Computer Conference

1. The first session that I went to was the pre=service teacher kickoff session. This session was really helpful and I really liked the quote that he started off with: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be". - Wayne Gretzky Then he explained that this quote could be used for teaching as well. Teachers should not just stay with the traditional approach, but should be progressive. Teachers should challenge their students and be prepared. This means becoming comfortable with computers. Some things that I learned from this session were a few technological things that I could use in the classroom. He talks about using flicker, which is a great image website, and can organize people’s images using tags. This means that students could use this program to organize pictures. Flickr can also be used to include parents in their students’ lives. Parents would be able to see what their children are doing in the classroom, and will be able to become more actively involved in their children's lives.

2. Another thing that I learned was also in this class. I had never realized how you could use some technology in the classroom. Mobile phones and I-pods had never really struck me as a useful tool in the classroom, but the presenter gave us some ideas for using these programs. For example, itunes has thousands of podcasts that are available and that people could subscribe to. These podcasts can be used to teach lessons on grammar and other things like hat. Skype is another example of a tool that can be used. By using Skype, students can communicate freely with other people, maybe even people from other places. For parents, teachers can send out emails, blogs, and aim messages to get them more actively involved in their kids’ learning. All of these uses of technology allow the parent to see first hand what their child is doing and what they have been learning.

3. During the key speaking, I learned a lot of useful information about why people should use technology. The speaker made a good point that computers and technology are portals to the rest of the world. Students have to learn how to work together and be more collaborative. She also stated that in 2020, knowledge would double every 72 hours. This astounded me. That much knowledge pretty much makes books obsolete. By the time the textbooks are written, they would be incorrect. Learning this, I knew that teaching without technology is no longer an option. In order to learn everything that these children are going to know, they are going to have to be able to use technology to its fullest. Yet, by doing this, these students are going to have so much more possibilities. They are going to be able to relate to people that are different, and schooling is going to be more student directed.


4. While in the pre-strategy program, I also learned about the program JING. JING is a great program that allows students to communicate with others. It allows people to snap a picture of anything and put it on your desktop and then record it. This movie can then be shared with anyone. Teachers can use this to study their students, and to make sure that their students are paying attention. For example, when a student is doing something, you could video the child doing the activity, while they talk, recording their thoughts the whole time. By doing this, the teacher will be able to get insight into the student’s head. The teacher will be able to look at this and see what the student learns. The students can learn and explore how to verbalize their reasoning and the teacher can see where the student is coming from.



5. Another program that I thought was really cool and that was technology based was something called Literactive. This program can be used for struggling readers or even just regular readers. It provides reading material to students and it is online. These programs help students read and understand what they are reading. Since I am teaching kindergarten, I thought this program would be amazing to use, because it helps the students start to recognize words. Yet, there are tools that if clicked, will read to the student, highlighting the word, and speaking it out loud. It can even be used for more advanced children because you can turn the extras off, and the student actually has to read the whole sentence. Furthermore, the student has the opportunity to take their learning in their own hands because they can pick their book.

6. When I went to my third session, the presenter told us how important games were to learning. He said that teachers needed to use more creativity and need to use educational games more often, such as cribbage, where you have to use concepts in order to win the game. An example of a game was magnetic poetry. Magnetic poetry is an amazing game because it can be found both in a board game and in an online game format. This gives students opportunities to explore rhyming words and to characterize words. Younger students can use this to group words with the same beginning letters, or when they are beginning to learn how to organize words under headings. It can also be used for more advanced students, in order to compose poems and songs.

7. During the second session that I attended, I learned about many math resources that would help students who are struggling. Most of the programs that the presenter showed us were free open source software, and were great educational resources. In this class we learned about a website MISTM, which is a math portal. Here, teachers can find all sorts of information and teaching resources. In this class, she shared software called geogebra. This software is interactive, and students can explore points, segments, vectors, lines, and functions. They can experiment with equations and coordinates, along with many other mathematical concepts because this software is a mix of geometry, calculus, and algebra.

8. Another thing I learned during this second session is about a website called curriki. This is an online program that is specifically used for educational purposes. This program is used as a teacher resource, and there are many lessons and plans that teachers can use in their own classroom. This program is set up so that everyone can use it. This equals out the playing field a little bit, equalizing differences because any teacher can access these tools. It is very similar to wikipedia because users can post, edit and comment on articles.

9. One of the most helpful sessions I went to was Jim’s best of the web. This was probably my favorite session of all times. It was so helpful. The presenter talked about the lack of creativity in the classroom and how this was negatively impacting education. Then, he gave us several websites that can be used to re-engage students, making them actively interested in what they are learning. He gave up over 50 websites to use, all of which can be used to make students more active in their own learning. These websites are great tools to use!

10. Another thing that I learned during this computer conference is about a website called SpellingCity. SpellingCity can be used to help prepare students for vocabulary tests and is very simple to use. One presenter mentioned how good a site this is. Kids can become excited about spelling again and can study and explore the words through this site.

This was an amazing experience and I felt that I really learned a lot about using technology and why it is important to use in the classroom. The presenters were all prepared and did a really nice job presenting a lot of information in just a little time. Walking around, I was able to see all the tools that teachers have at their disposal now, and I saw some really cool inventions. One such invention was the crayon ink, in which crayons are used instead of ink, which is better for the environment.