Blog Post #7 - How Do We All Become Learners?

Becoming a teacher nowadays takes much more than a love for children, and a passion for learning. Children are growing up surrounded by technology, and they expect no less from their classrooms. I don't know about every elementary school in Mobile County, but I do know that in the elementary school that I attended and the one my son currently attends, there is a SMART board in every classroom. Baldwin County public schools now provide iPads for most of their students, and they certainly use them in all of their classrooms as we see in the following videos from Gulf Shores Elementary School kindergarten and first grade classrooms.

 iPad Reading Center
Poplet Center
Alabama Virtual Library Center
Discovery Ed Board Builder Project

The resource I am most excited about in this series of videos is the Alabama Virtual Library. I had no idea that you could use this site to do simple research at a kindergarten level. Mrs. Tucks' AVL center is such a creative way to introduce research to her kindergarteners. It also prepares them for future Board Builder projects because they are already using pictures and sentences to show what they have learned.

It is important that teachers know about the resources available to them through technology. For example, if Mrs. Tassin didn't know about the opportunities within Discovery Ed, she would not have created such a multi-faceted project as the one presented by her second grade students. In this video, it is clear that the assignment required research, collaboration, use of technology to create the presentation, oral skills for presenting, and innovation in their choice to collect money and how to go about it. I can see all of this in a two minute video, but I'm sure her students learned even more than that.

I think in my preparation for becoming an elementary school teacher, I will need to find all of these resources and begin using them myself. I don't think I will have a hard time figuring out how to use them. However, in order to think up creative project ideas, I will need to have a good understanding of how they work and what they can be used for. I'm excited about the shift to using technology more in the classroom. It is one of the best ways to keep children engaged and excited about what they are learning.