PowerPoint (Terrific)

During the last week we were to create a powerpoint lesson. There wasn't much that we were not allowed to do. We were able to pick any age group, grade, and subject we wanted to teach. The only restriction was that we were not allowed to use the powerpoint for direct direction because the purpose of the project was to open our minds to different ways of enhancing our classroom using powerpoint. This project caused myself to question teaching techniques that I have seen growing up in elementary school. Since I'm an early childhood education and special education major I decided to make a lesson for kindergarteners. Since children that age haven't used technology much yet I knew I had to be creative. My lesson was on representing numbers with objects. I decided that before I introduced the powerpoint I would explain to the children how numbers can represent objects by using actually objects and letting them explore on their own before we would practice. My powerpoint has example problems where they must count different objects properly. Each question I would call a student up to the computer to click their answer to see as a class if they got the question right. After all the questions are done I would give the children more time to explore with the objects and practice. During class I was able to see other students progress and I was extremely impressed how much thought and time students put into their powerpoints. Everyone had such great ideas that I wrote some down so I can use them eventually in my future teaching. Overall I think this project was perfect for our class. I think it made us all think and change some of our views on technology. 

Below I have added a Links to my powerpoint so you can see my lesson I presented in class and my Narrative which explains all about the lesson, not just the powerpoint.  

Kindergarten Number Lesson
Narrative

Two More for the Roll

I decided to follow two more blogs that were related to my different interests. Taekwondo and Cooking. I don't think you have ever seen that combination together! 

First I stumbled upon this amazing blog about cooking called

 33 Shades of Green. It displays many delicious looking recipes with creative photography. It also has recipes from other blogs. I love that their all interconnected cooking blogs! I love to bake more then I love to cook so the deserts are my favorite part. Here is a picture of Snicker Brownies! They look so good I would eat them all!

The second blog I found was about Taekwondo. Taekwondo has been a passion of mine since I was nine years old and I couldn't imagine my life without it. This blog, called TDA Training, basically posts everything about Taekwondo and Martial Arts in general. It gives you history, training tips and videos, and recommended readings if this blog didn't help with what you were looking for. I found an article on here with a video about a girl who has been studying Martial Arts for years and was assaulted while on a run in her neighborhood and used her experience to protect herself. Heres a link to the video!

Messed with the Wrong Girl

My Beliefs about Technology and Learning

I believe that technology in the classroom is a great thing to have. Students are able to use technology to explore different internet sources and applications to help understand what they are learning better. The only two issues I have with technology is that its always changing which can become hard for a teacher to keep up with. How can students learn from technology when the teacher barley knows how to use it? The second issue is that the role of technology in the classroom is what makes the technology worth the effort. Certain teachers may not be capable or even want to use the technology for the right reasons.