Digital Who??

During class on this day, we learned about the digital me projects. Digital me projects are basically ways to digitally explain who we are using different technology tools. A few examples of the tools are: Telegami, Word Cloud, Near Pod, and Animoto. 

For these projects, we took important information about ourselves and displayed it using the digital tools. For example, because this is a science based class, we discussed our experiences with science class growing up. We said what we liked and disliked about how the courses were taught and what we most remember. We also drew our own versions of scientists showing what we think a scientist looks like. 

My colleagues and I mostly talked about our friends and family and the things that we like to do. For example, there were a few of us that showed us pictures of their family while others just talked about their family to the class. For my digital me project, I did Fliptext as my digital me which takes any word that you type and flips it upside down. Flip Text could be used to test children's knowledge of a particular topic or through the use of a game to see what the students can figure out. It can also be used as a quick review for the students before beginning a new lesson. 

I think representing yourself digitally is easy and exciting. You can get as creative as you want about the projects while learning about so many different types of tools to use in the classroom. 

The Beginning of a Wonderful Journey

On Tuesday, February 7th, the Social Studies Methods class went into a fourth grade class at St. Joseph's to start fieldwork. As a class of twenty-five, we were split up into five groups and had to come up with a getting to know you activity. Each group came up with fun activities to get to know all about the students. For the group I was in, we created a coat of arms with questions such as "What us your heritage?" to learn more about the students. They seemed to enjoy the activity and were willing to talk about themselves. They shared things like how many people were in their family of what their favorite color was. After we all shared our coat of arms, we did a quick pre-test and asked them a few questions about the middle ages. Each student seemed to have a good understanding so far which was great to find out. After about fifteen minutes, we switched to the next group of students and did the same thing until we got through the whole class. It was nice to finally put a face to all the students. I am looking forward to a wonderful semester with them! 

The Importance of About Me's

About Me's are very important at the start of any class. As a future teacher, I would want to know as much about my students as I can. I think having students express themselves almost immediately builds a connection between you and the student as well as with their peers. Both you and the student will find common interests which will allow you to learn more about their personality and the things they love to do. It's important to not treat the students as if they are only a student; they need to feel like you are genuinely interested in who they are because that will only help them to grow. About Me questions are fun questions that allow students to express themselves and it allows them to get comfortable with you and the class. At the end of the day, it's important for the student to feel comfortable in your classroom and that will make them more willing to learn.