Observing Cooperating Teacher
What software applications and hardware is your cooperating teacher(s) using in the classroom? Document both hardware and software.
The hardware and software my cooperating teacher uses in the classroom are our ELMO projector, SmartBoard, Google Slides, Google Docs, RenWeb, Microsoft Word Documents, Slidesgo/Slidesmania, Storyline Online, and digital timers.
Describe how your cooperating teacher(s) uses the software applications and hardware.
My teacher uses our ELMO projector on a regular basis to model things on the SmartBoard. All you have to do is click a button and the screen changes to what is being shown on the projector. Speaking of SmartBoard, my teacher uses this to display her morning meeting slides, to show morning school announcements, as well as to show videos or infographics to our students. My teacher uses Google Slides every day for her morning meeting as she can be interactive with some of her slides. She also uses creative slide templates, such as Slidesgo or Slidesmania, to make the slides look more fun and engaging. When I observed on Friday, my teacher also used an app called Storyline Online to do some interactive read alouds. This isn’t an often occurrence, though. She uses digital timers a lot as well to get the students to move a little quicker. Once the timer goes off, the students are expected to be in their seats quietly. These timers can include a fireworks display, races, a candle burning, etc. She only uses Microsoft Word for personal notes to help her remember what she needs to accomplish. She uses Google Docs on Sunday’s when she lesson plans. All of her lesson plans are organized by the date she plans to use them. They are all saved in her Google Drive. She posts these lesson plans to RenWeb, which is a software St. Dominic uses to notify parents of upcoming lessons, homework assignments, projects, or tests.
What software applications and hardware are facilitating/impeding the conditions that make teaching possible?
The few hardware and software I would like to mention that truly facilitates making teaching possible are the ELMO projector, SmartBoard, Google Slides, and Google Docs.
How so?
The ELMO projector, SmartBoard, and Google Slides are used everyday in my teacher’s classroom. With both the ELMO projector and SmartBoard, students are able to see clearly what the objectives for the day are, as well as how my teacher wants my students to get things done. In first grade, there needs to be a lot of modeling done. Otherwise, the students will not know what to do. This has happened to me before when I didn’t use the technology at all. My students were just writing random things down on their papers because they weren’t shown on the projector how it should be done. Her Google Slides are also very creative and my students like to look at them for information. My teacher clearly lays everything out in an easy to follow format, so the students can identify all of the information needed to learn. The SmartBoard is used to display all of these things. Without the SmartBoard, we wouldn’t be able to view the Google Slides or other documents clearly. We also use the SmartBoard to display videos that go along with certain lessons, as well as infographics or graphic organizers. Google Docs is also important as it allows my teacher to organize and structure her lessons. She provides the time everything is taught and the standards she is meeting. I would like to adopt this style of lesson planning when I become a teacher and have my own classroom one day. We don’t use Storyline Online for actual instruction; it is used more to get the students to calm down at the end of the day. However, I can see how Storyline Online can be beneficial for students. They can hear how things are pronounced, as well as understand who is speaking, how sentences should be expressed, etc. I personally think that the digital timers don’t really add anything to make teaching more meaningful. They are just there again to get the students to calm down. I understand that some students actually need timers so they know they have a certain amount of time to get their work done, but my teacher doesn’t use the timers for that specific purpose.
ED 386 Educational Technology - Lauren's Blog 