Amanda+Smith



H ello! My name is Amanda Smith. I am an Elementary Education Major at Clemson University. I am originally from Woodruff, South Carolina. I am the middle child of three girls. I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. My second grade teacher was a big inspiration to me. Her excitement about learning and engaging activities made me fall in love with school. I want to have the same affect on the students that I teach and I hope to positively impact their lives.

Technology is something that i don't think I could live without. I am so dependent on my computer and cell phone and would be completely lost without them. However I do find technology to be frustrating at times. When something goes wrong I immediately get upset and it usually spoils any plans I had for the day. And technology always seems to know when you need it the most. For example my computer is great until I have a big paper due and then it gets a virus. For those reasons I am kind of scared of how technical everything is becoming. Most of the technology is amazing but I am worried about how comfortable I will be using it in my classroom.

I am doing my practicum at West Pelzer Elementary School. In this school all of the classrooms have smart boards. I am excited to get to interact and create lessons for the smart board and become more comfortable using it.

The main use of technology in my classroom is the smart board but students also have access to computers.

On Edutopia I found the blogs to be extremely interesting. It is one thing to read about new forms of technology and how it can be helpful but it is totally different to get real life stories from people who have actually tried them out. I liked to see the way that teachers have introduced different technological lessons into their classrooms and how the children reacted. I also like that the website gave suggestions of lesson topics that can sometimes be hard to plan for like integrated studies, social and emotional learning and technology integration.

Math Extension Idea
I am in a third grade classroom at West Pelzer Elementary School. I have noticed that my students are having trouble telling time. They can easily read it on a digital clock but on the analog clock it is hard for them to tell how much time has passed. They've had several morning worksheets on calculating how much time has passed and each day they struggle with the concept.

I looked up smartboard presentations that would help bring this concept to life. The website I found had a great interactive presentation on telling time. It had several icons that linked to websites that provided interactive games for the students to participate in. I shared this idea with my teacher and she loved the website. This website does not only include smartboard presentaiton on math but ones for every other subject as well. My teacher has not gotten to the lesson on telling time but has decided to include my smartboard presention when she teaches this lesson. It is a great way to keep the students engaged while including technology in the lesson. Students enjoy being active and all of the activities on the time telling lesson are fun and easy to manipulate.

The website that I found was http://www.longwood.k12.ny.us/longsmart_elem.html. It is a great resource for teachers who have interactive whiteboards in their classrooms.

**Science Instruction and Technology**

 * Reflection of Workshop**

1. After thoughtful consideration, compose a brief reflection on what you gained from the hands-on science/technology workshop conducted by our guest presenters. How did this experience support/extend/connect with what you have been taught in your technology and science methods classes? Did you gain any new insights or perspectives? How do you think this will affect instruction in your student teaching experience and in your future classroom? (One or two substantive paragraphs will suffice.)

The workshop provided an opportunity for use to explore a manipulate some to the technology that is available for us to use in our classrooms. This supports what we are learning in our science method class because both of the microscope and sound and movement gage are engaging techniques that would intrigue students. This also allows the students an opportunity to be hands on. The microscope is a great tool because it allows more than one student at a time to see what is going on. If my school had the funds to do this activity I could see myself doing a very similar activity in my classroom. I also really enjoyed the presentation on erosion. It was very interesting and I found many of their techniques helpful. I loved how they let the children use the cameras to film their activity on their own. Though my school may not have all of the technological devises that they did I could see how I could use this activity in my science class. The children in their videos seemed to be excited about it and learning a lot. I feel that students learn best through hands on activities and all of the technologies presented on this day are great tools to be incorporated in the classroom


 * Resources**

2. Using the links posted on our Wiki (http://educationfirecrackers.wikispaces.com/), explore 2 Websites (one from **Science Resources** and one from an area other than Science -- i.e., ELA, Social Studies, Classroom Life, or Digital Citizenship). After spending 15 minutes on each site, write a brief review of the sites. Include the title of the site, the url and 3-4 sentences that summarizes the site and indicates how (or if) you might use it in the classroom. (There are some product/hardware sites listed in the Wiki. Don't review these. Stick to sites that are activity or information based.) In addition to submitting your reviews along with your reflection through blackboard, add your reviews to the bottom of your personal Wiki page.

Science Resource: []

This website contains numerous games from all different areas of science. They games range in ages and are completely geared toward students. The website is inviting and easy to navigate. I played several of the games and the instructions were easy to follow and the games were really fun. I would use this in my classroom as a form of enrichment. These games are great reinforcement for the material taught in class. This could also be set up as a center for students to learn more about various subjects.

Language Arts Resource: []

This website provides a place where students can post blogs and comments to share with the class. Another great feature of this site is that the teacher can use it to upload pictures, worksheets, textbook pages, and videos. Students would enjoy being able to write their thoughts in a blog as opposed to a journal. It is a great tool for students to share their writing with the class but it can also be kept private between just the teacher and student. I used a class blog in one of my classes as a student and really enjoyed viewing my classmates’ thoughts on various topics. In a world were technology is so overwhelming this is a easy way to keep the students’ interest.