Blog Post #6

I decided to look at the school website and page for a teacher I interned for last semester. She teaches 6th grade advanced math at Elizabeth Cobb Middle School. One of the pieces of information I see displayed is a link to teacher info, including a photo of the teacher, a short description about her, and how to get in contact with her through email or phone. The next piece of information displayed are textbook and resource links that the students can go to if they need extra help with a concept they're learning in class or tips on organization skills to become a more prepared student. The website also displays a link to handouts and documents, which contains all of the materials, such as worksheets or vocabulary, that they are given in class, incase the student loses the copy they are given. After that, a link to the class calendar, which shows their agenda for the week incase a student misses class or a parent wants to keep up with their children's assignments. There is also a parent portal which I assume gives more information to parents about their student's and their grades/assignments, but I was unable to see specific info since I didn't have a login. The last piece of information displayed is a link to class notes, where the teacher uploads all of the notes taken each day for whatever topic they are covering in class.

Since I will hopefully be teaching high school mathematics, I initially had a hard time thinking of how I could use technology in the classroom, other than the obvious examples like using a projector to display notes while I'm teaching and using Word to create quizzes and tests. However, after skimming over the chapter again and listening to the podcast, I realized there are many other types of technology that could benefit my classroom. I could use Diigo to bookmark and import resources like practice sheets and activities relevant to the material I'm teaching, so I don't have to go searching for them at a later time. I could also annotate the document as I am reading through it to mark if I want to change a specific problem or instruction to cater more towards the level my students are at. Creating a group within the service with other math teachers at the school would also be extremely beneficial, giving us the ability to share annotated documents and activities with one another that we believed could be helpful. Another form of technology I could totally see myself using in my classroom is Google Calendar. This would give me the ability to easily upload information to a weekly/monthly about what we completed that day for the parents and students to see, incase a student needs to catch up on assignments or if a parent wants to make sure their student is completing what they need to inside and outside of class. A third form of technology that I could see myself using in the classroom is educational apps that could help students participate in lessons easier, like using the apple numbers app to create charts and display data when doing lessons that involve material that requires graphing or analyzing statistical information.

After going to the Tech Sandbox, I am even more solidified in the fact I could use a Smart Board in my future classroom. I actually used one in the classroom of the teacher who's website I just looked at. It was so helpful in displaying problems and having students working them out with the special pen instead of having to write and erase problems and work off of a whiteboard, since we could go back to previous slides if a student had a question because the Smart Board would keep all of the information written on that document. I was also able to display a gridded graph on the board so we could plot points and form lines accurately together, instead of creating a non-proportional graph and plotting points inaccurately on a regular white board. The Tech Sandbox showed me that I could also display interactive 3-D models for students to move around and get a better understanding of the object. This could be used greatly when learning about 3-D objects! Overall I think it's a great form of technology that could greatly influence a classroom and I'm jealous I never got to work with one as a student.