Journal 1

Efficiency :

When I was teaching during my freshman year summer, I had a lot of trouble being on time during each activity.  I was always running over time with the class, and I was late numerous occasions of bringing the students to their patiently (not always) waiting parents.  My cell phone was the technology which helped me to really stay on track.  The new cell phone which I had just bought had three alarms instead of one like my old cell phone.  I was able to set a vibrating alarm with my phone on my waist in order to remind of different times, and from then on I was not late bringing my students back to their parents.

Community:

During high school in my A.P. Environmental Science we learned many different ideas about the environment and what encompasses these different ideas.  During this class we learned many different things, and in order to learn more, we video conferenced with other schools.  We video conferenced with different areas, about what they had learned, how they learned it, etc.  This was an awesome experience and it help us as a class come up with questions we had for the other classes.  We learned so much, and gained somewhat of a friendship with the class we worked with.  During high school the club I was a member of called Students for Envrionmental Action (SEA) video conferenced with other schools within our area (as their class period) to educate them on our watershed, and how they can help keep it clean.  The young students we worked with through video conference learned so much, and all wrote us letters of thanks for teaching them about the water shed.  

Innovation:     

I have never been an organized student, and this has been one of my biggest down falls throughout my life.  Once at college however, things changed.  The class websites such as sakia.rutgers.edu or rutgersonline.net have helped me in so many different ways.  These websites have helped me remember different due dates, helped me organize when and where things are (assignments, activites, etc), and keep me up to date on the activities and notes during class.  The addition of these websites into my school career have created an amazing improvement in my organizational skills, handing assignments in on time, and my overall school performance. 

Good Technology:

These technologies that I have listed are good technologies because they have benefited me in one way shape or form, while also benefiting the students.  Though for most of the technologies I mentioned I was the student, I can see how the different things I have mentioned could also help the teacher.  The class website seems to be at large a benefit for the teacher along with the student because the teacher does not have to give constant reminders of when things are due, and if they have something to tell the whole class they can send a large email rather then send each student an email.  Technologies that benefit someone in one way shape or another are good technologies, as long as this technology does not decrease other factors aka there are no negatives to these technologies. 

Poorly:

PowerPoint was a tool created which was supposed to help benefit students especially with teachers that have bad hand writing.  I feel that this excellent tool if used correctly can benefit students; however, it is a tool that is being used extremely wrong.  Teachers are placing their notes onto the PowerPoint, and then proceed to read directly from the slides for the entire class period.  This is not a good way to keep students attention or increase their learning.  PowerPoint needs to be combined with other teaching methods in order to be an effect way of educating students on a certain topic. 

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