Lesson Plans

So I missed the Memo that our final blog needed to be about our 2 lessons plans!

I was so wrapped up in all that we have going on I haven't been able to think about them. The truth is my brain is fried and creativity is gone. I trying very hard to think of how I would like to have my students be technologically savvy. I was thinking we could do a competition between virtual and physical savager hunt. To show students how effective technology. It is really hard because the technology core for younger grades is very simple and since I am not used to working with actual students I don't know exactly what level they will be on. The object of this assignment is to think outside of the box. I am still not exactly sure what that means but I am working my hardest to get it done!

FINAL WEEK!!!!!!!

It was our last school day of my junior fall semester at the school of education at the amazing school of UVU. It is a bitter sweet feeling. Me and Megan spent the whole time working on our digital story. Also it was Doc Waters birthday so we brought in a cake and had a wonderful celebration. We had a little freak out because there was confusion with what google images we could use due to copyright issues. Thankfully Doc Waters alleviated our stress and we were able to create our entire Digital Story. We worked on transitions of each slide. This wasn't an easy job, every transition was planned out step by step. A lot went into each step. You had to look at every slide separately at first, what on each slide you want to focus on. Then you have to look at the slide as a piece of the entire project. The time and transition from slide to slide build on each other. Our Digital Story ended up being 2 minutes 43 seconds. We found some pretty powerful pictures that will emotionally connect with the students. Now we have to create the background music and import the voice clips. I had my friends do the voice overs and they really took the time to encapsulate the emotions of the underground railroad.

So why is it important to use digital stories when teaching? At first I just felt like this was going to be a lot of work and was nervous I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. Today when we were adding in music everything finally clicked and both me and Megan got the chills. We understood why showing something like this to your students would impact them be a meaningful way of learning. They are able to discover through pictures which gives a face to the situation.

Now I have the experience of actually making from start to finish a Digital Story. I see how it is an effective tool of teaching with technology. I plan on using digital stories in my future classroom to add variety to my teaching and to let me students visually take in new ideas rather then always reading and discussing.

Looking back on this semester by brain is overflowing with new technology. I have grown so much over these 15 weeks and I feel prepared to continue in this program and can't wait till I graduate and become a TEACHER!

Digital Story Recap leads into the Millennial Generation!

Welcome Back to the wonderful world of UVU Education Program. Stressed is an understatment when you ask me how I am feeling. I think my teachers are trying to kill me but they are sure nice about it...haha... but really KILL ME. Field is over and I miss my class. It has been great being back with my cohort, this week seriously just flew by and the due dates are getting closer and closer. This week in EDEL 3250 we went over all that is due and Doc Waters explained our final, I have been racking my brain to think of creative lesson plans and it's not going so well but I know it will come. It was time to put our Digital story together. My group is doing ours on the Underground Railroad! It is coming a long that is for sure. We have all the pictures in and most of the transitions done. I have never done anything like this before and I love how photostory is so easy. We are still working on finding music to fit each theme of the story. I have loved my group that I am working with, Megan and Alisha are so awesome and I know that I can always count on them. This following week we will be completing our Awesome Digital Story. I really can't believe that this semester is coming to an end. Hopefully I can get through this week and kick butt on my finals! Stay tuned for my future great EDEL 3250 adventures.

Movie Clip of the Week

Millennial Generation

I remember watching this when we were working on the PDP. It is so crazy how dependent on mobile technology. I don't know what I would do without my cell phone that is for sure. I have my ipod, laptop, desktop, TV, radio and even my Wii. All of these forms of technology are wonderful and they do enhance my life but I feel like they have started to take over our world. There are millions of people all over the world that will never have the chance to use a laptop, or even know what facebook is. My generation is knows Technology! We have prided ourselves in that fact. But I still feel that I love the time when I travel and I don't have my phone. Being disconnected from everyone for a little bit is so refreshing. I sometimes miss the days where I didn't have texting or a facebook. I spent more time outside and my eyes were a little better I think. How knows what we will come up with next, this world keeps changing and pretty soon we will have robots too!

Last Days of Field!

Our experience has come to an end and now it is time to head back to UVU and die from all the work we have due over the next few weeks. I have no idea where this semester went. It seems like it just flew by. I hated saying goodbye to our class. They just fueled my desire to become a teacher. I know that I am very capable and I will work hard to reach graduation. Our cooperating teacher was wonderful, I couldn't have asked for a better placement. She let us try everything and answered every question. Everything I have learned this semester has been so beneficial I love actually being in the program because so many times in college you feel like you are just jumping through hoops but know every class is taking me one step closer to my dream and I am so excited to meet my future students. I have missed my amazing cohort they have been such a strength for me along with the amazing staff at UVU. I honestly wake up every morning so excited to go to school and even though at times the course load seems like a lot and I want to pull out my hair I wouldn't change one minute. I can't wait to hear all about everyone's experience and get to work on my super awesome DIGITAL STORY! Doc Waters it is gonna be the BOMB! I hope at least we will see how smart my group is when it comes to using iMovie. That's all for now folks hope turkey day was great!

Field Experience to the MAX!!!

We were evaluated twice this week! Thank goodness that is over, field has been so wonderful so far. I feel truly lucky to be placed with Miss M. she is such a stellar teacher and I feel like I have learned so much from observing her. I love her classroom management techniques and has wonderful things to take with me into my future classroom. We finished up our unit on Mountain man and did a super fun Field Reporter Assessment which the class really loves. We will be doing a final mural as a unit assessment and the students seem very happy about that. We are having a Rendezvous next week and I know that will be a fun way to end our experience with the students. I must say that I miss my cohort and can't wait to hear about everyone's field. I feel very lucky with our experience because our cooperating teacher allowed us to help with all aspects of teaching. We taught PE, math groups, and science. We were able to just jump in and help with everything. Which opened our eyes to the full world of teaching. Miss M. was really helpful with answering any of our questions. And trust me we had a lot!

Evaluation!

So we were getting really nervous because our time is coming to an end in field and we weren't being evaluated! But today was our day! It was so nice we didn't know he was coming because it didn't give us time to stress. We had such a fun lesson planned today, our Socratic seminar on mountain men! Me and Miss Brittany had such cool artifacts and we even dressed up like real live mountain women. The class really enjoyed it and our evaluator said it went so well! Everything just really clicked and I was so happy and just had to share it with everyone!

Field Experience Week 2

Sooooo Anyone Heard of H1N1 well, elementary schools are a great place to get it if you haven't heard. Yes, that's right my second week in the classroom I got the Swine! I have a fever that wont go away and my chest feels like ice. So I have missed class for a few days because the teacher doesn't want me to go back to class till I get feeling better. Before I left me and Brittany did a few of our lesson plans and had some really good teaching experiences with our class. They did their 4th grade program for the parents on Tuesday... Utah... This is the Place! I was so proud of them, they were really nervous and I didn't think they were going to pull it off, but they sure did and they all seemed really proud of themselves when they were done. We did our concept attainment lesson plan and I think it went really well. We are really lucky to have such a great class they think that it is really cool to have us in their class so they behave really well. In science we are starting to work on animal brochures which was really cool because we got to bring the technology into the classroom and every pair got their own laptop and they were able to research different animals found all over the world. Students got so excited to be given the chance to work on a laptop, it was so fun to be able to help them explore the WWW. We are really starting to get into the swing of things with our class. I can't wait to get better so I can return to school, 3 students were home sick today and another student left. Next week we have many fun creative lessons planned with some pretty sweet primary sources. Stay tuned for the update to follow! I am loving field and I can't wait to see what happens next.