Technology integration

In my latest placement at an elementary school in Lansing, I was disappointed to see the lack of technology used in the classroom. While the teacher could often be found responding to emails on the computer in the room, that was the only time I ever saw anyone use it. I never even saw printouts for the students from the computer. There was nothing like an overhead projector either (which is what I have the most experience with). While I understand there are possibly some financial difficulties with exposing children to technology, I wish they had more exposure to the great technologies available for a first grade classroom.

However, I did visit my older sister's middle school classroom several times last year. She was a special education teacher for 9 autistic students in a mainstream middle school. I was amazed at the types of technology available to them: the daily morning announcements were televised, and the principal and two teachers would create a skit every week to talk about one important current event. My sister would let particular students work the projector and control the volume, which was very exciting for them.

She also had a DVD player and TV at her disposal, along with a way to project her computer on the main screen. She found interactive games for science, math, and english that her students could participate with and click the buttons themselves. For the non-verbal students, there was a computer in her classroom for them to play educational games on their own without having to speak to her or anyone else.

I hope that I work in a district that has these kinds of technologies available to the students. However, I know that I will try my best to make sure they have some exposure to technology even if my school cannot provide the latest developments.

What to do when students cry?

I've been following the education blog "Creating Lifelong Learners" and came across a post about how to respond to crying in the classroom. It caught my attention from a very funny video about a two year old and Beyonce's "Single Ladies".

I liked this post because crying in the classroom seems to be a major issue, particularly for younger grades, that doesn't get addressed in typical classroom management. These kids are away from home for a large portion of their day and often have trouble managing all their feelings. I've always hated when adults tell children to "stop crying" or "don't feel sad", because it's almost like they're telling them that they're not allowed to be feeling what they're feeling. This was addressed in this post - that these emotions are not wrong; in fact they need to be recognized in order to move on to the main problem.

Another point mentioned is when to remove the "babying" of these children when they cry. After a certain point, the "babying" needs to stop so they do not cry only for the attention.

It's a great post and a great blog - I would highly recommend it.
http://creatinglifelonglearners.com/?p=660

Technology experiences...

While I didn’t think I did before, I now discover that I have a very limited technology background compared to most my age. I've always been exposed to computers, even when I was very young. It also helped that my dad has worked for IBM for over 30 years. However, we did not have new technologies throughout elementary or middle school besides the occasional PowerPoint and overhead projector.

I know I have a lot to learn in this course before I can enter the world of education with the amount of technology that has been produced in the last 10 years. I hope to learn any kinds of technology that will help in my classroom, such as creating a website or using Smartboards. I want to learn how to use them in order to adapt them to any lesson I want to use with my students.