Looking Back....

I enjoyed the Elementary School to the Middle School because it was more hands on.

I feel like the Middle School has a lot of potential with the technology they have, but the teachers are not using it in the classroom.

At the Elementary School, I feel like the iPad classrooms could be doing a lot more with the iPads. The fifth grade class that I observed barely used the iPads.

What is the point in having the technology if you are not going to use it?

Observation Day 3

Today is my last observation day at the Elementary School. Today I went to Ms. G, my assigned 3rd Grade teacher.

Ms. G - 3rd Grade
Technology:
Once again the students did a math rotation using the smartboard, computers, iPods, and me. After the math rotation the students watched a read-aloud book video from the internet. After the read-aloud book, Ms. G showed the students a streamline video as a review for their math quiz.

General Observations:
It must have been the student teacher that made the students more well behaved. Once again the class was chaotic. Students were unable to stay in their seats, often getting laps to walk at recess. Today was also Friday, which meant that it was assessment day. The students were so unaware of what was going on, one student even completely forgot that they had already taken their math quiz. I am amazed that the students in this class learn anything. Ms. G seems like a nice person, but I am unsure if she should be teaching children at this level. I think that the students would benefit from more structure.

Observation Day 2

Today was my second observation day at the Elementary School. Today I visited two iPad classrooms (4th and 5th grade) along with Ms. G (my assigned teacher).

Ms. G - 3rd Grade
Technology:
The students used the smartboard, computers, iPods, and me for their math rotations. After math rotations the students watched a read-aloud story from the internet. Next, Ms. G used a microphone device to read a chapter aloud from the book that the kids are reading as a class. During the classes media center time, they took an accelerated reader quiz on the book they listened to on the internet.

General Observations:
The class was much less chaotic today. The students were able to transition from one activity to another more quickly. There was a student teacher in the class today, so that might have had something to do with it.

Ms. J - 5th Grade iPad classroom
Technology:
The students used their iPads to watch political speeches. The speeches are from United Streaming. Ms. J downloaded the speeches, converted them to iTunes format, and synced all of the iPads.

General Observations:
I learned that all of the iPads are synced to one iTunes account. However, each iPad has a profile number taped to the cover, which allows each iPad to have its own profile in iTunes. This makes it so that a students work is not lost every time the iPad is synced to iTunes.

Ms. T - 4th Grade iPad Classroom
Technology:
Since the class was helping set up the auditorium for an assembly, a group of students showed me what they liked about the iPads. I liked this format because I could "interview" the students about the iPads.

Observation Day 1

Today is my first observation day at the Elementary School. The teacher that I have been assigned is Ms. G and she is a 3rd Grade teacher.

Ms. G - 3rd Grade
Technology:
The students used the smartboard, classic iPods, computers, and an iTouch during their Math Rotations. The classic iPod has flash card videos that Ms. G created to go along with what they are learning in math. The kids played an online math game at the smartboard. The students logged into their IXL.com accounts at the computer station. And the last station was math bingo with me.

Activities:
Friday is assessment day for Ms. G's class.

General Observations:
The classroom is a little chaotic. Ms. G seems to know where everything is located, but the room screams dirty to me. There was also a huge transition time from one activity to another. It is obvious that Ms. G is not very strict with the students which makes the students less likely to do what she tells them to do. While I played math bingo with the students during math rotation, I had to frequently call my groups attention back to the bingo game. They were more worried about what was going on at different stations. The class was also not very structured. Ms. G still had one student doing his social studies test a full hour after everyone else had finished. Ms. G just continued on with her lessons while that student was moved to the back of the classroom. I asked if the student was a resource student (and therefore would warrant the extra time), but she told me that he was not.