Blog Post 10

After watching the videos of Ms. Cassidy and Dr. Strange, I got a better understanding of how to use technology in the classroom. Ms. Cassidy discussed the many ways her students use technology. Her students love to do anything that includes using technology; it is just something they were born into. Ms. Cassidy states, “The students love writing where others can read what they are writing about and the people can comment, that makes the students feel special.” That is a great statement because it seems to me that the students enjoy working, when students enjoy doing something they get more out of it. Another way Ms. Cassidy uses technology in her classroom is by letting the students have a blog buddy. Having a blog buddy is a way for the students to communicate with other students around the world, and get to know them. With this buddy, the students get many things out of it; they are bettering their reading skills, communication skills as well as audio skills. These skills are all needed to succeed in life. Another point Ms. Cassidy made was parents can see their child’s progress by looking at their blogs.

In my classroom I want to use many of Ms. Cassidy’s techniques such as, blogging buddies, a working blog for the students to get resources, and skyping with the buddy. I love the blogging buddy idea. Students should be able to build a relationship with students in other places that are going through different things and be able to discuss this, such as, math problems. If one student is having problems multiplying and multiplying is the other student’s strong point, they can give each other pointers on ways to solve the question. I think it is great for the teacher to have a working blog for many reasons. The students can access safe educational links from my blog. Also, the parents and students can see what we will be working on in the upcoming weeks and can discuss it with their child. Skype, I love how she allows her students to skype with their blogging buddy to get to know each other better. Dr. Strange pointed out that with this the students are bettering their writing, video, and audio skills.

The impedements for not being able to have my class blog would be to not have the approvable of my peers. Anothers reason not to have my class blog would be the lack of computers. If I had one of these problems while teaching I would see if my class could exchange letters from class to class. I would try and allow my students even if we had limited computers, to have online technology assignments. If a student was on the computer for 20 minutes a week doing an assignment, I believe that is better than not getting any technology knowledge. Hopefully at the school that I teach at, we will not have this problem but if we do, there will be a way to overcome it.

 

By using Ms. Cassidy’s approach to technology, I would be educating students with the technology needed in everyday living. Ms. Cassidy stated that her 1^st grade students blog and do a great job at it. She is educating them with technology as well as what they should be learning in school such as spelling words. The students use technology to type, visualize, as well as hear their spelling words. The benefit of having a class blog, parents could visit the blog to get a better idea of what is going on in the class. The parents also could see what the child is working on and if there was no progress made by the student the parent can visualize it and ask what they could do to help this problem. Another benefit of having a class blog would be by quickly informing the parents instead of trying to send a written note home that was on paper that will get smashed or left in the book bag, because you are depending on a child to transfer important information. By having a blog to inform parents it is done by using adults and it is done by using technology so it can be accessed anywhere.