Amanda+Ruwe

= Amanda Ruwe =

My name is Amanda, and I am a Sophomore in Early Childhood Education. I decided to major in Early Childhood, after taking a class called Tutor Friends, whichwere we went to Harrison Elementary School and helped out in a classroom of our choice. I was in a first grade class, with my old first grade teacher. I greatly enjoyed the experience of teaching the young children who were struggling with reading and numbers and needed extra help.

I work at my aunt's preschool named Precious Years Learning Center, were I am a Teacher's Assistant/Substitute Lead Teacher. I've worked there since June 2009, but during the summer of 2008 I volunteered there. This is where I came upon my future dream. One day, I want to be like my aunt and own my own preschool. Before I do that though, I plan on teaching in a public school, for first or second grade.

I live in Harrison, Ohio. I commute daily from Harrison, and I do not mind it. I live in a very rural area, where a traffic jam is usually three or four cars stuck behind a tractor! Because of this, our school district is very small. Our High School only had two floating SmartBoards, and it wasn't very often that your class got to use it. Our computer labs were decent, but the computers were outdated. On the other hand, I have many computer savvy friends who have taught me many things.

So, I would say that my technology experience is more than some people, but less than others. I have more than a basic knowledge base, but less than an experts I would say. Mainly because I'm surrounded by my second family who are all into IT. Therefore, they teach me things. I have also worked a bit for them, when they are doing stuff at home for their home business that is an IT service.

Lesson Plans
Student's Name: Amanda Ruwe Title of Lesson Plan: Pets Lesson Plan Grade Level: Preschool Subject: Science Standards: Scientific Inquiry for Early Childhood Benchmarks: Being able to predict, observe, collect or chart information and represent and formulate conclusions Indicators: Ask questions about objects, organisms and events in their environment during shared stories, conversations and play, make comparisons between objects or organisms based on their characteristics Brief description of lesson plan: This lesson plan goes over pets and animals that preschoolers can and might encounter in their lives. It helps them differ from what kinds of animals can be pets, and what kinds are not. Website: []

Student's Name: Amanda Ruwe Title of Lesson Plan: Health and Safety Week Grade Level: Preschool Subject: Health and Safety Brief description of lesson plan: Teaching preschools what to do to keep themselves safe, and what to do in certain emergencies. Document:

Student's Name: Amanda Ruwe Title of Lesson Plan: Career Week Grade Level: Preschool Subject: Careers/jobs that people have Brief description of lesson plan: Review of different careers people have, careers we see each day, jobs that people we know have, and what careers the children wish to have when they are older Document:

Web Resource
Title: Kaplan Early Learning CompanyURL: [|www.kaplanco.com/resources/index.asp]Summary: This a resource than helps provide early learning centers with resources. These resources including classroom floor planners, catalogs, classroom must-needs checklists, assessments guidelines and curriculum guides.Student's Name: Amanda Ruwe

Rubric
Preschool Math 

Technology Tools
Name of Technology Tool: Google Documents URL Location of Tool: [] Is there a video or tutorial to learn how to use the tool? Yes Is the tool free? Yes Would you, as a teacher, use this tool? Yes Who uses this tool? Anyone for personal or professional use What does one use this tool for? This tool is practically Microsoft Office... but completely online. This way, if you don't have a computer of your own, or work on multiple computers, you can write and save presentations, documents, spreadsheets and more on the internet. Then you can access it from any other computer with internet access. What is the educational value of this tool? This tool could be highly useful as a teacher, because you can save almost any sort of Microsoft Office tool, on the internet. Also, you can make tests and surveys. With this tool, you can also make your work be private, available for only people how have the link, or public. So, in a classroom where you had power point slide show, and you want it to be available to your students, but don't have access to a tool like Blackboard, you could make a similar document onto a Google Document Presentation, send out the link to your students and then they can access it anytime they wanted. Also, you can make online tests, and as the creator of the test, you can see a time stamp spreadsheet of people taking the test, which would make it easy enough to record for grades. Student's Name: Amanda Ruwe

Reflections

 * Reflection 1:**

2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessment Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessment incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S.

a. Teachers design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

There are many ways that teachers can teach us. Some of them would lecture, some of them would have us do activities out of workbooks, textbooks or on worksheet, some let us do experiments, some let us do research on computers, some let us watch movies, and some made us read from textbooks. These are just a few ways we have been taught over the years. It is important when teaching students to remember that not all students will learn the material when a certain method is used. People learn in different fashions, through audio, vision or by experimenting. As we grow older, we learn which method works best for us. I know I was personally a visionary learner. I would prefer to read text, write notes and watch movies. I hated when we would have projects were you had to design posters and such, because it was not the type of learning that benefited me.

It is important to remember this when using technology tools also. A movie might benefit those auditory and visionary learners... but not so much for those who are more "hands on" learners. At the same time, you can't always have students doing the research themselves, for its too easy for students to lose track of the specific subject they are learning. You need to learn to adapt in your classroom and have multiple ways of learning available to your students.

For example, in one of our recent classes, there were five stations set up. Each station had a different activity set up... but it was all focused on the subject of Antarctica. At the first station, you had a movie playing about Antarctica. The second station, you had a "scavenger hunt" where you had to search through a few books, to answer questions about the local wildlife. At the third station, you had a map and you had to answer geography questions about Antarctica. The fourth station had a tape that played sounds that the wildlife makes. The fourth was a free research search on computers with questions you had to answer about Antarctica. In each of these activities you have different styles of learning, but there is something for each different kind of learner to learn from. And all of it was done, using different kinds of digital tools and resources that can be available for teachers in their classrooms.


 * Reflection Two:**

3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society. Teachers:

c. Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.

Communication is key for teachers in order to teach their students. Teachers need to have multiple ways to communicate with their various students, because not all students are going to have access through the same sort of technologies to receive their information. And not only do the teachers have to have these various forms of communication... they also need to be able to use and understand them, if their students have questions about them. Teachers need to be knowledgeable in the resources they use. A teacher would not simply tell their freshman students to use a database and to cite any works in MLA format they find if they did not know themselves. They would have to know how to use these resource too, so that they can help their students and so they can probably grade and reflect the students work.

In this class, the professor has adapted a few various forms of communication because not only does she use Blackboard, a handy tool found used by most colleges, she also utilizes the Wikispace. She can put information and course documents and resources on both of these items. They can be viewed by any sort of source that has internet access. She can post announcements, about projects and date changes and other homework assignments on Blackboard so that anyone in the class roster can view it. Or, she can do the same on the Wikispace and then it is not necessary to log in anywhere to see the information.

To schools that do not have Blackboard, a Wikispace might be a useful tool for teachers to use to communicate with their students. I remember that my high school used a web resource called Progress Book, which is sort of a simple version of Blackboard. It has all your courses, and you could view a course calender with homework assignments and tests, it had a gradebook where you could keep track of your grade, and it had a resources page where teachers could post resources available to the students. One problem was, though, that some, actually most of the teachers didn't know how to use it. It would have been a helpful tool, and maybe it is used more effectively now that I have graduated. All I can say, is that I am thankful for the professors I have that use Blackboard to communicate with students. It makes life easier for both teachers and students alike.


 * Reflection Three:**

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. Teachers:

b. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources

School and the real world are very different. At school, teachers and textbooks can provide easy solutions to problems. Outside of school though, it isn't so easy as looking it up in the textbook or raising your hand. Problems come in a variety of forms. It is up to teachers though, to try and show their students that the outside world is not as easy as school. I can remember in my high school how they used an 'Open campus' exam schedule just like colleges do. One, because it was easier and two to give us the students responsibility to take on. In the real world, there will not be bells to ring to summon you to your next exam, you need to learn to always be prompt on your own, or suffer the consequences of failing.

In our class, our teacher has demonstrated on different ways to solve problems. Sometimes she would show us resources to use to help us create tests and rubrics. Every student had to give a short presentation on a technology tool and explain why it was helpful and in what ways it could be useful. It made us the students think on what sort of problems that using these specific tools eliminated. I know that I had Google Documents, and I could think of a time when having documents like homework assignments saved online instead of onto a specific computer would be more helpful.

Also, we the students had to present a lesson plan to the class and we had to use technology in this plan. The technology we used have to have some sort of rationale behind why we were using it. It made us have to think on what problems we had faced in school that could be solved using technology. One group used a SmartBoard sort of like an interactive white board. They had a graph with different points on it, and the students had to use algebra to find out the distance between the points. I can think of many reasons why that would be better than a regular white board. For instance, if you had a regular white board with the graph on it and the student was doing math, they would have to be careful when erasing to not erase lines and the graph. On the SmartBoard though, you can set up the graph on a PowerPoint and then they can draw and erase to their needs.

There are many resources out there available to solve problems that we occur everyday, we just have to be able to think of what would be most helpful to solve the problems we face.


 * Reflection Four:**

4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices. Teachers:

c. Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information

Digital resources are some of the easiest to use. If you have a problem, you can simply Google it. But, when is there a line drawn between using these resources? When does it start to become a copyright infringement? These are worries that everyone should have when it comes to using resources. On one hand, you want to use the resource, say a video you recorded of Present Obama giving a speech for a speech class. Well, is using that home recorded video breaking copyright laws? It is a question that appears often, especially for teachers using resources in their lessons.

Not only is there copyrights to worry about, but also are issues with how teachers communicate with students. They have to keep themselves professional; teachers are a resource for students to use at school. Not in their home lives. Plagiarism is also another worry for both teachers and students. So, together there are a lot of things that teachers need to worry about. So stressful!

What can teachers do? Well, in our class, our professor gave us a few articles and charts about copyright laws for us to keep. Now, we can use them and see how when it is ok to use a resource and not worry about copyrights and when we should draw the line. When communicating with students though, we always need to be careful though. I know of one of my old high school teachers that got fired, because of some of the things he did with students. He gave out his cell number to a troubled student so that she could call or text him when she had issues. While the teacher was trying to do the right thing, it was morally wrong for him to do so on his professional level. Teachers need to be careful with all of these things, because they do not want to end up having to regret their decisions. Students and teachers alike need to learn what is available in the community around them.


 * Reflection Five:**

=
Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. Teachers:======

a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

Students and teachers alike need to learn what is available in the community around them. Not only just at the school level, but also in the particular city, state and country they are in. Does the city their school is in have a public library? How about a school library? A school computer lab? Does their school have access to a database style resource? Do they have certain clubs and groups that met up with other students from other schools or communicate out to the community around them?

In our class, we went out on a trip to a few different places to learn about different technology resources. One of these trips was to the high school nearby that is beginning its transfer from a regular high school to a STEM program which is using innovation styles of learning and teaching to teach their students. These students have access to a multitude of beneficial resources that have been donated or bought through the use of grants. The teachers and advisors there were telling us that we need to always broaden our network out, for we never know what sort of companies and such will be willing to donate and give out grants for schools to use.

Another trip we had was to the local CECH library. I greatly enjoyed this trip, because it is a source that will always be available to use while I am at UC. Not only did this library just have books, but computer labs, videos, games, activities, multimedia and many other useful resources that are available to check out as a UC student. Our professor took us on tour there right before we started our lesson plan presentations, in hopes that we would use the library as a resource and use its resources for our projects and many more to come. And I must say, that I will always use it to my advantage, just as my partner and I did in our presentation.


 * Reflection Six:**

Things that I have learned in class

I learned a great many things in this class. Before this class, I had little knowledge on how to use Microsoft Excel, but after one lesson I feel like an expert when it comes to using it now. Another thing that I learned was all the resources that are available for teaches, like Rubistar and EasyTestMaker. When I first thought of computers tools for teachers, I thought it would be things like hardware and software that teachers will use. Things like how to use SmartBoards or some sort of teaching software program. While, I still think we need to learn how to properly use a SmartBoard, we did learn a lot of useful things. I like the technology tools presentation, it showed the class many resources that teachers can use for themselves, or for their students to use.


 * Reflection Seven:**

Aha moments

I think the biggest 'Aha' moment was visiting the CECH library. I had never been in there before, although I had heard a little about it. Never though, did I think that it would be as great as it was though. Being an Early Childhood major, seeing the shelves and shelves of just general STUFF that teachers can use in their classrooms was awesome. Then, there was shelves and shelves of books for all ages, from early childhood to secondary. I was in complete awe after visiting there, and went out and excitedly told my administrator at the preschool I work at all about it and just about everyone I saw for the next week heard all about the library.


 * Reflection Eight:**

Final course reflection

I would have to say that I thought that this course went a lot better than I could have ever expected. When you register for the class and read the brief course description, it gives nothing about the true value of the class. As a student, I learned a lot of different things that I will carry on throughout my career as an Early Childhood teacher. From the beginning of class, I would have never been able to name off any sort of online resource for me as a teacher to use, but now I can name of dozens. This class wasn't about using teaching tools like SmartBoards and such as I thought, but of simple resources that are available for teachers to use that we explored. When I thought of a 'Tool' I got my mind fixed on a physical object, not on a online resource. I have truly learned many things that I will not forget.