Reflection Paper

Reflection Paper

Tina Elliff

University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Reflection Paper

         The final project turned out to be something I really enjoyed. At first I didn’t know how I felt about it, I thought it was more complicated than it actually was. I was overthinking the assignment overall! I randomly thought about the we played Kahoot in class and realized no one was using it. I felt that Kahoot has all the elements to match the assignment requirements. The teacher is quizzing each individual while making it fun and interactive!  I created my own question and answers, and played around on it for quite some time so I could get a feel of the website and a better understanding of it. I feel as though I will definitely use this website when I become a teacher in the future! Just the fact that you can make up your own quiz and have the students take the test could really help students out tremendously. The students who might be afraid to ask questions during class because they fear judgment might pick the wrong answer but no one has to know who isn’t understanding the material all that well!  Its anonymous so no one has to know what the student picked for their answer, as long as they don't tell anyone. Some kids are self-conscious and worried that they are going to be wrong, but with Kahoot you don’t have to worry about it, the teacher reads the question out loud, and then elaborates the answer to the students after everyone picked an answer. It gives the students who picked the wrong answer a better understand of why they are wrong and how they can fix it and they get to figure it out as a class! I am very happy with the choice I made using Kahoot for my final project! I feel as though a lot of people like this website. I never heard about it until we played it in class, and I found it to be a lot of fun! It’s still giving a learn perspective while having fun on the iPads as well. The only problem with pulling Kahoot into the classroom is making sure they are staying on the right task, and not just goofing around on other websites, or picking the wrong answers on purpose. I don’t see that becoming an issue, but if it does I think taking the iPad away from which ever person is doing it! Just pulling your students in and making learning fun will keep then entertained for the most part. A lot of troubled students just don’t feel they are smart enough so just give up on the classroom setting! Lots of encouragement can put them back on track.

            Teaching and Learning in Digital Environments has been my favorite class this semester even though we meet once a month! I have learned a lot about teaching this semester and it’s made me that much more excited about teaching! I love how this semester we got to read different articles on using technology in the school settings. My favorites were reading about iPads in the school system just because I have always been against it, then the articles went and gave me entire new perspective on teaching in general! I use to want to teach 10^th or 11^th grade but I definitely want to teach 9^th just from listening to you talk about the kids! I think I have more to offer for 9^th or 10^th graders then I do the upper grades anyways. I like the lesson plans better for the 9^th graders and I think that is where I would do best at.  Reading about different things to use in a classroom changed my perspective about how to teach! I use to feel that technology would be super distracting for the students and that I would want them to pay attention to what I’m saying. In reality it would be harder for the students to just sit and listen to me talk, mixing in some technology would make learning for the student’s fun! Talking about gamification and using different types of badges seemed like a very important topic, and activity to use! Grades can seem overrated sometimes so badges gives students a different look on how to be graded on things, I think they will put more of an effort into learning! I just picture a troubled kid that sees his grade and sees that he is failing and giving up, but giving the troubled kid a reason to work hard and try to succeed with awards such as badges definitely changes that troubled students perspective on learning, not only does he have one badge now two, three four, he finally is feeling like he is doing something right and not failing everyone. I’ve seen it with the kids when I was in high school myself! I just feel like I understand high schoolers a lot better than little kids. I also never realized how important blogging has been, but I think it plays a huge role in English. It will really help students understand what is being talked about in class, along with grammar and writing errors in general! I love just learning new ideas to use inside the classroom, I have all these ideas I put them in my notebook on my phone and hope to use them one day! Another thing I never thought I would bring into my classroom is twitter! At the beginning of the year I was kind of thinking why do we need twitter of all things, what is the point? Using twitter can be so important if you let it, it gives you a chance to interact with other students in your class and get to know one another. Not only that, but if you need a quick answer to a question such as, “What is due for today, or what is our next class meeting?” Someone is willing to answer that for and help you out. I think twitter will be great for classmates to interact and get to know each other. Even using it as a ticket out the door would be great, maybe even making them tweet another person in the classroom about classroom related things giving them a chance to get to know people outside their friend groups!