About Me

I am 25 years old and have been a member of the OK Army National Guard since Aug 2002.
I am currently a Math Education major at UCO.
I chose to teach math because it a subject that I enjoy and one that many students find discouraging.

Kiwi's Technology

A Peek for a Week from K12online Conference showed some great examples of how to use technology in the classroom. There was a nice variety of different uses for the computers and online blogs. Students improve their writing as well as learning to cooperate by writing online with students from another school, work on their handwriting at the smart board, play math and reading games, and variety of other activities that bring a well rounded education while implementing the technology available.

One of the benefits to these different approaches is how much the students seemed to enjoy learning. Anytime you make learning fun kids are going to be more willing to participate. I also thought it was great how she was having the students show other teachers how to use Xtranormal. Not only does teaching the material help the students learn, but it also boosts their self-esteem.

Classroom Comments

We are only a couple of weeks in to class and already everyone has had some interesting things to share about the class. I commented on Tiffany-326 Kristi's Reflection Blog both of which had great things to share about last weeks videos.

What Charlie would fight for and Teague's New Years resolution are couple of 8th grade social studies student posts I commented on.

Nafiza's World

This video from edutopia follows Nafiza as she talks about how technology affects both her personal life and her education. I found it interesting how these projects was used to teach a variety of different things. Students were not only learning how to use a variety of different technological tools, such as 2nd life and flickr, but were also gaining knowledge of the inequality in education in various countries.

I feel that I can relate to Nafiza's use of technology in her personal life a great deal. I carry a Zune and am fond of the conveniece that an mp3 player provides. It is smaller and holds more music than a cd player, and I can use headphones or hook it up to the speakers in my car. I am also fond of video games, though I don't share Nafiza's enthusiasim for fighters and racing games.

Students can make videos, like what Nafiza's class made to point out the issues with education in various countries, to talk about other subjects. For an example, in a math lessons from throughout the semester can be divided up amongst groups of students to make tutorial videos. It would not only improve their understanding of the different tools, but the students get a better understanding of the material if they try to teach it.

"We Like Our Buddies"

K12Online08's video on blogging showed how easy it is with the tools we have available now to suplement classroom instruction from outside the classroom. It was interesting to see how great of an effect the blogging buddies, had on the first graders writing performance and their desire to learn. I also think that this would be a great way to connect students to tutors in other subjects as well.

Reflecting on The Digital Age

The video on Edutopia about Cameron paints an interesting picture about how technology is important with educating children today. As a math teacher I was particularly interested in how his teacher used the footage Cameron made of himself walking forward and backward as a different approach to teach how positive and negative integers relate to each other in operations.

Cameron's experiences reminded me a lot of my eleven year old sister. She isn't as tech savy as Cameron is but intersting to see how much more easily she learns how to use many of the tools technology provides us, having grown up fourteen years later than I have.

This video shows many different ways that technology can be used to make lessons more engaging and interesting, as well as providing access to many resources to supplement education.