EDU 697 Introduction

 Hi Dr. Pressey and Classmates,

My name is Lisa Carbone.  I am 29 years old and am an elementary school teacher at the Poway Unified School District in San Diego, CA.  I love the school at which I work, and am continuously inspired by my colleagues and administrators.  I was hired in my district four years ago as a second grade teacher, and absolutely love this age range and the curriculum.

One of my professional goals has been to improve upon my ability to integrate meaningful technology into my classroom on a regular basis through my instruction and student activities. The MATLT program I have participated in over the last year has exceeded my expectations in providing me with the support needed to achieve this goal. 

Our school district has been promoting the integration of technology into classrooms over the last several years, however, I feel that not enough support, guidance, and collaboration has been provided in order for all teachers to truly be able to do this. Through the MATLT program, I have been provided with that support, guidance, and collaboration as well as hands-on experience with meaningful technology tools such as blogs, wikis, jing, winzip, and non-linear powerpoints to better achieve meaningful technology integration into my classroom. 

I have been influenced by so much in this program, but one piece of technology I have used regularly because of what I have learned from my courses is jing. This is a tool that I have used frequently this year with my students to demonstrate how to use programs, websites, and how to complete assignments. My next goal would be to eventually have my second graders use jing as a presentation tool. With jing, I originally struggled with navigating, capturing images, and recording, however, with trial and error, and simply "exploring" this tool I was able to overcome my initial challenges. I also found watching youtube videos on jing to be very helpful.  Sometimes keeping my info to five minutes could be a challenge, but it helped me to become more concise and clear with my words. 

This experience sharpened my knowledge with teaching and learning with technology because it helped me to overcome my "fear" of exploring a technology tool that was unknown to me. By familiarizing myself with a tool like jing, I proved that I am very capable of learning how to navigate and integrate new technology into my classroom, and it inspired me to continue learning about new technology tools and familiarizing myself with other programs as well. 

I love Mark Twain's quote, "I have never let my school interfere with my education". To me this quote represents that although school today is rooted in many traditions that came from hundreds of years ago, educators and students need to be proactive when it comes to the educational experience to ensure that all learners' strengths and needs are being met. For educators, this may mean adjusting certain traditions in order to reach the wide variety of learners in their classroom and prepare them as 21st Century students.

TWITTER

https://twitter.com/

My twitter name is @MRESTeacher

Blog Creation Process

I actually created this blog back in 2010 when I was working on my prerequisite courses for my teaching credential program. What I have learned from creating this blog many years ago, is that the process for creating it, and publishing posts was user friendly and simple. It is also so easy to come back months or even years later, and pick back up where you left off, which I think is an advantage of blogging. I would say one of the challenges of creating and having a blog, at least for me, is keeping up with it. I think it can be easy to not publish posts on a regular basis, which can defeat the purpose for many people of even having a blog in the first place.

Instructional Technology

I believe that instructional technology must be meaningful and should be integrated to enhance the learning experience for students. Often times I think that with the great "push" for technology integration in education today, some teachers simply incorporate technology such as iPads, into their classroom just so they can say they have done so. I think this is something all educators need to be mindful of because as I have mentioned, in order for instructional technology to further engage students, and truly enhance their learning experience, it needs to be integrated in a thoughtful and meaningful way. I think in order to ensure that educators are able to do this for their students, there will need to be continuous training, guidance, and opportunities for them to collaborate with their fellow educators.

All About Me- EDU 671

My name is Lisa Carbone. I'm 28 years old and have been teaching second grade in San Diego at the Poway Unified School District for the last three years. I love my job very much, and am excited to further my education by completing my MATLT through Ashford University. My goal is to continue to grow into a stronger educator with each school year, and to continually improve my curriculum to keep my students engaged and excited about learning.

Even just from my first year of teaching to my third year, I have noticed a push for greater integration of technology into the classroom. I enjoy technology and definitely see a place for it in the classroom, but I would say I am fairly technologically literate, so I am excited to continue learning from the various courses that make up my MATLT.

I began this blog 4 years ago for a course while I was getting my teaching credential, and never really continued on with it. I actually forgot about it until I was required to blog for my last course. It was great to read posts that I published several years ago, and I'm excited to continue working on it now. The only thing I am struggling with is changing the title of my blog, since I created it four years ago. I will work on changing the title.

Blogging as a Learning Tool

I realized by visiting www.blogger.com that I had an existing blog from about five years ago. As part of one of my prerequisites for my teaching credential program, I took a course where we were required to set up and blog to share with our classmates. It was neat to see and review the posts I had created several years ago. Some of the topics I blogged about were interactive classrooms and ELL students. I definitely believe that a blog can be a great platform for creating a hands-on learning activity. I believe that a blog can be an effective learning tool in creating space for students to "convene" and share ideas outside of the four walls of their classroom. At my school several of the upper-grade classes have a classroom blog. Through the classroom blog teachers and students can post in a place where they feel safe and comfortable to share information and their views on a specific area of the curriculum they may be focusing on at the time. Students and teachers are able to comment on the posts, helping to further student learning beyond the classroom.

A con of blogging could be that they can require maintenance and a lot of up keep in order to keep them organized, up to date, and active. Without putting in time and blogging and posting on a regular basis, then the blog will not be as effective as it could be. Also, technology is ever changing, so just when you feel comfortable with blogging or a certain format that you may be using, you may have to be ready to adapt and make changes.

Pros of blogging include that you have a platform to instantly share information and views with others. Also, a pro of blogging is being able to reach a specific group of people. Like I mentioned, some teachers have set up blog specifically for their classrooms. Reaching a specific group of people is a pro because as the teacher or student posting, you are aware of exactly who your audience is. It also allows people to feel safe and comfortable, which makes them more likely to take risks with their learning.

An Inclusive Classroom

I believe that it is extremely important for all teachers to create an inclusive learning environment for their students, especially when it comes to English Language Learners. For ELL students, going to a school where they will be learning in a language that is not their native tongue must not only be extremely challenging, but very intimidating as well. I think that in order for these students to truly thrive and succeed in school, they must not be exposed to a segregated learning environment, but rather an inclusive learning environment, which allows for a sense of equity throughout the classroom.

In the textbook, “Learning to Teach Everyone’s Children”, Carl Grant and Maureen Gillette describe one teacher’s (Mr. Rice’s) classroom. I really enjoyed the description of Mr. Rice’s third period class because it allowed me to actually visual an inclusive classroom and see what it would look like to have a variety of students from different backgrounds working together to complement each others’ strengths. For example, Mr. Rice may pair a student who has great verbal and speaking skills with an English learner student who may lack these skills. I think this is a great idea because it not only allows students to work together and collaborate in small groups, but it also gives students like the English Language Learners the opportunity to work and learn in a less intimidating, less stressful one-on-one environment.

Grant and Gillette make an excellent point when they explain how segregated classrooms create an underclass of students, which leaves these students feeling like they do not measure up to or fit in with the rest of their peers. It is inevitable that with segregated education and classrooms one group will feel inferior to the other, which is why an inclusive educational environment is so important. Feelings of inferiority can really limit students not only in education, but also in life in general.




Gillette, Maureen, Grant, Carl. “Learning to Teach Everyone’s Children” Equity, Empowerment, and Education That Is Multicultural. Thomson Wadsworth, a part of the Thomson Corporation: 2006