of Wonderwalls in the classroom. This technology is becoming more popular with all grade levels. It allows students to post their questions about various topics. The teacher then has the ability to entertain their questions at his/her convenience. Even the youngest of students can take part in using the wonderwall, due to the fact that if the student doesn't not know how to write his/her question or comment, they may choose to draw it. This feature makes it possible for children of all ages to ask questions from home, school, etc.