Annmarie+Kantz



My name is Annmarie Kantz. I am a senior Elementary Education major and I am currently on Block at Clemson. I am from North Augusta, SC and I went to high school in Augusta, GA (2 different states, kind of crazy!). I have 2 little brothers (Seth is 11 and Michael is 17) and one older sister who goes to Clemson also (Liesel is 22). I have one dog at home; a 7 year old boxer named Holly Berry (I thought of this great name, because we got her Christmas Eve). We also have a hermit crab named Harry who is 2 years old. I have always loved teaching because I really like being able to help people. I like breaking down the information and explaining things to people who can't understand. I debated going into Secondary Ed. Math (I love math!), but I decided that the attitudes involved with that are too much for me to handle. I will be interning at West End Elementary in Easley, with Mrs. Owen's 4th grade class. I really enjoy the eager, excited students in the elementary classroom and I can't wait to work with them!

I like to think that I am very tech savvy. I truly am looking forward to this class and what I can gain from it. I love the idea of incorporating various aspects of technology into everyday lessons. I enjoyed watching the film in class that included statistics of technology use in and out of classroom. It really puts it into perspective that this really is one of the most effective ways of presenting information to the modern student. From my laptop to my cell phone, I use technology everyday and I know my students will too; that's why it is essential to integrate technology with learning.

Mrs. Owen has a Promethean Board in her classroom. This is the only type of interactive board used in West End Elementary and I look forward to becoming more familiar with the equipment as well as the software involved.

Each teacher at West End has a laptop computer and a Promethean Board. The K - 3rd grade classrooms have 4 student laptops. The 4th & 5th grade classrooms have 2 student laptops.West End has 2 computer labs with 28 desktop computers in each. West End has 2 mobile computer labs with 28 laptops in each. Since I have only been to my class once so far, I am not sure of how often this technology gets used, but I am excited to start integrating it into my classroom lessons!

When I visited Edutopia, I found many interesting things that I know I will reference in the future for my classroom. I watched one short film in particular that really opened my eyes to a new interesting way of teaching. It highlighted a public K-8 school in San Francisco that had an extremely unique method of teaching. Students learned solely by doing. They learned numbers, letters, and concepts through ideas that they were already away of. One example of this is when they learned the number five; they traced their 5 fingers and then walked (forward and backward) a 5-sided star on the ground. They incorporated music and art into many core aspects of academic study and it seemed to really get the students engaged and learning. I definitely want to use parts of this method of teaching in my classroom!

__Math Extension Idea__

My students are studying transformations in geometry and they have been having some trouble understanding that despite the movement involved during the transformation, the actual polygon (and the characteristics of it) remain the same. This activity will also allow students to better differentiate between the various types of quadrilaterals. This website allows students to select various quadrilaterals (and their characteristics are listed beside them) and move, or transform, the shape in various ways. It shows the students that despite the movement (whether it is reflected, translated, or rotated) the shape itself remains the same. Only now it is at a different location on the page. I think this website would be a great center for students or even an activity for early finishers. It would allow the students to see the proof of what the teacher is trying to get across without having to hear it over and over.This student directed learning is exactly what many students need in order to succeed in the classroom. After showing this site to my cooperating teacher we actually decided to use it as a class activity. The students chose different quadrilaterals and took turns coming up to the Promethean Board to transform them in different ways. I think this tool really furthered student understanding of this topic.

The website for this great tool is http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/quadrilaterals-interactive.html

__Science and Technology__ The science presentation on the smart board in conjunction with the hands on demonstration made for a very informative and interesting technology class. The use of technology was an added bonus into the classroom; however, I did find it discouraging the amount of equipment that they had freely in their classroom. Although I would love to think I could do these activities one day in my own class, I know in reality that very few districts have the budget for these materials. It did give me a glimpse of what is possible through technology when teaching this information. I saw another way that all of the information that we have learned in our science methods class can come to life in a whole new way when unique tools are introduced. I also realized that extreme experiments are not necessary when teaching concepts and ideas to my students; simple, yet effective demonstrations and experiments that students can fully grasp and participate in will be much more valuable. The first website I examined was a science based student resource website.The title of the site is “Science Kids: Bringing Science and Technology Together” and the url is . This web site could be used in a variety of ways by students and teachers alike. It has interactive games that are extremely informative; in one, you dissect the parts of the flower and sort them into appropriate categories and then you can examine the purpose of each part. It also contains many different science experiments to supplement skills and information taught as well as lesson plans for teachers; these links contain information on many different science topics. As a teacher, I could take these lessons or experiments for my class, use the videos and photos for concept clarification, and use the games for early finishers. The next website I explored could be used for a variety of subjects, but would be particularly helpful for Social Studies or ELA. The title of the site is “Blogger” and the url is [|www.blogger.com]. On this website students can create and manage their own blogs. The teacher could assign a particular assignment to write about or they could use it as a journal (like in Freedom Writers). It could be used in Social Studies because in addition to creating your own blog students could (after teacher monitoring) view the blogs of other people around the world. Students could compare and contrast different cultures to their own. This website would be a create tool in the classroom and it would encourage a love of reading and writing in a very untraditional sense.