Week 13

Since I blogged last week about Social Networking tools, I thought that I would blog this week about some of the things that I have noticed pertaining to technology within the classroom. I was happy to see that this classroom was rich in technology tools, however I would like to note that I was disappointed in how they were used.
The first technology tool that I found rather interesting was the Promethean board, much like a smart board. I didn't really know what either of these tools were until I started my field work in this classroom. I liked this Promethean board. It seemed like a very useful tool within the classroom in that you can have a worksheet with different math problems on this board. You can add to the board, and much to my suprise, you can even take away from the board. I was suprised to see that the teacher was able to erase even what she dowloaded to project onto the promethean board. I would be interested to see how that program works exactly, however we were unable to have time to go over it. I was disappointed that the teacher didn't have the students use this board as much as she used it herself. I was also disappointed when one of the students asked the teacher a question about how to do something on the promethean, and she responded with, "we are doing Math right now."
A second feature that I was suprised at was that there are 15 MAC desktop computers. These computers were really nice, and I was suprised to see that they hadn't been used for about 4 days. I finally asked her if she used the computers much, and I think she may have been a bit embarrased. She did say she had an activity planned for after recess, and they did some sort of webquest to learn about different Biomes. I was mainly just suprised to see that these resources were so readily available, but she didn't use them. It seemed like they could do their bell work that they do everyday on some type of computer program.
In the future, when I have my own classroom, I only hope to have a classroom that is as technologically full of resources as this classroom. I would love to use a promethean board, and allow my students to be able to experiment with creating programs and presentations for this board. I would also like to use these tools more than this teacher did, as they will only help students to become up to date with the world.