Virtual Tours

After reading Chapter 12, it made me realize that I have never really thought of using the internet when teaching Social Studies. In the First Grade, Social Studies is one of the subjects that is not given a weighted grade at my school. We give S for Satisfactory, N for Needs Improvement and U for Unsatisfactory. Honestly, it is one of the subjects that usually get cut if we run out of time in the time. I thoroughly enjoy teaching Social Studies and feel the integrating the computer in my lessons would make it more enjoyable. One thing in Chapter 12 that I liked, was taking a virtual trip on internet sites to see places that students could not easily go in real life. Many of my students have never traveled out of the state of Alabama. I feel that taking a virtual trip to places to let them get a better feel for what it is like in other places around the United State or even the world. We do a unit in First Grade called “Christmas Around the World”. Each First Grade Teachers picks a country and teaches students the different customs and traditions of the country. I have used the internet to look up a variety of information on my chosen country. It would be interesting to find a website on my chosen country that was student friendly. That way they could navigate themselves and find out more about that country. The internet is such a useful tool; it is just up to us as teachers to utilize it properly in the classroom.

How to use technology in Mathematics and Science

After reading Chapter 11 on integrating technology into Mathematics and Science, it made me realize how far technology has come since I was in elementary school. We used to play Math games like Number Munchers on the old apple computers with green screens. There was only one computer lab at the school and we were lucky to go once a week. These days computers are used as learning centers in the classroom. Students have easier access to computers and have a greater knowledge of how to use them than I did at their age. Computers can offer students who are struggling in Math a chance to get extra practice on a skill that they need help with. This provides the struggling student not only a learning experience, but entertainment at the same time. One of the Math programs that are popular at my school is called Batter Up. The students can do addition, subtraction and multiplication. They also can pick the level of difficulty from easy, medium, or hard. This allows students to have a chance to play but on their own personal level.
One thing that I like to do with a Science lesson is pull up pictures of animals that the students have never seen before. Another use we have for the computer is using it to look up the weather. We have a calendar that we discuss daily and weather is included on it. Math and Science are two of the easiest subjects I feel to integrate technology into.