Week 6

Field Observation
After going to my first field observation today, I learned how technology is incorporated into classrooms. There was a cd player where children sat down to listen to an audio book. I thought this was great because students are different learners and this would certainly help those who learn best by audio. There was also a SMART Board in the classroom, but the students didn't use it today. There were also a few computers in the classroom for children to play learning games if they had finished the assigned work in time. This is great because it gets children to do more with computers and understand how they work at such a young age. In this day and age, technology is very important so starting at a young age definitely won't hurt.

Weekly Reading
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/10/05/central-high-makes-student-achievement-tech-access-its-top-priorities/

This week's weekly reading came from eschoolnews. It related to my observation and group project because it had to do with technology being included into a classroom. Philadelphia's Central High School has a goal to make their students technologically advanced. The school has wired and wireless Mac Computers for student access at anytime. They want to break communication barriers between home and school and get information to people at anytime. Teachers can post grades or homework online. This saves paper and also gives parents access to view how their child is progressing in school. Saving money is crucial especially because funding has decreased for schools over the past few years.

Technical Skill

This past week I had worked on my group project using the SMART Board. I had never used on before this class and I found it to be very fun. There are many different tools that children can do to create a learning project. One important thing I learned was to "lock" an item on your page. If you don't lock it, it can be moved very easily on the screen by accident. To lock it you right click, than go to lock, than lock in place. I hope this helps everyone else when you work on your SMART Board project!