Practicum week 4

This week, our teacher showed a video about Thanksgiving to all three social studies classes. The students were totally sucked in. They loved watching the video and having it wrap up what they had been learning in the previous weeks. They also were able to do a shared reading where the students got the opportunity to read a page in the microphone as the whole class followed along. The students really enjoyed both of these opportunites. I didn't use technology this week. I was going to share a video to accompany my writing activity - but it turned out I didn't have the time allotment to do so. What I wanted to do was to find videos on the internet that were similar to America's Funniest Home Videos. Our writing activity was on the book, That's Good, That's Bad where things that seem good turn out bad and vice versa. I was going to show videos and pause them in the middle and ask the children what they thought might come next to change whether it was good or bad.

Practicum week 3

Once again, the students didn't have computers this week so they weren't able to use technology, but they really enjoyed seeing it used in the classroom. I made a PowerPoint presentation for our social studies lesson which we showed on the school's projector. The administration was great about getting us the projector and video camera and were there to help us when needed. The attitudes of the students seemed to be very engaged while being able to watch a PowerPoint while learning about the Thanksgiving lesson. After being able to experience that technology in the classroom, I am excited to find more opportunites to use technology. I am doing a writing activity this week with the students and I hope to be able to find a movie which shows the "that's good - that's bad" examples which we will be writing about.

Practicum week 2

This week the students didn't have computers (they have it every 3 weeks) and so I didn't see any technology used really in the classroom. The students use a microphone every day (which they enjoy) and they use an overhead but that as technological as it gets on a daily basis in the classroom. I didn't use technology in the classroom this week, but we were able to arrange to check out the projector to use next week.
One thing that I think would be great for these second graders to experience is to use the internet to research about the pilgrims for Thanksgiving. They could do activities on the computer to help them understand what life was like for the pilgrims in the 1600s.

Practicum week 1

I am in a second grade classroom and I guess I didn't know what to expect with the technology in the classroom. As BYU students we see it virtually every single day, but I wasn't sure the capabilities they would have in the elementary classroom. One thing I saw was that our school has a computer specialist, which I think is so great. Our students went to computers on both Tuesday and Thursday this week. We weren't able to observe this becuase it happens to be the same time we leave to go to our math class. I was impressed, though, that they get to go there twice a week.

I didn't have any experience trying to use technology in the classroom this week. We mostly observed and the only activities where we taught were set up by our teacher. Starting next week we will be doing some of our own lessons, so I am excited to find a chance to incorporate the technology into my lesson plans.

One idea that I think would be fun to use for integrating technology into the classroom is to create an interactive powerpoint for our social studies lesson. We are going to teach the students about how the times have changed since the pilgrims and I think that technology is the perfect way to demonstrate that.