Pinterest

        

         I am a huge believer that teachers should use as many resources on the internet as possible in order to create and gain new ideas for inside the classroom.  As I have browsed through the internet I have noticed that there is one site in particular that I absolutely love for obtaining new ideas.  This site is called Pinterest, and is safe to say that I am pretty obsessed with this site.  This site offers so many tools and ideas that could really help a teacher inside of his or her classroom.  Infact a few of my previous blogs have had pictures and ideas based on what I saw on Twitter.
          What exactly is Pinterest?  Pinterest is a site that is made up of pictures and comments.  You can log in by either making up your own username and password, by using your google account, or by simply linking Pinterest to your Facebook account.  After logging on to this site you have the option to follow absolutely anything you want.  What is awesome about this site is that you can follow absolutely anything you want.  The purpose of this is to share photos and ideas with everyone on the internet.  There is also a search engine on the top of this site where you can search anything from quotes to first grade geometry lesson plans.  I personally use this site as a tool to gain ideas for lesson plans, and organization.  I have even searched study tips in order to pass a test.  If you come across something that you do not want to lose you can pin the picture to one of your boards.  You can create as many boards as you want, with as many pictures as you want.  It is unlimited. 
         Teachers can really benefit from this site because they can search holiday project ideas, classroom organization ideas, and even classroom management ideas.  A first grade teacher that I interned with during my senior year of high school used Pinterest for everything.  Her classroom looked like it belonged on Pinterest for people to pin on their boards.  For example, during the last couple weeks before summer she bought a blow up pool that was the size of her rug during morning meeting.  She used this pool in her classroom as a tool to get her students to be engaged in learning.  If they were well behaved they had the ability to read and do work inside of the blow up pool.  I thought this was a fantastic idea because the students responded perfectly.  The pool was a form of positive reinforcement for behaving well.  She got this idea from Pinterest, and has been using it ever since. 
        Teachers can also benefit from Pinterest for project ideas.  If you search Halloween crafts for first graders, or anything along the lines of that, a handful of ideas will appear on the screen.  What is awesome is that Pinterest also provides links to other sites on the internet with actual documents to print out for the said project.  I truly love this site, and I know I will use it in my future.  I will recommend this site to everyone because it is just so full of information. 

Time Out

Positive Parenting Connection

           As a future educator I believe that there is a proper way to deal with children who misbehave in the classroom.  What I like most about the education field is that I have already had 19 years of experience of what it is like to have a good and a bad teacher.  Although I have had many amazing teachers throughout my educational career, I have also had some teachers that are not that great.  One teacher in particular is the reason why I am so against to the well known consequence called a Time Out.
           When I was in the fourth grade I was a very shy student.  I did not talk much during class because I was just afraid to answer a question and be wrong.  My teacher finally had enough of my shyness, and called me out in front of my entire class.  She told me specifically that if I did not begin to participate in class she would put me in time out.  I was very confused because it was not like I was misbehaving I was just extremely shy.  I was so upset that my teacher embarrassed me in front of all of my classmates that I just began to cry.  She then made me sit in the back of the class and did not ever come over to me to talk to me individually. 
           Luckily I have also had some amazing teachers.  In fact I remember a technique that my third grade teacher mastered wonderfully.  She had a system called "moving out rockets".  This consisted of a behavior chart.  At the start of the day my rocket started at as being "Right on track".  Throughout the day we could either move up two categories which was "Awesome, lets keep moving", and "Outstanding, you got to the moon", which meant that our behavior was awesome.  On the other hand we also had the option of moving down two categories if we were misbehaving.  These two categories were "Off track, Lets move back up", or "Mayday we have a problem".  If we moved our rocket ship down to "Mayday we have a problem" then the teacher had the option to call home or another consequence that usually consisted of staying after school with the teacher.  What I liked most about this was that the teacher never did anything to embarrass the students who were misbehaving.  I think that this is extremely important because elementary school children are just too young for that kind of consequence. 
          I personally like to use Pinterest for ideas and articles related to teaching.  As I was scrolling through I found the picture on the top right corner of this blog where it gives alternatives to Time out.  When a child misbehaves there are so many positive ways that a teacher can use in order to get the child back on track to what the appropriate behavior is.  My favorite out of the ideas listed is "Give two choices".  Here the teacher can the student an ultimatum, one being positive and one being negative.  The student will then result in acting the correct way because they would not want the negative behavior to happen to them.  I am a strong believer that Time Out is ineffective.  A child does not learn from sitting alone, away from interaction, reinforcement, and school work.  A child is much more likely to learn from conversation, and consequences that make the student finish his or her school work.  At the bottom of this picture an article is linked to "Positive Parenting Connection" where a whole list of alternatives to Time Out is listed. 
   

Classroom Organization

One of the most important aspects to teaching is organization.  I believe that for a teacher to be successful he or she has to be organized.  I was scrolling through Pintrest one night, and came across this picture.  I thought that this picture ties in perfectly to classroom organization because of how clean, and simply organized that it is.  Everything is neatly put away, and everything has its own designated spot.  I also liked how the teacher of this classroom seemed to have color coated his or her classroom.  I think color coating a classroom is extremely important because it makes it easier for the student to know where everything is, and where to access certain things in the classroom.  Although this is only one portion of the class it makes me think about how the rest of this teachers classroom is set up.  This picture represents the type of organized teacher that I would like to be one day because it incorporates fun colors to the everyday classroom. 

Although this picture shows what it is like to be organized externally, there is also and internal aspect of teacher that requires great amount of organization.  This is the paperwork and information that comes with every student.  For instance, a teacher has to be organized in his or her grade book, and tracking the progress of each student.  This could get very confusing depending on how many students the teacher has.  After viewing many different teaching styles through my years of school, I have noticed that teachers use binders to keep themselves organized.  I am a very visual person so I believe that binders are the best way to keep organized.  Separate binders could be used for lesson plans, tracking progress of students, classwork papers, and other things that are used during teaching. 

When I was a senior in high school I was able to take EDU 210 at my high school through Southern New Hampshire University.  With this course came a field experience aspect, where I was able to intern a first grade elementary school teacher in the town that I was from.  This teacher was by far the most organized person that I have ever seen in my entire life.  Her class was very colorful and student friendly, all her books were neatly put away, and every station of her classroom was labeled for her students.  What was very impressing about this teacher was that she was very organized when it came to her lesson plans, and keeping progress of all her students.  She had her own bookshelf where she kept binders that were all hers to go back to when she needed it.  She taught me just how important it is to be organized, and I hope to be as great as a teacher as she is.  Her organization was one of the aspects of teaching that lead her to success as a first grade teacher. 

My Ed-Tech Expirience as a K-12 Student

When I was in Elementary School my experience in Ed-Tech was very limited.  I live in Pelham New Hampshire, and when I was in elementary school students lacked a lot of the benefits that they have today.  Yes, we had a computer lab but it was mainly only for the fourth and fifth graders.  I remember being in the first and second grade where our main resources were always books. I would walk down the halls of my elementary school and watch the fourth and fifth graders enter the computer lab.  I remember asking my first grade teacher Mrs. Sarris what the square things the big kids were using, and she quickly told me that they were computers.  I was fascinated by them and was so excited to learn how to use them.  I was so mad because I thought that it was unfair that we could not use these computers.  Looking back on it I believe that children of all ages should be able to use a computer to learn.  They are extremely beneficial and engaging, especially to elementary school children.  (My elementary school finally realized this, but of course it was after I graduated and moved onto middle school).

As I moved forward to the fourth and fifth grade I knew that these were the years I would be using the computers.  I was so excited because I finally felt like a big kid, and because I felt like I waited a life time to use these computers.  The first topic discussed in my computer class was what the internet was.  I was amazed because I could search and read about what ever I wanted by using Google.com.  The next topic I learned about was Microsoft word.  I loved playing with the Word Art function of Microsoft.   I could spend hours playing around with all of the fancy colors and fonts.  I loved using and learning about the computer and could not wait to see what else it could be used for. 

As I moved into middle school, I quickly realized that my computer was going to be my best friend.  I learned not only how to use Microsoft Office Word, but also how to use PowerPoint, and Excel.  I really loved using PowerPoint.  In the 8th grade my library teacher Mrs. Nelson gave us a project where she would give us a country, and we had to make a PowerPoint about our country.  I was lucky enough to have been chosen to create a PowerPoint about the best country in the world, which was Italy.  Making this PowerPoint may have been the most fun project that I had ever done.  I had used all of the knowledge I had gained throughout the years in searching for information on Italy.  I used the countries colors to format my PowerPoint, and incorporated the countries history, types of food, and the language spoken. 

During my four years of high school I am surprised that I didn't graduate without being diagnosed with carpal tunnel.  During these four years I not only used the computer for school assignments, but I was also introduced to the social media aspect of the world.  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram became three sites that I used on a daily basis to talk and communicate with my friends from school.  I quickly learned how as good as these sites are good, they are also very bad.  The amount of bullying I saw happen through social media made me sick, especially Twitter.  I got so disgusted with these sites that I made the decision to get rid of Twitter. 

My high school experience was also filled with a lot of frustration when it came to using the computers inside of the school.  Our teachers would sign out the computers for an entire class period only to sit their and watch a screen load for an hour and a half.  This was very annoying because it took ten times longer to do my homework after school.  Even when the computers did end up working, there was a 50/50 chance that it would freeze and everything would be lost or that it would just shut off.  Pelham High's technology could defiantly use some improvement.  They could have been such a valid source of information but was instead just a hassle.  Luckily I had very good internet connection at my house, and was able to get all of my work done on time.  My teachers were also all very accommodating and would give extra time if need be. 

Technology has certainly changed throughout my 19 short years of life.  Now kindergarten students are learning how to use a computer to advance their learning.  Technological discoveries are happening all of the time enhancing our way of life.  I am very excited to see what different things the computer will be able to do within the next 19 years of my life. 

What Brings You To SNHU?

Since I was little I have always wanted to be a teacher.  On weekends my sister and I would pretend that we were in school where she was the student and I was the teacher.   I would use my graded school papers that I got from the week prior, and use them to teach her what I had learned.  As I got older my passion for teaching grew more intense.  I loved learning knew topics, and loved going to school in general.  Once I entered high school my love for teaching changed in a way that I never thought it would.  My Sophomore year of high school I met a boy that changed my future.  He was a Freshmen at the time and had down syndrome.  I spent a lot of time with him throughout school, and every second was filled with nothing but laughs and smiles.  He was by far the most inspirational person I had ever met in my life.  Nothing could bring his sprits down, and always put me in the absolute best mood.  He is the reason why I am gearing towards majoring in not only Elementary Education, but Special Education as well.  As Senior year came along I began looking for colleges in order to accomplish my goal.  It took no time at all to figure out that Southern New Hampshire University was the place for me.  Walking onto to this campus just felt right, and I knew I had to go here.  As soon as I got accepted this school I made the quick decision to commit to it.  I sit here in EDU 270 and write this blog in order to show that I am on my way to accomplishing my goal.  I sit in this class ready to try as hard as I possibly can to get good grades, and I am nothing but excited to see where the future will take me.