October 12

I think that using the smart board the other day in class was good for us - It's a lot like the Mimio that I've been researching so I think that was good. I enjoyed being able to get my hands on it - now if only we could get ahold of a Mimio to mess around with!

September 30

I found this website when I was researching for the Mimio. It's pretty informative about what you can do with the Mimio and how it can transform the classroom setting. I think it's pretty cool!

http://www.mimio.com/products/index.asp

September 28

Today we started doing presentations. I thought there were a lot of cool ideas whether it was teaching a lesson on music to a group of high schoolers or colors to a group of first graders. I think that seeing other people give these lessons is a good way to learn. Seeing someone else teach and critiquing them helps us realize what we also need to work on.

Virtual Tour

I found this virtual tour online of the Taj-Mahal. It's obviously a bit better than the virtual tours we did in class, but I think it's still super cool. I really liked how you could use your mouse to move the camera.


http://www.taj-mahal.net/augEng/main_screen.htm

Day 5

Adobe Photoshop is awesome. I have it on my computer but I've never used it to the extent that Ben showed us in class the other day. It would be great to be able to use that as a tool in a classroom. We used it at my high school for our yearbook class. It worked really well for editing pictures and whatnot but it's very complex. I use it on my own computer to edit photos and do some fun things. But using this in lower elementary wouldn't be possible.

Day 4

I thought that doing the presentations in class the other day was great. It gave a lot of ideas. And I felt it also gave me experience on how to put together a presentation for a class which was great. I think this was very useful and I will most definitely use this presentation AND the idea in the future.

I also talked with my teacher for my observation hours for another class about Mimio's. We discussed how to use it and what not and she had no idea what it even was. She asked me what it was and wanted details. She had no idea how to use it. I think it'd be cool of we could get those working in the classroom cause I think they could be a good tool if you use them right.

Day 3

So yesterday we worked with Dr. Diers on using clickers in the classroom. I've previously had Dr. Diers as a professor and she used clickers on a regular basis in the classroom. I think it's such a great idea. I'm a student who doesn't like to actively participate in the classroom, so this gives me an opportunity to give my input in the discussion without voicing my opinion to the whole class. I think that it's a good way to draw the whole class in.

Though, because I want to be a kindergarten teacher, I probably wouldn't use this technique quite as often as I would if I taught in the older grades. It would be a fun activity sporadically but it could be difficult with students.

Obviously, since I took Dr. Diers classes, I'd used the clickers, but I'd never really thought of the effect they had in the classroom. I think they're a great tool to draw the students into the classroom.