This semester has been very interesting for me. Going into this class I had no idea what to expect. Coming out of this class I feel very accomplished of myself. It was a lot of work but I did what I had to do and got it done and I am proud to say I came out doing well.
I learned a lot of things that I had never even heard about over the semester. Dr. Smirnova knows so much about technology that its crazy. The one thing that I will never be more thankful for is Google. When I say Google I don’t mean the search engine I mean Gmail. That has saved my life this semester. As a commuter it is hard to do projects in groups with people because you have to meet up with them and find a time that works for everyone. With Gmail it makes it possible to do work from home or wherever you but still are able to do it together. Google doc’s is not like a regular PowerPoint. I have made plenty of PowerPoint presentations throughout my schooling and it was always the same thing everyone would make their slides and send it to one person who would put the PowerPoint together. Only the person who would put the PowerPoint together knew what the final project looked like until you got to school and showed everyone. This is the complete opposite with Google doc’s. You can have a PowerPoint that everyone in the group can share and edit at that same time. It is great that everyone can collaborate and help each other at the same time without any problems. The best part about Google doc’s this semester was every time we did something in groups, we would share the doc or the PowerPoint with Dr. Smirnova and she would give us her imput or knowledge on the topic. That was really helpful and generous of her!
Web questing is something I have learned to love. This semester was the first experience I have ever had with making my own. Last semester for our unit plan we didn’t have to make them we could use one that we found on the internet. This experience was something I found very stressful at first, but I really became interested in it and got very creative with it. We had to make our web quest based on what we wrote our lesson plan on in class. My lesson was on angles for fifth graders and it was very difficult to think of a web quest to use around angles. I even searched Google just to get ideas about web quests on angles and there wasn’t many out there. What I did find was many activities on angles and fun interactive activities for my students to use. I found this specific activity on angles and aliens so I decided to base my web quest on that. (http://goglobalwithlauren.pbworks.com/w/page/29978202/FrontPage )My web quest was about saving aliens that were lost in outer space and only we had the tools to blast them back to their homes. The key was that you had to blast them at the correct angle to send them directly to their home or they would miss it and still be lost in space. There were a few activities to practice angles before they actually got to the task, but one they got to the aliens they had to have it right. At the end of the web quest they had a project to do which was to make a poster board of the aliens they saved. They would have to draw the aliens and then write the angle that they blasted them at to send them back home and then write whether it was acute, right, or obtuse.
My fieldwork experience was really amazing this year. For most of the fieldwork I have done it was either me sitting in the class observing or working one on one with a student. This time it was different I got to actually teach lessons to the whole class. It was awesome because I actually felt like the teacher up in the front of the classroom and they students were in my control. This was an awesome experience because my cooperating teacher was like just pretend I am not even in the room and do what you would do if this was your classroom. I did exactly that and they kids were so good they did everything I asked of them with no problem. They loved when I was teaching lessons they couldn’t wait for me to get there and it was so exciting to know that they wanted me to come and teach them. It wasn’t like they wanted me to come because then they didn’t have to do anything, I definitely made them work harder than their teacher did but that’s only because I had a point to prove. This was also very helpful because since this was the first time I was actually in front of a class teaching it made me sure that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, because how do you really know at 17 years old what you want to do forever. I know people that are 45 and still don’t know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I have always thought I wanted to be a teacher but this experience made it definite for me. Being a teacher is what I am supposed to be doing and this class made it a positive thing for me. I have no more doubts in my mind I know I will be a successful teacher someday and I can’t wait for that day to come.
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