Get off the bench and get in the game

On Monday and Friday Oprah had episodes concerning the public schools in the United States. According to the statistics the United States has fallen way behind other developed countries in many areas of education, such as math and science. What they are predicting is our schools are not doing the job to educate students, which will lead to this generation of students being less literate. The high school drop out rates in many places are reaching 50% in some schools, which is appalling. The reason Oprah talked about this on her show was because of a new documentary that came out on Friday in select theaters called "Waiting for Superman", which is about a few students who are trying to get into a good school that will give them a good education and an opportunity to go to college. The only way these students can get into these schools is if their number is picked from a lottery. As a future teacher this is devastating. I can't believe that children are basing whether they will have the opportunity to go to college and have a good future by a lottery. Some parent said that this lottery will decide whether their children will go to college or end up in jail. I honestly knew about many of these statistics, but I was unaware of the lottery situation that some children are going through to get a good education. These statistics and this problem with our public schools is one of the main reasons why I wanted to  be a teacher. I want students to be excited about learning and want to come to school everyday because they can't wait to get involved with the classroom and to learn to benefit their future. When I was watching Oprah I was becoming infuriated, but not because it was giving teachers a pretty bad reputation, but because I am one of those people that will do anything to make sure my students are learning all they can and pushing themselves to do better. It gave me goose bumps watching because I want to be one of those people that makes a difference and be recognized as a great teacher. One of the things that Oprah emphasized on that I really liked was that talking about this issue on national television was starting a conversation that needs to be talked about everywhere in the United States, but you cannot just sit there and talk about it. You have to get off your seat and do it. Get off the bench and get in the game. You can't depend on other people, or one person to do it all. It's time to stop blaming the teachers, unions, parents and economy. We need to start working together and making a difference.
I know that this movie probably shows teachers in a very bad light and I wish Oprah (and I have heard the movie) would talk about how their are some really great teachers out their that are doing a fantastic job because there are many fantastic teachers and districts in our country, but we need to make sure that these people are spreading their good ideas and successes to other teachers and districts. It's time to make a difference in every students' life and give every single child an opportunity to succeed in this world. Who wants to join me in making a difference in our schools?

Technology in the classroom

This past week I was able to go to my TE 401 placement for the first time. I was really excited about going there, meeting my CT, and beginning to build relationships with my students. The teacher explained to me how she uses the song "You've got a friend in me" from Toy Story to teach students to be nice to one another and be friendly with each other. She uses a boom box or typical CD player to play the song so the whole class can hear instead of using the computer. She also has centers in here classroom where she has students grouped in 3 or 4 by color and students work on different things at different stations. She also has leaders for the group, which one of their jobs is controlling the tape recorders that are used at a couple stations. I was really surprised to still see tape recorders being used in a classroom. I haven't seen those used since I was back in 1st or 2nd grade. They had the large blue headphones too that I remember using. There is also a station were students use a computer, which is refreshing to see that students are learning to use and experiencing a more modern piece of technology. The classroom also had an ELMO, which is becoming very common in many classrooms today. It is basically a projector, but you don't have to transfer everything to transparencies. There is a camera that projects whatever you put in front of it, whether it is a picture book, a worksheet, or just a small object that would be hard to see in the back of the classroom. I am very interested in this piece of technology because of how often I am seeing it in classrooms and how useful it can be, not only in an elementary school setting, but also in a college setting (we use the ELMO all the time in our classes). So the classroom I am going to be in this year already shows signs of many types of technology being used by the students. Both 'old school' and modern pieces of technology are used and I am interested to see what other technologies and programs are going to be used as the year progresses.

A type of technology that we have been learning about in class that I am interested to see use in a classroom is blogging. From the very post post I said that I always wanted to start a blog and I've come to find that they are really easy to use and it's nice just typing out your ideas, thoughts, and experiences, which makes it easier to remember them and share them with others. I feel like blogging could be a really helpful tool for teachers and parents to communicate better. As a teacher I could just quickly type out some interesting things that happened in class that day, remind parents of upcoming tests and assignments their children need to accomplish and even write up announcements and tips to help their children grow as learners. This require for every parent to have some type of access to a computer or the internet and not every family has this luxury.
This could also be a way for students to do a 'quick write' either at home or during the school day where they could write something according to a prompt designed by the teacher or just a way for students to work on different English skills, such as opening sentences and when to start a new paragraph. I do feel that blogging cannot be started at too young of an age though because it is important for younger students to learn how to physically write things down and practice writing their letters and sentences before having them type everything out. It is important for students to learn how to write letters and sentences and not just rely on computers to do the physical writing for you. I've come to find that there can be both pros and cons to blogging for students and teachers, which makes me want  to observe and learn more about how teachers are using it in their classrooms.

General Ed Teachers and Special Needs Students

Yesterday in my TE 401 class we had a group of students that are majoring and have experienced working with special education students present to the rest of the class what type of students we could potentially be seeing in our classrooms in the future. I have personally worked with a few students with ADHD and autism, so some of the information was a review for me, but there was other information that was very informative and helpful to me. I am majoring in general education, so I was not required to take any special education courses. After the group was done presenting it made me think more about how important it is now in the school system to try to include students of special needs into the general education classes, but it is not required for us general education majors to take any classes concerning special education. This really bothers me because even having a basic understanding of the types of special ed students that could be in our classroom is extremely important to know and if it wasn't for the few experiences I have had with special ed students I would not know how to cater to their needs and to help them get the most they can out of being in a general ed classroom. I wish that we were required to take even one, but preferably, multiple classes helping us understand special ed students and how we can enhance their learning.
Why is it not a requirement for general education majors to take special education classes or classes that teach us more about special education students?

Did you Tweet?

This week one of the types of technology we learned how to use was Twitter. Honestly I never wanted to get a Twitter account because I did not see the point. To me it is just updating what you are doing at every minute of every day and following what your favorite celebrities are doing. I don't update my staus on my facebook very often, which serves the same purpose as Twitter, so I felt like this will not be useful. So when I first signed up for the account I did not have the best attitude towards Twitter, but once I saw that people use Twitter to get information out to other people and not just letting the world know what they are doing all the time it made me change my mentality a little bit. I can see how Twitter can be used for useful purposes, but I am still a little doubtful. Through the next few weeks i hope that I discover that Twitter can be a useful tool for the future. Keep reading my blog to find out my findings!

Hello Blogging World!!

So, I've always wanted to start a blog and my CEP 416 class has given me the perfect opportunity to try it out. My name is Devin and I am a senior at Michigan State University (Go Green!). I am majoring in Elementary Education with a focus in Math and Geography. My goal is to teach middle school math someday and to also coach a sports team, preferably softball or volleyball.
I am what you might like to call technology challenged. I'm not the best with computers and I even have difficulty with copy machines sometimes, but I am willing and eager to learn. I am on the internet a lot and understand how to use google and facebook, but other things such as twitter, blogs, skype and other popular sites. I have taken some computer classes in high school to become better with powerpoint, microsoft word and excel, but I don't remember how to use these tools to their fullest extent. I want to get better with technology and understand how to use it because I know that technology is a huge part of our generation. I want to be able to be one of those teachers that excites students by using technology in the classroom and not be the teacher who can't get the DVD player to work. I really hope through this class I learn how to use many types of technologies, websites and tools to make my classroom more versatile and exciting. I am willing to try and really explore each type of technology we use and figure out in what ways I can use it in my classroom. I hope this blog is a good start to understanding how to use technology!