Meryl McLaughlin: Week 4 & 5

The past two weeks have completely gotten away from me, so I have some catching up to do!


Week 4:

I really enjoyed the poetry and choral reading that was done in class. I took TE491 fall semester Junior year and it has totally opened up my eyes to poetry and the different ways it can be used in the classroom. When the class was given just a few poems to pick from to present, it was great to see all of the different ways people portrayed the poem. The poem also took on a different life when it was presented in a different fashion. Having the poem read numerous times helped to make the poems memorable to the point where on Thursday, a classmate and I still laughed about it.

I also really enjoyed brainstorming and then writing my own personal poem. Just the prompts along brought back so many found memories that it was hard to pick a few to touch on in the actual poem. This would be a great assignment to do with students when getting to know them, or even as a form of assessment on a story line of a book, etc.

Week 5:

I could not believe all of the amazing technologies we were introduced to during class this week. It was great to be able to go around and play with the technologies and have an expert there to ask questions to or show you some of the hidden tricks. I also loved how easy they were to use and feel comfortable with, even after a few minutes. The one thing I would like to see expanded on was the station of accommodation technologies. It was nice to see the different key boards and physical accessories, but there are so many wonderful digital technologies that could have been presented. Another suggestion would be show all of the different disability accessibility options with all of the other technologies presented. Through different laws at both the state and national level there are certain options every program must have or it is discrimination, I wish I would have looked more closely to see how accommodating they are to different users.

This rotation we did reminded me of something we did in one of my special education classes last semester. They had us go around and do similar things only it was focusing on low-tech accommodations instead of simply technology. It was a great experience, and we replicated it for our TE401 class, to see the simplest things can make the biggest difference.

I believe that technology used positively in the classroom can do the same thing. We are so dependent on having technology skills in today's world, that to not include technology in your classroom is really putting your students at a disadvantage. Even being in a kindergarten class I am looking at the different types of technologies I could use. I think sometimes we get too caught up in thinking about what the children can and can't do as far as GLCEs go, but there are so many ways we could be teaching children using technology and kind of "kill two birds with one stone", if you will.