Journal Post #6

After looking at several elementary school teacher’s webpages, I noticed that many of them contained general information about the class and how it functioned. The pages I looked at were from the Florida State University Schools from the Kindergarten teachers. All the pages showed the policy and procedure sheets, a calendar of events, and resources for students and parents. The calendar gave a list of events for this month and allowed parents to also see future months so they can stay informed on field trip dates and important days in the classroom.  The resources listed on the page typically gave links to math and reading practice programs or lists of on level books. Most of them also offered teacher information, like the teacher’s email address or class phone numbers, so a parent can have easy communication. The page also gives newsletters and the goals for each quarter of the school year. The site chiefly is a way for parents to keep up to date on all the classroom’s happenings. These sites can be reached using this link:  https://www.fsus.school/Page/323

In my future classroom, I envision myself using digital calendars to document my lesson plans and save them for the future, spreadsheets to help me keep grades, and a class website. Using a digital calendar, like Google Calendar, will help me keep my lessons on track and anticipate the length of each lesson to ensure I covered all the material. Also, the calendar can be used in conjunction with other applications, like Google Drive so I can upload a file that connects the materials used in a lesson to the date that the lesson was taught. Spreadsheets will be very useful in organizing records that may include student attendance and grades. A spreadsheet will allow me to see the progress a student has made and anticipate what their grade will be at the end of the year. I can also use it to help calculate grades or make a graph of student progress to help me see if the student needs extra assistance. It can be used to create graphs and charts that I can show during lessons, as well. Finally, a class website can help me keep in touch with parents in the most efficient manner. Like in the pages I observed before, I can give the parent contact information and a description of the materials covered in class, that way if a student ever needed help, the parent could see the information that is confusing them or contact me for further assistance. Also, sending out announcements and reminders on the website is a very efficient way to get information from the classroom to the house without the risk of losing a reminder sheet or forgetting a form at school.

           

The Technology Sandbox had an incredible array of very useful technology that could be used in classrooms. One that I found to be very interesting was the Osmo, a device that clipped onto an iPad and uses a mirror to create a play area on the surface in front of the iPad.  It has educational games that allowed the user to interact with a physical object and see a response on the iPad. One game includes, an image being displayed on the screen and the user puts letter blocks into the play area to spell the name of the image. Also, it has problem-solving games where the user places different shapes in the play area to make the shape that is presented on the iPad.  The device was rather inexpensive in comparison to other items and is smaller making it easy to store. Also, the 3-D printing pens were a very interesting. The pen melts filament and pushes out the tip of the pen, the filament then hardens and holds the shape that is drawn with the pen. They are too dangerous for younger students because the tip of the pen reaches around 130 degrees; however, they can be very useful because they allow the students to create a tangible object to learn with. For example, a student learning about volume can take the pen, make a cube, and fill it to see what the volume of the cube is using a hands-on project.