Movies I Watched

I watched and commented on the following videos:

Jessica's
Rebecca's
Stephanie's
Beth's
Brooke's
Meagan's

Digital Storytelling Projects in the Elementary Classroom

I think the most difficult challenge in implementing a digital storytelling project in an elementary education classroom will be making sure that every student keeps up on all of the steps to story making. Each step - writing, finding pictures, finding sound, recording narration, etc. is relatively easy, however, doing all of them correctly can be rather overwhelming, especially to a younger student. I think it is also difficult because when things don't work, I don't know how to address the problem. For example, if one of my students coudn't get their sound to record, I'm not sure I would know how to make it work. I am learning though and I think that using digital storytelling projects in the classroom will be a fun way for students to learn.

Story Telling Challenge

Story Board

TPACK

Pedagogical knowledge, or PK, is general skills and teaching methods that teachers need to manage a classroom, motivate students, etc. Content knowledge, or CK, is knowledge of concepts of a particular domain. Technological knowledge, or TK, is an understanding of and the ability to use technology. While each of these components are important on their own, they are much more useful when all combined. A teacher might have extensive PK, but if they don’t have CK or TK, the teacher has no way to apply his or her pedagogical knowledge to help students learn and vice versa with any of these three important components of TPACK. It is important for teachers to have all three components to maximize learning in the classroom.

Week #2

I thought learning to create a wiki page was the most useful to me. I will definitely use this in my classroom. It is a great way to communicate with both students and parents and really lets parents know what is going on at school. I think it is also a good way to help kids become technology savvy and improve their computer skills. I think my favorite thing about the wiki page I created is how organized it made me feel. I especially liked the calendar application that will help me and parents stay on top of things. I will definitely use this in my future teaching!

Asynchonous Video Message

Synchronous Video

Technology Background and Experience

My first encounter with a computer was in the first grade. It was one of those tiny block computers with the keyboard built in and we mainly used it to play games on if we finished our work early. I also had a computer at home, which I used for similar purposes. Further into my elementary experience, computers became more and more important. We took a typing class and typed the stories and papers we wrote. In middle school and high school, computers were a must. Homework and assignments would have been virtually impossible without the internet and computer programs now available. I love all the options available through computers - email, facebook, photoshop, etc. I hope to become more technology savvy in order to be a better teacher.