Blog Post # 11

In the First Video "Little Kids Big Potential In the very beginning of this video as the a few of Ms. Kathy's students were welcoming us into their classroom, I noticed she had a sign saying "College graduating class of 2025 hanging on her door!" I absolutely love this, I have never seen anything but their High School graduating year on classroom doors at schools! I think that this is a great way of making students look even farther ahead! In the Little Kids...Big Potential video Ms. Kathy's students described their every day lives in the classroom to us. Ms. Kathy allowed her students to use their Nintendo DS as a learning tool in the classroom. That is kind of like saying, "Please pull out your iPhones and let's do our work today!" I believe that is every student's dream to hear! I believe this was one of the best ways to reach some students, not many children would complain about doing work if they were using a cool game to do it with. I bet before those student's used their DS in the classroom, they never used it as a learning tool. Ms. Kathy used many types of technology in her classroom and each of her students were very aware of how to use the tools! They used iPads, the DS, and computers. They also could make videos of what they were learning, collaboratively I might add! These students also blogged and commented on other blogs. I am 26 and I know I have said this before, but some of these things that these young students are doing, I am just now doing. I feel like I was left behind on some of these things because I was never asked to use any of these tools when I was in high school! I know I come from a very small school, but I believe I should have at least heard about these items! I have learned a lot from Ms. Kathy. I also have learned a lot from EDM310, I am so happy that I had to take this class! I am sure if I didn't, I wouldn't have thought about using class blogs instead of hand written journals, or podcast instead of presentations. I have taken so much from this class so far, and from Ms. Kathy! Ms. Kathy said, "Technology isn't going anywhere". We all need to get with it so we do not fall behind and get lost! It is unfair to not use and teach these advancements in the classroom! I am choosing now to always by tech-savvy and use all of the new benefits possible to help teach my students! I believe they take so much more from being able to use all aspects of technology rather than reading from their textbooks and doing the end of the chapter work with pen and paper!