Natalie+Watson

I am Natalie Watson, and I am a senior at Clemson University majoring in Elementary Education. I am from Edgefield, SC, which is a very small town near Aiken, SC. I am currently at Crestview Elementary doing my block internship. I have been given the opportunity to work with Miss. Brickel's fourth grade class. It is very spunky and energentic class, which will be fun to work with this semster. Miss. Brickel's classroom, as well as the rest of the school, has been equipped with Promethean Board. The school also has a comptuer lab and multiple comptures in the classroom.

I am technologically literate, but I would not say that I am super confident with using it in a classroom. I am looking forward to learning new ways to incorporate technology into the classroom and increase my confidence when using tools like the Promethean board. I really enjoy taking pictures; therefore I would love to increase parental involvement by sharing pictures of daily activities through a class website.

Edutopia is a really helpul site. I really enjoyed reading the discussions from the new teachers. I feel that I will be looking at these discussions throughout this semester and in my beging years as a teacher. I think that it will be another way to gain insight from teachers who are in or have been in my same situation. This will be a great support when I get out on my own.

RIght now the students in my practicum teaching class are working on mulitplication. A lot of the students are having a hard time remembering their basic multiplication facts. I think that a simple flipchart on the Promeathean board would be a great way to incorporate technology into math. I believe that students would benefit greatly from a math center that had them practicing their multiplication facts. An activity could be set up on the Pro board where multiplication facts are listed and students have to drag the products to the correct multiplication problem. If the answer is correct the number will stay, but if it is incorrect the answer will bounce back to the number box where they originally chose it.
 * __Math Extension Idea__**__I__

[] I did not actually get to explore this site because you have to subscribe to the site. I did look at the main page, products, and news tabs. From the looks of these pages, I think the site would be a really great investment for students. Students virtually dissect animals which saves a lot of clean-up, money, and animals. Student can even access these dissections from their home computers. If my school gave me to opportunity to purchases a subscription, I would definitely subscribe and use this site in my classroom. [] The renweb website is an awesome tool if you are in a location where students and their parents have computer and internet access. This site allows for the teacher to communicate with parents, students, and coworkers easily. I think that this would be a great way to keep your classroom paperwork (grades, attendance, newsletters, etc.) organized and in one place. I would like to used this website in my future classroom, depending on the internet access of my students.
 * Science and Website Reviews**