CCMS Tour

CCMS or Corpus Christi Montessori School is a private elementary school that teaches using the montessori method. I was supposed to have a tour May 7th, but unfortunately the school has closed. I was lucky enough to have visited their the past for the voicethread project. The first thing I noticed about the school was the aquarium. I was told that the children take care of the aquarium themselves. They also have a garden that they also are in charge of. I love that this school really teaches life skills. When I saw the classrooms, I liked that there weren't many tables. The classroom was filled with manipulatives. They were organized; each manipulative has its placed. It was definately different from the classroom that I student teach, but it was great for me to see.

Service Project: Week Three

This week, I really felt like I had a clear path to follow. Most of the work is completed: I finished my storyboard and my goal was to finish the movie. I decided to use VoiceThread for my movie because it was a compilation of still images. Once I found my images and recorded my voice, I was able to record his voice. It was difficult at the beginning of this project, but now I am so glad that I
did! The more that I played with VoiceThread, the more ideas I thought of to use in my own classroom. I am so glad that I had this experience, because I feel like it made me a better teacher.

Service Project: Week Two, Part 2

After my meeting with the parent and student, they researched about their topic which is Greek mythology. Since he hadn't researched anything yet, I gave him some questions that will help guide him to finding some insightful information. I told them to basically find facts that interested him. The KWL chart that we started during our meeting helped him figure out what kinds of interesting facts he wants to include.

Once I received some information he has found, I was able to think about how we could put this into a VoiceThread. Creating the storyboard was my next challenge. When we meet on Tuesday, we will take this storyboard and put it into a movie.

Service Project: Week Two

A couple of days ago, I was able to meet with my student! He talked to his teacher, and there are not alot of guidelines for his research project about mythology. Since he has not had the chance to research yet, it was a good time to get him started in the right direction. I set up his blog, and showed his mother how to access his blog site. During the week, he will research his topic and I will be able to help him once he has more information.

Fortunately, he has siblings that are working on a research topic with other students in my class. This made it much easier because we all were able to meet them at the same time. Also, we need to create our video this weekend, but I won't be in town. One of the other college students who are working with one of his siblings, will be able to get the information we need. I am so thankful that there was someone who was able to help. As a teacher, it is so important that we rely on one another for help, because we can't all be everywhere all the time.

So, far his project is going well and I look forward to helping him create his voicethread.

Service Project: Week One

This was the first week we had information about my student and his project. It was frustrating at first because we had a hard time communicating with eachother. I was unsure what to do, so I continued to email the parent. It wasn't until monday where I was able to get a hold of the parent. I was so excited that I would be able to meet with my student tomorrow at his school. As a teacher, it is important to understand that like us, the parents are busy too. We need to accomidate for their schedules so that we can best meet the child's needs (since the child is the reason we went into teaching in the first place). Its a vital life lesson for me to learn as I grow as a future educator.

Speadsheets in the Classroom

Since high school, I have had the opportunity to play with Excel. I usually used to make graphs and small charts. I only used the basic functions because I did not know any more about it. Excel is a complicated program that allows for one to many things. When I was practicing with the wedding planner spreadsheet, I learned that excel has simple functions that can make your life much easier.

I always thought of the program as mainly a business program,but this week, I looked at it from a teacher's point of view. How can I use this in my classroom? How can I integrate this program into my lessons? The first thing that came to mind was tying it to my unit plan about seasons. I decided I would use excel to make a seasons survey. I listed every student in my classroom and asked them to rank the seasons, 1 is the least favorite and 4 is the most favorite. The Excel program took the numbers and totaled each column. Because the program quickly found the sum, I was able to see which season was the most popular.

Though my program was created by the teacher, Excel is a program that can be used by students to create their own projects. This type of project could be used in an inquiry based project. For example, the teacher could show students the basic functions of of Excel, and then create guidelines for a project. Students then must solve a problem by adding functions. Students can conduct their own surveys and have the program calculate the totals. They could also create a budget list for toys, clothing, etc. There are a few questions a teacher should consider asking students while they are working on these projects.

• How can Excel help you and/or your parents in your everyday lives?
• Why is Excel sometimes more helpful than Word?
• What Excel functions did you find helpful during your project? Why?
  

My Movie Making Experience

This week presented many challenges for me. I spent several hours creating my first movie! Before this week, I never realized that most computers have a movie making device as one of its default programs. At first, I felt completely unfamiliar with the tools, but after I experimented with it, I figured out how to make my movie. After creating my movie, I related that tools that I learned to how I could use it in my classroom.

One of the best ways to engage your students is to involve them heavily in a project like this. For example, you can give each student a line to read or film the class participating in an activity. When you are finished filming the movie, teach them how to edit movies. If they are too young to edit on their own, have them help you with the order of the movie clips. Your students will be so proud of their work once it is finished, and I guarantee that they mastered the material that the film covered.

I enjoyed making this movie, because like I said, it my first time experiencing something like this. It is great to see the final product for which I worked so hard. I plan on showing this clip to my students as a focus for my season’s lesson in science. Once I have showed them this clip, I am hoping it will excite them to want to create their own!