From+the+Heart

  From The Heart   ﻿   Taking this technology class was the most refreshing thing for me. I was wondering if what I was doing was right for me. I have been thrown into a bunch of classes that I have no interest in and it has been a trial for me trying to figure out why I was in them. This class was the first class of my college career that I have enjoyed it immensly for multiple reason. So many of my classes have nothing to do with the educational field, which is the one place that I truly want to be in my education. I have spent my life in classrooms being the student I feel like it is my turn to be the teacher. This class opened my eyes that this is exactly what I want to do with my life even though I was not directly working with children. I enjoyed making the lesson plans, and creating things that I could present in a classroom. I have always thought that I had no artistic ability, and as far as a pencil and paper I do not, but in this class I was able to create things that were artistic. I enjoyed making different projects and having them turn out to be wonderful. I enjoyed creating the lesson plans, and pretending as though I really was creating an online classroom for a group of students and their parents. It was like I was younger preparing lesson plans to teach my brothers and cousins again, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I know that I can work with children, and love every minute of it, but I was a little conserned about the creating the lessons, but I enjoyed getting to try it out. I discovered that I enjoyed creating the lessons just as much as I enjoy working with children. This class, and the creating the unit with technology has solidified what I have always known, and that is that without a doubt I am going to be a teacher some day. In writing my unit I learned a lot about what it will be like to be a teacher. I learned that I had to be creative in every little detail so that I could create something that everyone would enjoy. I learned that it is not an easy task to plan ahead for a unit. Things are always changing, I had to change my lessons as I went along. If I learned something new, or had a new idea I would be there adjusting my lesson plans, and my unit overview. I learned that you always have to be prepared to make these changes. I also learned that working with technology can be incredibly frustrating if you do not quite understand how it works, but when you learn how to use different applications it becomes a wonderful tool in teaching. I am the most proud of how hard I worked on each and every project, and the end result of each project. I think that in order to be a teacher that is so important to put 110 percent into every single thing that they do including just the lessons. I am most proud of my Microsoft projects. I never knew what Microsoft was capable of doing, but I was amazed at the end results of both of my products. They were beyond any word document or PowerPoint that I had ever created. I was so anxious to show people. I showed several different people my products, and they were just as amazed as I was. For this technology unit I found myself running out of ideas. I did not always know what to expect when creating my projects, and so I was a little suprised at the project that I ended up with, and what I had originally planned. Since I did not know much about the applications that we were using, I found that some of my projects did not fit. After some adjustment they began to fit really well. Now that I know some of the different applications I think that it will change how I can make my units using technology. One thing that I would do with my unit is I like the tutorials of how to create the projects. I would include tutorials especially for the projects in which I expected them to complete. As far as changing my unit and how I crafted it I do not think that I would change it. I really liked how my lessons flowed, and the technology interlinked itself throughout my lessons. My biggest worry of technology is that there are still a lot of bugs. While it is constantly improving, technology still has its flaws. I also worry that the school systems are moving towards a completely technolgy based approach to all aspects in the classroom. Just in being in college I have taken several online classes, and I have seen that there is no need for the classroom anymore, there is only a need for a computer, and a teacher who recieves the work completed by the students. I do think that online classes are wonderful, and I would prefer to take them for many reasons, but it stops me from going out into the world and dealing with people, and problem solving. I can simply e-mail someone when I have a problem and it does not necessarily solve any problem that I am having, I think that to resolve a conflict it is important to deal with people. Another thing that saddens me about the thought of moving towards a complete technology based curriculem is that I will lose contact with the students. In order to work through my worries about technology I am going to continue to work with it. I know that it is constantly changing so I need to keep up with the changes, so that I can best assist my students in using technology. I can also see the benefits of working with technology, and I think that alleviates my fears about technology. I know that it will improve the students in their education by using technology, and I do not ever want to hold my students back because of my fears. I am generally fascinated by technology. When I see the capabilities that technology has it is mind boggling. The thing that intrigues me most about technology is how it changes. It only takes a moment and then there is something new out there that has new capabilities. I look back to when I was in elementary school, and I did not know what the internet was. It was not until I was about eleven years old that I even started using the internet, and then it was a very restricted use. I did not even get my first e-mail until I was about fourteen years old. Now my youngest of cousins already have them. I can not believe how technology changes. Teaching: I am beyond excited to be a teacher. I am counting down the semesters until I can work in the classroom with children. I am looking foward to getting to bring new information to these children, and to see them grow and expand. I look foward to being able to run my own classroom and make the rules. I want to be the one who helps these children to learn a million new things. I want them to leave my classroom and never feel unprepared in the years to come. I will be teaching in the twenty-first century classroom. As I previously stated technology is growing, and we must learn to grow with it. There are more possibilities for the children when working with technology. They are learning skills that they can carry with them through life. They need to learn to use different presentational methods, and they need to learn to utilize the tools provided to them to learn. They need to be able to learn by interacting, and technology has an interactive approach to learning. I just want to make a difference. Even if I only make a difference in one childs life, and education I will feel as though I have had the most successful career. I want to help children to change and to grow. I want to see them become the most successful they can be, and I want to instill in them the tools necessary to be successful. I want them to always feel like they have a place where they can learn, and express themselves safely without the hurt of others. I would like to be able to teach them the useless, and not so useless information that I know, and I would like them to take it in. I want for them to just learn, and if the difference that I make is that they learn something new everyday, then I have been successful.