Put me in coach, I am ready to play!

My first year of teaching technology was nice, but I was to overwhelmed to really give it time.

My second year of teaching I was in a room with limited technology options, however my observing administrator wanted to see more technology. Need less to say I had to get creative. I was projecting on white walls in my room, and I was creating jeopardy games on PowerPoint because that was most practical with my restriction.

Now I in my third and fourth year of teaching I have discovered that technology is a wonderful tool to enhance lessons and student learning. I have discovered this, because I finally have the appropriate resources to accommodate technology in my classroom. Currently in my classroom I have a smart board, graphing calculators and clickers to enhance my student education. I use the smart board every day and I am able to save my notes for the day daily. One goal I have this year, since I am now using  Moodle (a free e-learning software), is to upload those notes daily. Using technology such as Moodle will help with communication in so many ways. It helps the students that are not in school on a given day, they are able to log on and see what was covered that day. It also helps the parents to provide the right support at home. My student's parents are able to go to Moodle and check for things like homework assignments and upcoming assessments.

The clickers are a wonderful tool for test reviews and/or class discussions. Even though this is available to me, I have to admit that I need to improve my use of these! The students would benefit from having the opportunity to see what the majority of the class chose as the correct multiple choice answer. Especially those students who pick the wrong answer, they can hear the discussion on why the other answer is correct or the better answer.

As I am taking my technology class, I have been inspired. Better to say, I have been re-inspired! I now know that I can include things like blogging, website creations, PowerPoint with audio, pod casts and Microsoft publisher to my classroom instructions, activities or projects and my students will thrive. I am no longer too scared to get off the bench and enter the game of technology!

Put me in coach, I am ready to play :)