Educational Technology-Week One

The first week of class has really opened my eyes to the amount of educational technology there is available to teachers and the influence technology can have on student academic performance.  The most important thing that I learned this week is the National Educational Technology Standards.  Prior to this class I was unaware of the technology standards that are put in place for evaluating the skills and knowledge that educators are expected to teach their students.  I was very thankful to be able to read details about these standards and think about how I would implement them into the way my classroom functions. 

These standards are very crucial; it is great that I am taking this class and I am able to learn about the many avenues of technology available.  I feel that I have already learned about technologies that I was unfamiliar with.  The resource I found very exciting was Mr. Langhorst’s Web Classroom.  A classroom website is a resource that I want to implement in my classroom immediately.  I think that a classroom website would be very effective for an elementary class.  It is a great way to keep parents up to date with the activities, projects, grades, and a volunteer list.  It is also an effective way to post a weekly or biweekly classroom newsletter that parents are able to count on reading regularly.  I would establish the website before the school year begins and discuss the benefits of this resource with parents at open house.  For any parent that could not be there I would send home a flyer for the first couple of weeks with the link and information about the website.

The challenge with this resource would be the lack of parent commitment to checking the website.  Some parents may not have access to the internet as easily as others.  If a parent does not have easy access to the internet and they are unaware of any activities or assignments, this resource would not be convenient for them to get the information they need.  In order to overcome this challenge I would also make copies of the classroom newsletter and send that home with the students.  Although, this would not have all of the information that the website would have, it would update the parents with limited access to the internet on any important information that needed to be relayed to them.

Finally, I really enjoyed the technology explorations.  Both the Tumblebooks and the Tikatok are resources that I am excited to use as an elementary school teacher.  The Tumblebooks is a great addition to a reading program and can be used to improve the students reading comprehension.  It is a resource that can easily be incorporated into a teacher’s lesson plan.  The Tikatok was another great resource that could be used as an exciting project for the students.  Tikatok was a website that allowed students to create their own storybook and add their corresponding illustrations.  It could be a project that reinforced the elements of a story.