The Tech Savvy Teacher

Young children are very curious about the world around them.  They wonder about many things: why the sky is blue, why does the weather change seasons, and what does earth look like from space?  The advancements of modern technology make studying these questions readily available and applicable to the child’s world.  The Tech Savvy Teacher takes advantage of the resources that technology provides to enhance the teaching of their students. 

A mind-blowing technology used widely today is Google Earth.  We used this resource to meet 1st grade content core objective 2b to describe physical features surrounding the child’s home, school and community.

Before using the website, we asked the students to brainstorm what they thought they would see if they were to look down on their community from space. 

After making predictions, the children were asked to compare them to what they actually observed on Google Earth.

We started out by looking at the aerial view of our school, Wasatch Elementary.  We took note of the surrounding physical features and landmarks from this view.

We then zoomed in closer to look at our school's playground, a view of the school from the street,and also nearby places like the Brigham Young Univeristy Creamery and the LaVell Edwards' Stadium.

  

After viewing these sights, we invited the children to suggest other areas of the community to explore. We also discussed as a class if they have ever been to these places, where they are in relation to the school, and size comparisons.       

Overall, this was a fun and informational activity for our 1st graders.  They were able to enhance their science skills by forming predictions about their surrounding community and making observations about their world by viewing images from Google Earth.  It was fun for the children to recognize familiar sites that they see each day as they ride to school.  Using the technology of Google Earth, the children were able to view their community from a unique perspective.

Week Three

This week we learned about the acronym TPACK. There are three kinds of knowledge: pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and technological knowledge. There can be a couple combinations of these knowledges, with assorted acronyms. The point is to try to be proficient in all three of them, thus combining all of the initials into a super-acronym: TPACK.
If teachers are fortunate enough to be proficient in TPACK the will be able to better teach their students and incorporate new experiences that will benefit the class.
This week I also had the chance to explore some science/math technologies available to teachers on the internet. I enjoyed exploring Google Earth.

I don't remember what I am supposed to put here

So I am kind of annoyed at this class.  I am on the lame moodle web site and the IPT website and I can find most of what was due this week;  I am pretty sure we have to blog about something, but I can't find where it actually says we do.  If they just told me what they wanted, I would be more than willing to comply, but when they make me do one hundred random things every week and have assignments posted on a million websites, I just can't do it.

So here is my blog this week.  I set up a good reads account.  That is kind of a neat site.  And I learned about RSS feeds.  I don't see me using that much for school but possibly for me personally.  Anyway, that's all I want to say this week.  And now I have to remember how they want it tagged.

My Background in Technology

I don't consider myself overly tech savvy (but I do love words), however I have had some experience with various technologies over the years.

I rememeber when I was younger we had this huge printer that would often spaz out and I became pretty adept at fixing it.  I am currently a secretary on campus, and am rather known for my printer-prowess.  Whenever one of our printers' "attention" light flashes the professors come and tell me that I need to give (insert printer name here) attention.

I have also been using a computer relativley frequently at home and in the workplace for the better part of my young life.  Because of said experiences I have grown accustomed to using such programs as Microsoft Word, Power Point, Excel, etc. etc.

As a side note, I often consider myself the master of Paint.  Some people are important enough to use lame programs like Photoshop, but if you can't do it in Paint it's not worth doing at all.

I have recently got into a video editing program on my computer.  I have only edited one film, but it was amazing.  I could cut, paste and rearrange with reckless abandon!

As many people do these days, I have a cellular phone.  I feel rather successful at using it and correcting any problems by having AT&T send me a new one (I have gone through at least 5 in the past 2 1/2 years through no fault of my own, but that is another tale for another day).  I can text at a moderate pace, call people, take pictures, record and even download music.  All on a phone.  Imagine!

And as I have been typing this my wireless has been kind of dodgy, so I am improving my skills in connecting to the lovely World Wide Web.

I am sure that I have had much more experience with the lovely world 0f technology, but that is all I can think of as of right now, and if you are still reading this, good for you.