My 21st Century Classroom

This I Believe



This is my "This I Believe" video. I read my essay on what I believe a teacher should do. I briefly describe a positive experience I had with my second grade teacher. I then reflected on the assignment as a whole.



My Classroom

I especially want my classroom to promote collaboration. For that reason, I made sure I had tables instead of desks. At each table, I have six chairs. I want the students to feel they can collaborate with one another, and learn about others ideas. Many teachers would be concerned about cheating, but I feel having the students sit this way would be more beneficial than harmful. I want them to feel like they can discuss topics and agree or disagree on certain things.
I also really want my classroom to be about student centered learning. To do this, I created two areas using the square rugs for a place where the students can all gather around and participate in activities. In the corner, I put a reading center because I feel like reading is crucial for the students development. There's a couch and beanbag chairs so the students can feel comfortable and have their own time to read. I also put a book stand so I could read to my students as a group.
My classroom construction also focuses on communication. I want my students to feel comfortable communicating with me and each other. That is why I chose to place multiple students at one table, and provided a couple of seats at the reading area. I also want my students why I have an interactive smart board. The students can work on problems together using it. They will also be able to use it to communicate to others outside the classroom about our current topics.



Rituals and Routines

The first routine I want my class to take part in is to incorporate communication. I provided four tables for the students so that each day of the a week a different table of students gets to spend an hour in the reading corner of the classroom.

The student's will get a chance to read a book of their choice and ask one another questions about different books. On the fifth day of the week, I will gather all the students in the reading corner, and read a story to them. They will then get time to ask me questions as well.





Also, to promote accessibility, I placed an interactive smart board in the classroom.

Each day my students will gather around the board, and we will use internet resources to get more information on a topic we are currently learning about. Prior to class I will find a reliable resource that the students will easily be able to understand.






To create inquiry based learning in my classroom, at the end of each day I will give the student's time to ask me any questions that they still had after going over all of our current material.

I will use this time to clear up anything my students are uncertain about, or to provide more information on the things the students are interested in.













Instructional Glimpse

A typical lesson that would occur in my classroom would be something that gets all of my student's involved. I want to incorporate the use of technology in a way that is simple enough for younger students to understand. If I was teaching math, I want to use visual examples on a PowerPoint to show the students exactly what is going on in each problem. I created an example of this on my blog during our PowerPoint Project.



My Technology Integration

In class we used Twitter to share our educational ideas and look at those of others. I had never thought of using Twitter like this, so the idea really intrigued me. I began following a lot of early childhood education teachers and they shared so many useful ideas. As a teacher, I plan to do the same thing. I plan to tweet my lessons and unique ideas I come up with for others to use. I also want to publish the work of my students to show their progress.

I also learned to use Glogster. It's a new way to create fun and intriguing presentations. I used Glogster briefly in class and really enjoyed it. Both myself and my students would be able to benefit from using it. I could create presentations for them that would also be visible to other teachers and students for their use as well. My students could also use this to get ideas from other students and teachers around the world.

PLN

After taking SEDU 183, I plan to expand my PLN in all different ways. As schools become more technologically innovated, I want to move with the times. In order to do so, I will most definitely use many of the technology based tools we learned about and used. I also want to keep using social media websites. At first, the thought of using these to stay connected with teachers and my classmates was unusual, but I have grown to see it is beneficial. I think the younger a child starts to learn about technology, the better they will adjust to the current changes going on in school's and curriculum. As an early childhood educator, I feel the need to become well versed in these changes to promote them to my students. I want to have up to date computers and other technological tools in my classroom, and be open to the idea of tests and homework online. I also want to maintain a blog for different purposes, such as getting ideas from other teachers.








Annotated Bibliography

"Classroom Architect." Classroom Architect. ALTEC at the University of Kansas, 2000. Web. 07 May 2012.
Classroom architect was an extremely helpful resource. I used it to design a model of my potential classroom. It was really easy to use and I had fun doing it too.

"What Is Glogster EDU." What Is Glogster Edu? Web. 07 May 2012.
Glogster is a tool I have used in class before, and definitely plan to use in the furture. It provides ways to create presentations and share them with others.

"Twitter." Twitter. Web. 07 May 2012. .
Twitter is a useful resource when it comes to sharing and finding information. I want to use it in my future classroom after having used it in class recently.