M & M's Media and Methods

Based upon your own teaching experiences (if any) and the contents of this lesson, what instructional media formats interest you? What instructional methods do you currently use this instructional media within an instructional setting? How do you anticipate using this instructional media within an instructional setting in the future? Make sure that you describe specific instructional methods.

One instructional media device that I would love to give my students the opportunity to work with is a Smartboard. I was lucky enough to have one at my old school and I really enjoyed using it during large group instruction. Unfortunately, we don’t have even ONE at the school where I currently teach, although the rumor is that we are supposed to be getting one for the whole school to share soon.

So for the time being, I use the 6 computers that I have in my classroom and the computer lab to enhance my lessons. I would have to say that I use the World Wide Web frequently when addressing the standards that I am teaching. Whether it is in social studies and the students are logging on in small groups or individually to become the historian and see how the First Thanksgiving went http://www.plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html or using virtual manipulatives at http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_322_g_2_t_1.html to get a better understanding of the math concept that they might happen to be studying. The instructional methods that I use when doing this could be individual inquiry, peer-buddy learning, small group assistance or whole group lecture. I really try to vary my methods, based on what the students might need at the time, depending on the subject or the difficulty level.
Another media that you might see used in my classroom if you would happen to stop by would be videos. Whether it is a video that is being played via the telecenter or a clip that I pulled up on Discovery Education, it is just another way to get the information across to students. If students have read about an event in history, and then watch a video clip about it, and then act it out in class, you certainly have a better chance of remembering that event. I would have to admit that these are used in conjunction with a class lecture, for the most part.
One media that I hope to start using more in the future is Gaggle blogs. The students in my class all have gaggle accounts in which I can email them information and they can email me assignments and keep in touch with their classmates. For the last two years I have noticed that students can also have a blog connected with that account. Since I have never had time to get a good understanding of what blogs are and what I can do with them in the classroom, I just always keep that component of the program turned off. Now that I am maintaining a blog for this class, I can see how I can use it in my classroom as well. I think that explicit teaching would be the method that I would use to introduce the concepts of blogs to the students.
By taking the class Introduction to Instructional Technology 6010, I hope to become familiar with other medias and become comfortable enough with them to use them in my classroom, using a variety of methods.