The End

I am glad class is almost over. The terms has been crazy. My classroom just received a grant for a classroom set of I-Pod Touches, so I have been working on how this is going to look and how we are going to use them to increase student learning and motivation. It is a huge project since I am one of two teachers taking this on in our district. We have already had good results and the students are very excited about using the Touches and all of the amazing resources that are right at their fingertips. 

Week 4

Things are going great! It still seems like a lot of assignments for a 2 credit class and so many of them overlap. If you were not a tech person this class would be a lot of work! 

Podcast Script

Hi my name is Jamie Semrad and I am a teacher at King Elementary. This is my 4th year teaching. I have taught Kindergarten, 6th grade, and now I teach 2nd grade. 

I have always wanted to be a teacher. I had great experiences in elementary school and really enjoyed the classroom. 

Why I became a teacher?

There are so many children today who do not have a safe place to go. I believe that the structure and safety that a classroom provides in invaluable. When I became a teacher I knew that providing a safe and warm place for learning was my main goal. Teaching is exciting and it is amazing to see the growth and progress that comes from the students. They provide so much joy and excitement. And I love helping them learn how to read and become life long learners and readers. 

My teaching philosophy is pretty simple: I believe that students need to be working and learning at their independent level for the majority of the school day. Students need to be exposed to rich literature, writing, and math activities. Science and Social Studies need to play a big role in everyday learning also. Students need to be explicitly taught what you want them to learn and they need to be told what it is you want them to learn. Students also need to be held accountable for their learning by making goals and recording their progress, and strengths and weaknesses. Best practices are a must in the classroom and need to be followed and enforced. I also believe that students need to be exposed to technology and know how it can increase their learning and extend their school day. Students need to be given time everyday to read to themselves, to someone, write in a journal, work on math practice, and spend time learning about what they are interested in. 

What I love about teaching: the kids, the excitement over the ant farm, kids letting others borrow books, the smartboard, starting something new, Halloween parties, the staff I work with, the outdoor classroom, field trips, students falling in love with a book, when they finally understand a math problem they were struggling with.

What I don't love about teaching: reform days, staff meetings, report cards, and the parents. 

Thank you and Have a great school year!

Jamie

Ed Tech Week Two

This class seems to be going okay. It still seems to be a lot of busy work and not really useful in bring technology into the classroom. I think it would be great to create tech projects that would be used in the classroom since teacher never have enough time to create technology projects. They take time if you are not familiar with the technology or the software. It would be great to create something that would be useful for a work sample or an action research project. 

What I Think ABout Ed Tech Discussions

I want to scream! These people have no clue! They are the people who sat in the smart board introduction class and fought it all the way. It is crazy! These people need to wake up and starting thinking about the needs of students and not themselves. I use tech all the time in my classroom and still have TONS of student contact time. I know how to use the technology in my classroom so I don;t waste time getting it ready and wasting student learning time. My student's have extended learning because of the ipods, it is not replacing any student teacher contact time. I have a reading endorsement and use current best practices in my classroom. This is crazy, yo have a lot of work to do to convince these people that they need to start learning how to use tech and not fight it. It doesn't work! 

I can't believe that these are pre service teachers, I wouldn't want any of them in my building...

Week One: Ed Tech

Week One: What I think about Ed Tech. 

It is going to be interesting. It does seem like a lot of busy work and assignments. I feel like the use of technology should make our lives easier but it does seem like we are doing a lot of the same "stuff" in our discussions and then again in our assignments... not very fun. 

I would also like to see the use of some apple products since that is what a lot of schools use. We are currently having a discussion in the district that I work in weather we should be teaching students how to use Pages or Word. We decided to teach students Pages, the problem to many teachers don't know how to use Pages, they are still using AppleWorks... Crazy. We need to prepare our students to use many different platforms and word processing programs. Pages is a lot easier to use and more user friendly for "aliens" and students. I just think that it would be great for teachers to be learning how to use a MAC and a PC. 

Here's a Link to My School Website!