Smart Board and Concept Mapping

By me wanting to teach at the High School level using the SmartBoard and Inspiration programs it would be very vaulable for the students to become better with working with others and becoming overall better students. By using the SmartBoard students will be able to interact with eachother through presentations. The SmartBoard allows students to manually interact and show the other students what they are working with such as using videos, links, or sounds. By using Inspiration you will be able to set up webs of events that have occured in history. By using this program it will be really easy to show all information that you are talking about and you will also be able to use this on a SmartBoard which will be another way to interact with the students.

Databases and Spreadsheets

The area I want to teach is high school History to students in grades nine through ten. Even though Spreadsheets are most associated with Math and Science, History can sometimes use spreadsheets for inserting dates. When teachers learn more about different programs and learn to incorporate them into everyday learning it makes them a better teacher. Databases are used to collect any kind of data and organize it into an easier to understand way. Databases and Spreadsheets would be more helpful with the older aged school groups. Younger students would have a harder time trying to figure out this program. Databases and Spreadsheets help students show that they understand what they are learning. In the subject history, students will be able to keep track of important events and keep them in chronalogical order. Overall, Databases and Spreadsheets would be used to help the students learn a new way to collect information.

Emerging Technologies

My main goal is to teach History to high school students grade nine through ten. I think the new emerging technologies are very useful inside the classroom. I plan on using Google Earth in the classroom to show my students locations of major battle sites. When students get a real perspective of where battles happened they will most likely remember more. Google Earth shows the exact location of anything on Earth. I will also use GPS in the classroom like we did in our class. I would pin point certain objects around the school to find so my students could become more familar with this new emerging technology. These new emerging technologies help students apply themselves together and learn as a group.

Newletter Assignment

I plan on teaching History to high school students in grades nine through ten. My Benchmark was aimed towards U.S. Wars. I wanted my students to research three U.S. Wars before World War I and who the big contributors of each war were. I wanted my students to have fun and gather interesting but important information at the same time. After I started the assignment I realized that I thought I knew more about Word Processing than I really did. Word Processing is a really great program that teaches students how to write and set up information properly. The sooner the child learns how to use Word Processing the more advantages they have in the future. The Newsletter will give students the chance to research informative topics and gather it into an easy to read format. Being able to create a Newsletter these students will remember more about what they researched because it was a fun and creative assignment. The Newsletter is a great assignment to help students reflect back on what they learned and retain it for use later in life.

Technology Integration

There are many ways that technology integration can help create a strong learning based classroom. The first advantage of technology in the classroom is greater hands on learning. By learning how to use the Smart Board it has really given me another opportunity and helps show students another way to learn. By using a Smart Board you can have the students interact with other students by certain programs such as Inspiration and Kidspiration. These programs further show the hands on approach that can be used in the classroom. Another advantage to technology in the classroom is using Powerpoint. Powerpoint is a program that students can use on the computer that organizes video, sound, and pictures into one easy to access location. Powerpoint can also be used on the Smart Board, which makes it another great hands on program. A technology integrated classroom encourages students to be more hands on, procrastinate less, and give more effort to complete things. One more example of technology integration in the classroom is video pod casting. By using this program you will learn how editing will help you create a video in the classroom. All these examples of technology integration help better the students in the classroom and will help me become a better teacher later in life.