The field experience that my partner and I had with technology was great. I feel that I learned a lot from the experience. I have a Mac laptop, which I find as a strength to be able to use with technology today. That is the system that the school used as well as all of Provo School District. I have had my Mac for almost 3 years now and almost every day I am learning something new. There are endless possibilities with Macs whether it is iMovie, Garage Band, Photo Booth, and more. We did use Photo Story to create our digital story, but converted it so it could be shown on my Mac. In our classroom we had a smart board, which the board hooks up to your Mac. It was amazing to know to show the students information it was easy as 1,2,3. What I created on my Mac the students were able to see that information instantly as it was projected on the interactive board.
A weakness of mine from the UNI survey was demonstrating awareness of resources for adaptive assistive devices for students with special needs. The Apple website has a section called Apple in Education -Special Needs where it discusses the special features that Mac's have to help students with the following disabilities: Literacy and Learning Disabilities, Vision Disabilities, Hearing Disabilities and Physical and Motor Skill Disabilities. It is an online tutorial that explains things like the iChat where hearing impaired students can see others using sign language to speak to them. As a future teacher I could put my lessons into sign language so that child could engage and interact with the class. It would be important for that student to have access to a Mac computer. As a goal to help me in the future I need to be aware of assistive devices for students with special needs. Every child deserves an education regardless of their disability! For more information on the tutorial that I found: http://www.apple.com/education/special-education/
Another weakness of mine would be being able to learn how to use the technology that was available such as the smart board at the school that we were at. I have heard all about smart boards, but have not really been able to use them that much. The little that we did use them I was struggling with using the pen and when I would write on the board it would not write, as I wanted it to write. We used a graphic organizer overlay and had difficulties with that as well. In order to make my weakness a strength it will consist of me playing around with the interactive board. As a goal I need to practice more with the smart board. I am sure I will get better and be more comfortable with using this tech tool. I found a great tutorial that teaches you the basics with using the smart board such as using Math tools, communicate with others, SMART document camera, creating an assessment, and so much more. To find out more with the tutorial: http://www.smarttech.com/us/Resources/Training/Training+Search This tutorial will further my professional growth by being experienced and educated with smart boards. I will be able to know how they work and what I can be able to do with them in my classroom.
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