New Technology Teacher needs advice. Help!

[serek207]

For the past 5 years, I've taught 5th grade and have had no problems integrating technology into my daily lessons. It is something that came naturally to me.

However, I now embark on a new journey. Back in 2004, I earned my MS degree in technology education. As of recently, my principal decided I would be an ideal person to become the technology teacher at my school. At first, this was a complete shock and I was completely upset. However, as the months have passed on, I'm slowly warming up to my new role.

Here is my problem...school begins in a few weeks. I've decided to start planning my first quarter. I have ideas on student projects and webquests that I'm going to carry out throughout the year but I absolutely have NO idea on how to start the year. I know I would like to review our school acceptable use policy, have students engage in critical evaluation exercises on websites and review netiquette.

Any ideas on where to go from there though?

Even more so, I have to keep in mind that I'm teaching second through sixth grade. I feel pretty confident on what to cover with 4th through 6th, but below that? I have on idea where to begin.

Any advice on how to begin the year would be most helpful and most appreciated?

I've always felt confident with my skills as a teacher but this is the first time in my career where I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing. I'll be honest-I'm scared. Sorry if I vented too much.

Like I said, all ideas are welcome. Please help!

Thank you soooooo much!

My email is serek207@gmail.com for any of those that wish to email me there.



:(

[AAA Teacher Forum]

serek207,

First, congratulations on your new role. One piece of advice would be to work closely with the classroom teachers. Find out what they are doing in the classroom to kick-off the year and see where technology fits into that. Since you have just left the classroom, thinking from their perspective will be easy.

Here are some ideas I had:
1. You could have students publish or do additional "Getting to Know You" activities in the lab while also getting to know some of the computer parts and software programs.
2. Look for or create a type of scavenger hunt that will give students the opportunity to review the following: lab expectations, the computer, software, etc.
3. Free exploration…give the students some independent work time to observe some of the skills they do/don’t know.

After doing a basic Google search, here were a few resources that I found that may be helpful.

King's Park Elementary - These are resources created by staff members, but they may inspire you to create something that would fit your school's curriculum.
1st Grade
http://www.fcps.edu/KingsParkES/staff/first-resources.htm
(On this page you can access the same resources for 2nd & 3rd Grade by clicking the links at the top of the page.)

Education World - Tech Integration
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/

Gold Hill Elementary Lab
http://www.fort-mill.k12.sc.us/ghes/gardnerj/ComputerLab.htm

I hope you can find some of these helpful!
Good Luck!

Jennifer

[Jaime Buckley]

Serek207 says:

Here is my problem...school begins in a few weeks. I've decided to start planning my first quarter. I have ideas on student projects and webquests that I'm going to carry out throughout the year but I absolutely have NO idea on how to start the year. I know I would like to review our school acceptable use policy, have students engage in critical evaluation exercises on websites and review netiquette.

Any ideas on where to go from there though?

Take a deep breathe. Let it out. Relax.

If you are using technology, remember you have a world of tools available to you through the internet. I realize you know this already...but remind yourself. One thing I know has become popular in our local area with schools, which my wife and I have encouraged our children to become engaged in, is in creating "Podcasts".

Considering that 1 in 5 human beings have some sort of iPod device now, it would be a fun and creative adventure for your students to work with programs and the internet in this form of media.

As an example, you can look up my 14 year olds show: Rappin' it up. Out of 1,170,000 entries on google, she's #2. It's all free. In addition, I have a series of podcasts on how to create eComics, and how to make money from them---which I have in Podcasts, and are being used in schools in the UK. Again, it's free.

Just a couple ideas.:)

[AAA Teacher Forum]

I agree with Jamie about utilizing the Internet. I just Googled "Technology Curriculum" and came up with these sites that may be helpful:

Technology Curriculum Integration Ideas!
http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/bcisd/classres/intideas.htm

iste NETS
http://cnets.iste.org/currstands/

A School Zone
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/6097/tech.html

McREL
http://www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/tech/index.asp

Here are some others that I have used:
Apple Learning Interchange
http://www.apple.com/education/community/ali.html

Education World
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/

Kathy Schrock
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/

All you need to do is a little searching with just the right terms and you should come across some great resources. Good luck and be sure to keep us updated!

Jennifer

[fosterbrandy]

I noticed that the very first posting from serek207 mentioned that she used to be a 5th grade teacher and it was easy integrating technology into her classroom.

I am currently in California teaching 5th grade and I am looking for more ideas on how to integrate technology into my own 5th grade classroom. Any ideas? I know the standards might be different in each state (not sure what state you're from), but do you have any lessons that you specifically used technology?

The problem I am facing is that I only have one computer in my classroom. Although it does get used and I have hooked up my computer to my television for all students to see, it is still difficult for them to gain that "hands on" learning.

In addition, the computer lab can only assist half of my students at one time, which means that I cannot be present during their computer lab time. I must be in my classroom with the other half of my students. That is valuable technology time being lost.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I am feeling the pressure of integrating technology (although I think I do well with my limited resources/time) but I'd like to do more.

Thanks for all your help and guidance!

Sincerely,

B. Foster

[AAA Teacher Forum]

The problem I am facing is that I only have one computer in my classroom. Although it does get used and I have hooked up my computer to my television for all students to see, it is still difficult for them to gain that "hands on" learning.

B.Foster,
I came across some resources that may help you in regards to utilizing your one computer:

The One Computer Classroom
http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic84.htm

Strategies & Applications for the One Computer Classroom
http://www.lburkhart.com/elem/strat.htm

The One Computer Classroom
http://facweb.furman.edu/~pecoy/mfl195/onecomputer.html

Kathy Schrock's Page for Articles on One Computer Classrooms
http://kathyschrock.net/1computer/1computer.htm

I hope you can find some helpful information on some of these sites.

Jennifer

[Oakie]

My philosophy is to teach kids how to use the computer and give them the skills that will help them in their studies now, in upper grades, college and their professional lives.

I teach computer class from K-5 in a computer lab with 36 computers. I teach 850 kids each week from 30 - 40 minutes depending upon grade level.

I immerse second graders and up in becoming proficient in Word processing, building powerpoint slides / presentations, creating simple line graphs, pie charts and lemonade stand profit and loss statements in Excel. I also introduce multimedia using microsoft screen print, photo editor, Windows media player, sound recorder and PhotoStory 3.

I like to start the season with typing practice, and after a few sessions jump right into opening Microsoft word, typing basic sentences and having them use the format toolbar to make words bold, italic, underlined. We change font size, color, font style (they LOVE to do cursive in 2nd grade !) We also cut, copy and paste, insert clipart, and wordart. Today we created Title Pages with the the title "Computer Basics" and their Name, Class, and Date underneath. Next time, I will have them create a bulleted list of Computer Tower, Monitor, Mouse, etc . After that I'll have them insert images from my image bank folder and label them using text boxes and / or autoshapes like arrows.

Soon, I will have second graders type a page that says "Happy Holidays Mom and Dad ! Love, Terry"

"Happy Holidays" will utilize word art, Mom and Dad will utilize a special font, larger size and interesting color. We will often insert a clipart graphic (heart or something cute) and then apply more font styling on "Love" and the child's name.

I teach internet research we learn about the browser address bar, back and forward buttons, minimize and maximize, etc. I run my own intranet webserver and have a child-safe link list there that has links listed by each grade level. The kids access my links on the link list and we do things like research City Wildlife or Dinosaurs or Fossils using Yahooligans. I teach how to use the menus, click links, and find information . We download animal pictures and paste them along with some relevant text onto Word Documents. Then we print them. I talk to the kids about the critical importance of accurate spelling when using a search engine box. For that lesson I used the online Guinness Book of Records. I gave them a worksheet to answer questions about the "tallest woman, tallest man, richest man / woman" etc. We misspelled things on purpose and noted the poor results.

I have a file server with folders for all the kids to save their work. All during the school year I teach about storage on the local machines, storage on the file server, and discuss storage on removable usb drives. I will often grab a funny video clip of animals, show it the class with the LCD projector and then drop the file into a folder on the file server. Then we learn to search with Microsoft's search box, we learn to navigate the storage devices and discuss logical names for files and folders. I have the kids find the video, copy it to their desktop and them play the video on their own machines. During the year I'll stash funny music files and have the kids do a scavenger hunt for them.


Get some cameras, take some pics, have the kids lighten, darken, sharpen, crop them, print them. Get some cheap 2 dollar microphones, use the sound recorder, have the kids sing or narrate a story and build a powerpoint slide or slides with their pics and sounds in it.

Try PhotoStory 3, second graders can easily add pictures from a folder , and then add cool backing music or sounds of your choosing from another folder.

Hope there are some ideas there for you, good luck !!

[Mrs. Rohde]

I'm a first year first grade teacher and so far all is going well in all academic areas but the problem I'm having with is integrating more technology into my daily class activities. We go to computer lab once a week for about 30 minutes where the students can work on their reading and math skills. However, we have been without a computer teacher for the past month of school so I would like to have more computer time in my classroom since I have three computers they can use.
I have been onto many websites and they have offered great ideas mostly for the upper grade levels and the ones for k-2 are mostly KWL charts that the students fill in based on the information they read but I was hoping for something more interactive and fun.
I noticed in the previous thread the computer teacher wrote that the second graders at the school do a lot of activities and I'm sure I could modify it to fit for what my first graders can do. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would appreaciate the help. Thanks!
S. Rohde

[Oakie]

Find some nice pictures of animals, weather clouds, lightning, Neighborhood people (teachers, firemen, policemen, etc..), and build powerpoint slide shows on each unit / topic.

I have one powerpoint with a dozen spectacular slides with shots of lightning striking the earth, water, buildings, trees and so on.

each slide has one great dramatic image that swirls in, or uses some special action entrance effects. as each slide comes in it is accompanied by a different, thunderous sound effect.

You'll have to google for the images and you can hunt for effects with terms like this: "thunder .wav" or "lightning . wav".

Build your show, save copies to the desktop, teach the kids how to start the show , view the show , advance the slides.

Maybe show them how to build a simple one or two slide show of their own with your pics and sounds.