Interactive Whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards are becoming more common in the classrooms.  I feel they enhance teaching and learning because it brings in new ways of teaching the children.  It creates a new pace to learning and it adds fun and creativity.  The technology was not difficult for me to use.  It took me a little getting used to and a little bit to learn everything, but I like the idea of interactive whiteboards.  There are some pros to it: it motivates students, creates a new and exciting environment for the students to learn in and I think that it also provides an alternative for students with special needs.  I think that the interactive whiteboards are an easier, more efficient way for students with special needs to have hands on practice.  I think a big con to having interactive whiteboards is that it is expensive.  I think it is a great learning tool, but for some districts that don't have the funding, they won't be able to get one because of how expensive they are.  The only lessons I'd really had to teach was the smartboard lesson and I think for my lesson I would have had a little bit more interactive practice with the money.

"educause" reading

One study found that most classrooms have internet access available but it isn't being used effectively or at all.  Most students just use the internet more for communication than they do for school work.  The internet has a wide variety of resources and information that is just waiting to be opened up and explored.  I agree with the study and it's opinion on this.  Some questions I would ask are what kind of technology resources can be used in the classroom and how can it be used effectively?

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are helpful when comparing and contrasting 2 different but similar concepts.  Using a graphic organizer puts the 2 topics side by side in an easy to read fashion.  Writing paragraphs and reports is a boring way to compare and contrast and can be a lot of writing.  Graphic organizers can be more fun and creative and definitely less time consuming.