Part of this is for my class but part of this is just for me to get some feedback and document my thoughts as I undertake what is quite possibly the most exciting thing that has happened in my career thus far. I am going to post my first three entries below and then I hope to continue adding to this blog on a regular basis! "Tech Style" is Back!
10/21/09
My SmartBoard is here! The guy is installing it in my room right now. The kids have gone home and I’m about to leave too. I wish I could stay but I don’t want to pay the nanny extra and hey, I’ve got this board as long as I’m teaching here which may well be forever. The kids are so excited. They know it will be here tomorrow and have been talking about it all day long. I am sure I won’t get much done in the morning because they’ll all want to see it. This board is requiring some changes to my classroom set up. It’s a lot bigger than I expected so I’m having to move some things around. It’s not really a big deal though. It’s worth it to have this board that I’ve been practically begging for for the last 2 years.
10/22/09
Wow that was a whirlwind day. The kids reacted about the way I expected them to. There were a lot of “woah” and “can I use it?” responses. A few of them even asked me if they could take it home! Ha! As if! Jimmy was the only one who really couldn’t handle the major change in the classroom. He got really upset and started yelling. That sort of outburst is pretty typical of him though. It is because of his disability. The rest of the responses were very positive. It took me most of the day to get it all set up. I could have set it up more quickly but I was obviously teaching and spending a minute or two here and there while the kids were working made it pretty hard to get it set up. I had to get Mr. Reed to come in and finally get the last thing taken care of and then all of the sudden it was up and running. I gave each student a chance to write on the board using the electronic pens. They were so excited. It turned out to be a good move to let them all try it out too because some of them found it was trickier to write on than they expected. A bunch of the other teachers stopped by to see what the board looked like when it was up and running. Our class was definitely in the spotlight today! Overall their enthusiasm was even better than I expected and I know they will still be buzzing about it tomorrow.
10/26/09
The newness has not yet worn off from the installation of the board. I still haven’t been trained on how to use it so I feel like I’m just on the tip of the iceberg with regard to the capabilities of this tool. It’s so exciting to be able to quickly and easily pull up a piece of information or a picture without always trying to describe it. I have a handful of kids who have auditory processing problems and they are really helped by the visuals I can give them. Today we were reading Meiko and the Fifth Treasure, which is about a girl who experienced the bombing of Nagasaki during WWII. Last week I tried to explain what the bombs were like and today I just pulled up some pictures that the whole class could see. We had a good discussion as a result and that made me feel like I was really blending the subjects and creating interest. I also keep getting a lot of questions from the other teachers about how it’s going. I still don’t know much about how to use it yet so I’m really looking forward to the training.
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