Unit Reflection

I thought my unit presentation went pretty well. i think I did a good job of engaging the class in my activity. When I think about the TPCK model and my unit I feel that I had a nice mix of the domains. I was very comfortable with the social studies content knowledge. I think that it came across in my presentation that I knew the material well. I think that my technological knowledge was good but could have been improved. During the presentation someone asked a question about editing their poster and I was caught off guard. I wished that I had made sure I knew all the details of the website a little more in depth. I feel that I did a good job when it came to the pedagogical domain. I feel that because I have been a teacher for two years now, I was very comfortable presenting this lesson. As I stated before, i think my strengths are my content knowledge and my teaching skills however, I would work on my use of technology for the future.

Technology Standards

I chose to look at the technology standards for teachers. I feel that they would be great to strive for ideally however, in a real classroom they are much harder to attain. The standards say that teachers should be using technology and digital tools to promote learning experiences. I feel that this can something be hard to do. I work at a wealthy school and even we do not have the resources that I would like to use at times. We can only take our students to the computer lab once every two weeks, for example. this makes it tough to complete assignments. I attempted to have my students do more involved projects like a webquest and a powerpoint presentation and because of the tie constraints I had major problems with both. My school also does not even allow the kids to do simple things like e-mail so I worry that they are not even learning the basics of computers like how to attach a file. I can only imagine what it must be like at schools with less resouces than mine.
I think that another problem with the standards is that they wuld require all teachers to be proficient in using technology and many are not. Professional development opportunities for teachers are often not vey hands on and so many teachers never learn the newest technology. In my two years as a teacher the only new technology I have learned has been in this class. I think that there is so much out there that teachers are missing and learning about technology should be much more of a priority.

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The type of computer software that i prefer to use in my classroom is teacher directed inquiry. I feel that this type of instruction gives kids a focus but makes them think more than doing simple drill exercises. I like student centered inquiry for older students but for my fifth graders I do not think it would work well for most of them. I have found that my students do really well when they have a focused assignment such as a webquest. I have been using teacher centered activities in my classroom to let my students know which direction to start in and what the final product should be. I think it allows younger kids just the right amount of independence. If they were doing either drill or student centered activities for the majority of the time I think they would get frustrated. I see teacher centered as the happy medium.

I believe that technology and education need to go hand in hand. In today’s world being literate in technology is essential and I feel that education should reflect that. In my philosophy of education paper, one of the things I talked about wanting to be the kind of teacher who taught kids the basic facts and skills that they would need to succeed in life. I believe tat technology is a big part of what kids will need to succeed in the future.
I also feel that in order to be the most up to date with our curriculum, technology must be used quite a bit. Gone are the days when teachers used overhead projectors and chalkboards. Kids now have the benefit of smart boards, laptops, and other technological advances in the classroom. A student can research an answer to a question in a matter of seconds. Computers and the Internet can provide accesses to visuals that were never possible before. A student can even go on a virtual field trip. In order to help our students be able to compete in the job market of the future we must teach the kids about technology and use it to make our lessons more rich.