About Me

I am 31 years old and returning to college after 11 years. Currently, I am a Junior at the University of South Alabama, majoring in Elementary Education. I am a mother of 4 beautiful children and I have been employed for 2 years as a full-time paraprofessional in the Special Education Department with the Mobile County School System. I hope to graduate with my Bachelors Degree by the Spring of 2011. After teaching for about 2 years, I would like to continue my education and pursue receiving my Masters Degree in Media Technology.

Bringing My Class Into The 21ST Century

Technology, and the world that we live in, is constantly advancing. And it's moving at a rate of speed that is difficult to keep up with. But, for all of the future teachers around the world, it is our responsibility to keep up or we will be left behind. As a teacher, I would like to incorporate thing like blogging into my daily classroom lesson plans. Instead of writing everything down, I believe my students would be eager to blog things that they are interested in. I believe students should feel comfortable with computers and I would give them every opportunity to learn more about them. Wikipedia, Google, and other researching sites would be introduced in case they want to find out more information on their topic. And since researching will be a necessary life-time skill, my students will be given plenty of practice. I would strongly encourage them to use the computer and not be afraid to learn how technology works because it will prepare them, as students, to master all of the technological changes in the 21ST Century.

Blogs As Teaching Tools

Blogs are the new ways to communicate, exchange information, and share ideas and opinions to people abroad. As a teacher, I would use blogging in various ways. Students could blog a daily journal of things learned in the classroom. They could blog their favorite subject for the day and tell why. Students can also use blogging as a way to communicate their problems and/or opinions to me. I think students would be bored and unwilling to write each and every day, so giving them the opportunity to blog not only encourages them to get familiar and comfortable with computers, but it also makes them become really interested in what topic they blog about. Especially once they realize anyone can read it!

No "Burp Back" Education

I remember as a student trying to memorize information to just be able to pass a test. My teachers would force all this information "down my throat" as one might say. I would pass the test, but ask me a month later and I couldn't remember anything...most of the time. And that is what "Burp Back" education is all about. I want my students to learn. Not to just pass a test, but to hold the information in their long term memory bank. I want to give my students the chance to become interested in what is being taught and I will give them more "hands-on" learning time. A lot of people learn better by doing things over and over again. And once they get used to it, they will always remember it. The same idea holds true for school-aged children. As they do things continuously, they learn. And they will learn because they are interested in the activity, they are engaged, and they are applying information that's being taught from my lessons, which will help them keep what's being taught in their long term memory.

Podcasts/Videocasts

When I first began the Micro computing course at South Alabama, I had never heard of podcasts or videocasts. I was introduced to this form of technology when I was assigned a project where I had to listen and watch certain podcasting episodes. Then I had to write about them. And I first thought to myself, "WOW! Where have I been?" There were so many episodes to chose from that I was blown away. There were plenty of interesting educational episodes that educators have placed on the web. So as a future teacher, I found podcasting to be not only fun, because it sounded like a radio show on the Internet, but very informative. Ant the same with videocasts. To be able to hear and see what other teachers and their students are doing would make for good conversation with students in my own class. To talk about how my class is different or alike to another class half way around the world would be interesting. To be able to hear the pros and cons of certain educational web sites would be useful to me also as a teacher. So these sites would come in handy and I think my students would enjoy them as well.

Youtube/Teachertube

Many of us have heard about Youtube. For me, I thought it was basically a site to find your favorite artist music video's, to watch people who have recorded themselves or their friends acting foolishly, or to watch your favorite TV shows and/or movie clips. Well, Youtube, which I found out thanks to my Microcomputing class, can also be a useful resource site for teachers, students, and parents who need to get educational information. Teachertube is another informative site for teachers. I would like to use these sites to help get ideas from other teachers who have more experience in the teaching field. To be able to visually see others "in action" can help with different styles and/or methods of teaching, that would be helpful to me, especially as a beginning teacher.

Wikipedia

Learning about wikipedia has changed my outlook about this research site. At first, I believed it to be a great site to begin researching any topic. That was before learning all the information that's on the site could have been altered...by anyone. So some of the information could be true or false. As a teacher, I will teach my students that Wikipedia is a start to finding out information, but to not rely on Wikipedia alone. I will teach them to also use the hyperlinks that are within the Wikipedia web site to further gain more information. Students will have to learn how to research for the rest of their lives, so teaching them the tools would be solely my responsibility and Wikipedia is where I would have them start.