No more chalk...

I love learning about new technology, especially if it can be used in the classroom.  The other night, I took a workshop on using the SmartBoard in the classroom.  The SmartBoard is an interactive whiteboard.  Yes, you can write on it as you would a chalkboard or a whiteboard.  Even better, you can create interactive presentations with pictures, words, shapes.  You can also interactively explore websites.  My only hope is that my future classroom already has one installed, and that I do not have to wait for the budget to allow for one.  The ideas are already running rampant in my head...

SmartBoard Ease of Use Video from YouTube.com:

My turn in front of the class

I recently had the opportunity to microteach.  Microteaching for my class is presenting a brief overview, or anticipatory set, of the topic we are to discuss that week.  Because there are more students in class than we have weeks of class, some of us had to group up for our microteaching.  I grouped with two of my peers to present on anticipatory sets.  We met with our professor a week before we were to present; she gave us an overview of what she was looking for us to do... and the rest was up to us. 

We were each going to present ideas that we created for the anticipatory sets in our resource unit plans, and seek peer feedback of how they are effective, what could be changed to make them better, etc.  I found a website where you can create your own animated cartoon, GoAnimate, and created one.  It took longer than I expected with formatting the time for each section to be long enough to read the text, but now that I have done one the next will be that much easier.

A wrench in the works... I no sooner finished my animated cartoon, and my professor decided she would much rather I take a different direction in my part of the presentation.  Having experience working in the business world, last minute changes are second nature to me.  In business, nothing is final until the exact moment of the presentation.  I remember many times staying after the normal business hours to modify presentation materials because the president of the company decided what we had created was no longer what he wanted to present.  I can honestly say because of those experiences, I work well underpressure and with last minute deadlines.  It gives me a rush of sorts.

Well, our time in front of the class finally came.  We had some technical difficulties at first.  The computer was not working, so we were going to switch classrooms with another class for the first part of the class.  And then...apparently, the computer somehow became unplugged.  I presented on the importance of anticipatory sets, and how they are to just give a taste of what is to come.  They should not overwhelm students.  As an example, I presented a picture of a teacher bringing in an elephant to teach about the color gray.  I also taught the class an acronym I learned from a teacher during one of my fieldwork observations, KISS- keep it simple silly.

The Final Stretch

I'm starting to feel like a marathon runner, hoping I've trained enough to make it to the end with just as much stamina and energy as when I started.  We are in the final few weeks of class, and our focus has shifted from learning our foundations to putting them into action through the creation of our resource unit plan wikis.  
Teachers need so much creativity and flexibility to develop activities for their students.  They must consider the different learning styles and abilities of their students, and ensure the activities can be used by all either directly or with modifications.  They also need to make them interesting.  These are the things I have to consider when creating my anticipatory sets and enabling activities.  Trust me, it's not as easy as it sounds!  Thankfully, we have learned about various web tools for creativity; and I have even found a bunch more on my own.  Just for my anticipatory sets, I've used Wordle (creates word clouds), Voki (a speaking avatar), TeacherTube (an educational YouTube), and GoAnimate (animated cartoon).