Saying "Good Bye" to the Smart Board...

After the privilege of using the Smart Board and the Elmo, I had to say good bye. It was a great experience learning how to use this technology and it was a lot of fun. Something I noticed is that when you are teaching something with technology it is important that it is not direct instruction. We are working with digital natives here and they have to be hands on to be on the level of understanding, because they know more than we do. I am very impressed that whenever there was a problem with a students' computer an other student was already fixing or knew what to do. I am very grateful for the experience to have learning this strategy of teaching with technology because I don't want students to ever find technology boring. I was glad we did the webquests in our class because in the final project I did the students mostly said things that they learned on their own on the webquest discovering it on their own. I am glad that I learned the students did better actually doing it instead of just being showed the site and me telling them what to do. It was harder to have all of the material for all five of the civilizations for every lesson, however, discovering their own was the most beneficial of them all. I am glad that technology played a role in the discovery because the students were able to connect with the abstract of ancient times better to their daily life. Some students even engaged with their civilization they did research online at home and the next day came to me with facts about the civilization. I am also grateful for the school I was at because they have two computer labs, which made for easy access. It was never a problem to schedule it and I am glad that those students have access to the lab before and after school. The students do use the lab to their advantage. I never was able to see the students that were there before school, but there were some that were there after school. Overall I had a good experience and I learned a lot from the experience. One thing that stands out to me is that nothing EVER goes as planned. Nothing is more constantly than change and I definitely learned that there had to always be a plan B.