NAEYC is all about CHILDREN!!

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is dedicated to improving the well-being of all young children, with particular focus on the quality of educational and developmental services for all children from birth through age 8. NAEYC is committed to becoming an increasingly high performing and inclusive organization. Yes there is a fee to becoming a member, I tried looking for the fee but I think you have to go through the application in order to see what it totals. There are certain things you can either add or just keep a regular membership. There are so many links to access. You can build your library getting 6 books a years for becoming a member. There are also articles that can help you along your journey of teaching. One that caught my eye was "Technology in the Early Childhood programs". I thought it fit pretty good since our EDU271 class is all about. There are also forums where you can speak to other aspiring or current teachers like you. I'm sure you can chat about anything in there to boost self esteem and learn from others. I could actually use this in the future. In order to become a success you must learn from others. I feel that this is a great way to start. Imagine yourself where you are now and what you could become if you simply just invest time and a little bit of money. Getting ideas, hearing experiences from others, and learning new interesting things to bring to the classroom can give anyone a great leap of faith. I know this site NAEYC can give much power to anyone who insist on grabbing it.

Keeping My Page

I thought about this after Dr. Keesee asked me if I would keep my blog. I know that the semester is coming to an end, but I like to blog. Granted this was my first blog experience ever, but I feel like I should keep this. If you still want to follow, please do. I will update in the future and keep posting about my experiences as I progress to my goals. I'm glad to meet all of you and good luck on all your future endeavors!!

***Angie***

SKYPE with Danielle

Out of all the assignments we have had in this class I finally found one I really enjoyed. I used Skype which you can download for free and be able to communicate with others around the world near and far. You can chat on microphone or through typing and you can also video to see one another. I have used Skype before especially with my husband being deployed. I have also used with with many of my good friends who have moved from being deployed too. But today I "skyped" with Danielle. She is in my EDU271 class. We are working on unit lessons and we basically talked about what was needed to be done. She asked questions about the resources and references link and what needed to be put in there. We came down to the conclusion that we needed to put things like where we got our information from on the internet and any resources like our venn diagram and powerpoint used in our lessons as well. We connected with webcam and spoke through our mics so we didn't have to type. It was easy, fun, and informative at the same time. I could use Skype in the classroom with parents who can't come to conferences about their child. I can also use this in my classroom with students who are sick at home like the flu or anything that keeps them from coming to school, to keep in contact and informed on anything missed while they were gone. Skype is a great tool for communication. You can also do projects with it if you can get up with another class in the building and connect, have children explore, and use Skype. With Danielle we didn't run into any obstacles we both pretty much knew how to use and explore with Skype. Some advantages of Skype would be being able to stay in contact with those far away, still being able to see them live, and it makes you feel like they are really there. It's a great way to stay connected. Sometime in the past, I have lost connection on Skype and it was hard to connect especially when the server is being used all at once with many soldiers trying to see their loved ones at home. That is one disadvantage that I can say I have ever run into. Sometimes it was to the point where it would be the next day before we got in contact again. Overall I think it has lots of benefits for families and even for schools. We just have to use our imagination!

Reflections of Blogging

As I look through my blogs from the beginning of the school semester, I found it hard to understand as person just reading it. I say that because I am putting myself as a person just reading it and not actually understanding what we know it to be as a class. I basically wanted to get the assignments done and just put in the effort of what needed to be said. I felt by the passing weeks I knew more about technology and how it can be an effective teaching tool. I know how spreadsheets, podcast, word, and much more can be incorporated into lesson plans. Not only for the teacher to use but for the students as well. Giving them hands on experience is a great way for them to understand and knowledge to use technology. It's important for them to learn at such a young age because our ever changing world. In my first entry into my blog I talked about my goals. I said that I never blogged before, or used a wiki, and wasn't sure what else the class had to offer but I knew that I would come out more strong minded about technology and how it is used. I feel comfortable with WIKI's by just using it for the class, but learned that WIKI's are created for any type of information and how they could be used in the classroom setting. In the past few weeks I seen that I put forth more effort into my writings and made sense of what I was talking about. I made people understand that "Today in my EDU class we were talking about "...... and I would state what it was and what I learned. In the past few weeks I noticed that I tagged more than from the beginning about what my blog was about. Look I even embedded a video into my blog and I didn't know how to do that before. Knowledge is power, and I feel great about this class and what it had given me. I now feel confident going into the education field and come up with great innovated ideas for my future classroom.

Weather Youtube Video In My Classroom

I chose this video because I am doing weather for my final unit plan. I enjoyed watching this because my target students are older and not really meant for something kindergarten-like. I want my students to understand how weather works and how we predict weather and the importance of meteorologists have in our lives. I could use this in my classroom for such reasons for the facts of the video has. It covers precipitation, clouds,how storms are even formed. But there might be some obstacles to face when trying to use youtube in the classroom. I feel that teacher really need to watch the whole video before playing it in the classroom, which can be time consuming but it is our right to prepare and be ready to use in the class. Also it might be hard to have all observe at once unless using some type of smartboard to display it to the whole class. But with any type of learning with technology has their pros and cons. We as teachers just need to weight them before using them. Study what you are trying to incorporate into your classrooms, if you understand, it's easier for your students to understand.

TILT Iphones in the Classroom

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tilt-teachers-improving-learning/id75789488

This week in my EDU271 class we had to find a podcast based on technology being introduced into the classroom. I found this one in my Itunes be going to podcast on the side then in the search bar, I typed "technology in classroom". I first did "education" then other words like "education technology" but I found this one podcast called " TILT iphones in the classroom." I thought it was pretty interesting because to me, I don't think of an ipod as a learning source but after watching the video I was intrigued at the idea of incorporating one actually into my lesson planning. I am doing weather for my lesson plans (5th grade) and feel that this would be an amazing example to use! As a parent, my 5th grader loves her iphone. She is with that thing 24/7 and all I mostly see her do is download apps and text a whole lot. LOL but she is a good girl. ( Just thought I'd add that) But to get back to the point, the speakers name is Danny Maas. TILT stands for Teachers Improving Learning with Technology. I thought this was perfect for the class assignment for podcast.
There are four elements of the iPhone which make it a great educational tool for a teacher and students:

• Still/video camera and apps to edit/enhance photos
  
• Audio recorder
  
• iPod/iTunes
  
• Blogging apps

It was such an interesting 1omin podcast and after watching and listening to it, made me understand how it can be incorporated. He was talking about how children can take pictures with the iphone of something they did in class or for a project during class. They audio recorder can be used to record class lessons, student response to questions, and memos. Ipod/itunes can be used to find videos for class lessons, books, podcast, and much more. It varies on how you can use this in the classroom. My favorite part was about the applications (apps) that can be downloaded to your iphone for classroom use. For an example, me (myself) have a hard time with MLA format sometimes. There is an app for the iphone obviously not for all types of work cited but the main ones. Book, journal, magazine, website, and newspaper. It was pretty cool to use and self explanatory. Its called "iCitation". But what Danny was talking about in the podcast for the apps could be anything from math, social studies, pretty much anything you can think of for educational purpose. He even found one for word typing. You can actually type up a paper and do it on the iphone! You can also link up your iphone to a projector to be able to share with the class. Pretty cool huh!
I can use this or even give an idea to a teacher ( I don't work in a setting yet), but to use this in so many ways. Truly an iphone isn't just a phone/ gaming device. It also has features you can use for education technology wise. I would use this in my future class by having the students record their findings from a project. Say about dinosaurs and their features. We can then play it back to the class. The next group would say what certain dinosaurs ate and so on. I would more than definatly tell someone else about this podcast that I came across. However I did find it in my itunes, but if you go to google and put in "TILT iphones in the classroom" it comes up a whole page of podcast for examples of technology in classrooms! I pretty much chose this offhand because like I said before, I had no idea what iphones could be used for in the classroom! Great post and long but I enjoyed looking up this podcast.
After you click on the link provided above, it will bring you to the website of all TILT podcast. The one I viewed is the 4th one down.

Databases In My Classroom

Databases are pretty similar to spreadsheets. You can store a vast amount of information with databases. A database can be used to keep up with any information which you need to collect. I plan on using databases in my classroom by keeping track of my students.

• names
• attendance
• telephone number of home
• email of parents
• birthdays

There are a variety of ways to incorporate this into the classroom use. Depending on the topic/lesson involved, students can also insert data and process information from the database.
Advantages:

• create a visual for learning
• allow users to organize and manipulate large amounts of information
• compare and contrast data, rank importance

Disadvantages:

• Database systems are complex, difficult, and time-consuming to design
• Substantial hardware and software start-up costs
• Damage to database affects virtually all applications programs
• Extensive conversion costs in moving form a file-based system to a database system
• Initial training required for all programmers and users