This semester has been my first semester in the Teachers Assistant Program at Southern Miss. Juggling working 40 hours a week and also taking a full course load of online classes would scare anyone at first glance. I can say with an honest heart that this course has been so enjoyable and effective to me. At the beginning of the semester, I thought I was up to date on the latest technology and computer savvy. Looking back now, I realize that I honestly had no idea of the world that technology can open up when working in the field of education. I have gained an abundant amount of knowledge that I feel I can successfully implement into my future classroom and introduce to my students. The many assignments that I was required to complete over the course of this semester managed to test me mentally and emotionally. I found myself becoming frustrated at certain points of the semester when I was not able to immediately have the knowledge of how to go about completing certain assignments. At this point in the semester, I was able to gain knowledge about myself. I found that it was in my best interest to slow down some and use resources provided to me, to be able to answer my own questions.
When considering my weaknesses and strengths through the completion of required projects for this course, I also learned a great deal about myself as an individual. Looking back, I felt that my high points in the semester were using my creativity to create projects such as the classroom webpage and blogfolio. Through the creation process of these two assignments, I did learn that I am without a doubt a perfectionist! I spent hours on end making sure that every detail that I included matched and went together well to be appealing to the eye. I found this to be a strong point for me. Through realizing this characteristic about myself, I became excited to be able to use the creativity that I gained in this course in my future classroom. Along with my strong points, also came my weaker points. After looking back and reflecting, I feel that my weakest point in the semester was through completion of projects such as the podcast. This was a program that I was very unfamiliar with and nervous about completing. I am a person with a very reserved personality and the thought of communicating via a podcast made me extremely nervous! I managed to do so though, with great preparation of what I would say and how I would say it. I feel as though this was one of the projects that did not come naturally to me at all, but I managed to push through and successfully complete it to the best of my ability. Overall, I am tremendously thankful for all of the wonderful knowledge that I was able to gain within this course. I feel as though I have not only grown as a person, but also as a future educator to our youth!
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Hello again readers! Welcome to my most recent blog post where I will discuss some of the key issues that I believe are effecting the use of technology in special education environments. I have gained knowledge on this issue through by reviewing Chapter 15 in the textbook and also by taking the time to observe the special education environment at the school in which I am currently working as a teachers assistant. Getting an inside look helped me gain a better understanding of the every day issues that do in fact arise when integrating the use of technology into special education. Children with disabilities are more tedious than others and require special accommodations. Educators should keep this in mind when developing a plan on integrating technology into their special education lessons. When making a decision on which strategies to implement for the student, the teacher should refer back to the target level of that particular student. Students with mild cognitive disabilities may benefit from having technology integrations such as text to speak products and online story books that can assist them in reading. For students with more severe disabilities, such as blindness or deafness, special tools can be integrated such as screen readers and alternative keyboard designed specifically for this need.
Chapter 15 states, "The first step in technology integration is to become acquainted with the issues and challenges that are brought forth by all of the assistive, instructional, and productivity technologies". I believe that it is the job of the educator to take the time to learn about each students specific needs. Some things that work best for one, may not be the best option for others. If we can familiarize ourselves and become aware with common issues that may arise when integrating the use of technology into our special education classrooms, we will be able to effectively resolves these issues. This will allow for greater success for the students in need of special accommodations. Hello all! In my most recent blog posting I will be discussing some effective ways in which teachers can integrate technology into their daily English and Language Art instruction. The many advances in technology today, gives teachers numerous opportunities to incorporate technology into their every day lessons in the classroom. Throughout this post, I will touch on some of the methods that I believe could be useful for teachers to utilize when strengthening skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and analyzing a written or spoken piece of work. In today's society, most reading and learning is completed with the help of technology. With this in mind, it is important that teachers be aware of different strategies for integrating technology. Popular websites that students will enjoy visiting such as PBS Kids and ABC Mouse, help with the promotion of letter and word fluency, which will then lead to word building. The use of interactive online storybooks is another great way to integrate technology into a simple task such as reading. When students begin the writing portion in ELA popular software such as word processor will be useful in the classroom. The internet supplies an endless amount of resources that teachers can utilize for student success in ELA.
Hello again readers! Over the past two weeks, I have been working on creating my first class website. When creating this webpage, I thought to myself that it would be a piece of cake. The website I was set out to create, was also to be created through Weebly. With this in mind, I thought I would have minimal difficulties because I had created a website through this page before. I did not take into consideration how much more was required to go into the classroom website versus my blog website. I found myself unsure and frustrated multiple times, but managed to work through it and learn how to navigate all of the tools required to build a successful classroom website!
When looking back at the creation process that I went through of my classroom website, I found that I truly gained so much from it. This project turned out to be my absolute favorite and I enjoyed being able to be unique and incorporate my own style into a website based on kindergarten. Being familiar with creating a classroom based website, is a very beneficial tool to have being a future educator. I would love to create a website similar to the the one I created for my future classroom. I would tweak it a little though and think it would be helpful to have a tab for announcements for parents. Through this, I would be able to upload weekly announcements to keep parents informed on upcoming events. I am so excited to be able to incorporate this function into my future classroom! Please feel free to explore the classroom website that I created my clicking the button provided below! Thank you for taking the time to read and I hope that you enjoy. Hello readers! The focus of this blog post is to reflect on the creation of my web tools assignment! I found this assignment to be very interesting and beneficial for my career as a future educator. When beginning this assignment, I was very unclear on how to create a rubric in general and also on websites to use for test creations. I found the tutorials provided to be very helpful at explaining how to successfully create this assignment. I chose to focus my web tools assignment around elementary reading. When sitting down to collect my thoughts on what type of reading I would center my test and rubric on, I did not have trouble at all! One of my all time favorite children's books to read my students is Where The Wild Things Are, so I found creating a test and rubric centered around this story would be awesome. When creating the test, I felt as if I were a real teacher creating materials for my students. When reflecting back on this assignment, I found that I became more knowledgeable in many different aspects. I now am familiar with a few different test creation website, which I will totally be taking advantage of as a future educator! Also, I am a little more comfortable with rubric creations. Before this assignment, rubrics were simply a blur to me and the though of creating one made me a nervous wreck! I am thankful to have these advantages under my belt as a future educator. Please take the time to take a look at the materials that I created during this assignment. I have attached them below!
Ashleigh's Web Tools: ![]() Multimedia creations can be a very handy tool to have in the classroom when working in the field of education. The most important thing to begin by doing when considering working with multimedia is becoming familiar with the many uses it has. Resources such as online tutorials, technology experts, and also in person seminars may come in use when familiarizing yourself with the world of multimedia. While I do believe that these creations would be very beneficial to the classroom, I also think that teachers should not solely be dependent on them. Being human, we all know that sometimes life happens and technology fails us with things such as power outages and electrical issues. I think each teacher should be able to find a happy medium when it comes to implementing a certain amount of technology into their daily lessons. When considering ways that I may in the future incorporate multimedia into my lessons, I came up with a few possibilities that I found would be beneficial to students. I think starting the week off by having the students view a short video explaining what they can expect out of the week ahead is a neat alternative to just telling them what we will be learning. Also, instead of having students do basic book reports, I think I could put a twist on assignments by having them explore and participate in things such as creating movies about the books that they read. Being able to give students the opportunity to express themselves through multimedia and then present it to the peers, I feel would make assignments more enjoyable for the class as a whole. Hello all! For this project, I was assigned to record myself giving an online lecture for my IT 465 class. Before starting this project, I was a little overwhelmed and nervous to have to speak and let everyone hear me. But when beginning this project, I realized that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. Actually, I enjoyed this assignment! I chose to focus my podcast on some things that we work on in the current kindergarten class that I am a teachers assistant in. We have been working a lot with color words, as well as sound them out and writing them. The students were instructed with my assistance on how to develop a sentence. I began by assisting the students on the first word of the sentence. Together, we sounded each letter of the word out, then figuring out the correct spelling of the word. By doing this, the students were able to recognize certain sounds and relate them to letters to construct the word. While writing this sentence, the students were able to become familiar with the finger spacing rule, capitalization, and also punctuation. I enjoyed making this recording mainly because it is similar to the process that we do every day in my own classroom. As a teachers assistant in a kindergarten, I am responsible for getting the children familiar with what letters make what sounds, to be able to spell out words. I will definitely be using this program in my future classroom, mainly because the procedure was so simple. This tool would allow students who were absent to catch up on what we did, and even provide extra help for students who may be having difficulties on whatever we are covering. Below I have linked the URL, as well as the MP3 file to my audio writing lesson. Enjoy! My Audio Writing Lecture ![]()
Resources and skills required for multimedia/hypermedia design, development, and integration9/24/2017 In today's society, people are almost always required to be up to date when using the latest technology. In order for this to happen, many skills are required. Technology in the world that we live in today, allows almost anyone to be able to create their own designs such as videos, webpages, and films. These technologies can be integrated into classroom settings for teachers all over the world. I personally do not think that a teacher should be fully committed to using technology with every lesson, because sometimes life happens and technology fails on us. When reading Chapter 6 this week, I was able to become more informed on webpage and website authoring and all of the skills that are required along the way. While creating things such as webpages, many people reach out to resources such as tutorials to help them succeed. As a future educator, I am able to experience these programs and learn the best ways to navigate them. In the future, I plan on integrating these designs in my future classroom via a class webpage. By giving parents this resource, they are able to stay involves. I can give parents information on the specific curriculum we will be focusing on during the week, while also discussing important classroom events and reminders.
While constructing "My Story" for my IT 465 course, I experienced many different emotions. I focused my "My Story" on the Dr. Suess themed week that our school participated in last year in recognition of the author's birthday. When beginning this project I was a bit nervous because I had never created a movie before and was unfamiliar with Windows Movie Maker. This whole project was a completely new learning experience for me. When beginning to explore with Windows Movie Maker I was confused and became frustrated, being unaware on how to navigate the program. I had to turn to the internet and watch many tutorials on how to do certain things within Windows Movie Maker. Upon the completion of my project, I reflected back and realized that I enjoyed producing the movie and the project as a whole! I can imagine myself in the future using Windows Movie Maker to be able to produce short movies for the class that relate to the specific material that we are covering each week. Incorporating information in the form of video is much more amusing to students and I feel that it makes learning fun for them. I enjoyed creating this video and being able to share my schools experience with Dr. Suess week with you all. Please feel free to view the video that I have placed in the link below.
My Story - Dr. Suess Week at Lizana Elementary When first beginning the Google Groups project I was a little skeptical. I had never explored with Google Groups or Google Drive before and it was unclear to me on how to navigate them. With the help of my group members, I managed to learn more about working through Google Groups and how to locate my Google Drive. A strong aspect that our group acted on was communication with other group members. Many of us had questions and concerns regarding the project. We managed to take it into our own hands to help one another on things such as how to get to begin a certain portion of the project, opinions on other group members’ work, and also by providing answers to each other’s questions. I think that by having effective communication skills, we were able to all remain on the same page when it came to the progress of the project. While becoming more familiar with Google Groups and learning how to create certain functions within my Google Drive, I was able to also identify ways in which these techniques would be beneficial to me in my future classroom. It occurred to me that Google Groups would be a great way to remain in the loop when it comes to working with teachers in my future grade level. Being able to have all of the teachers from a specific grade together in one group via the internet to share files such as presentations, surveys for the students to participate in, and so on would be extremely helpful. This is without a doubt a technique that I believe would be very beneficial in my future classroom setting.
[email protected] My Group My Survey My Story My Gradebook My PowerPoint |
Author![]() Ashleigh Paull
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