Frustrations

Working on the belief statement video was very frustrating.  At first I had no idea what I was doing or how I was even going to do it.  I wrote the paper, that was the easy part.  Now putting in on video was so much harder.  I had my mom email pictures of me around the time I was in first grade since that was what my paper was about. Now I had to decide what i was going to do with those so I didn't have to video tape myself (which is just as awkward).  So during class I decided that I would at least record myself on Garage Band and figure out all the rest later, little did I know how frustrated I would get.  I emailed myself the finished project of reading my paper.  It opened on Itunes and I was relieved.  I figured out that my computer has Windows Movie Maker so I would add all my pictures to that and use my recording to work with.  I got my recording up but then my pictures didn't work.  Since my mom had scanned them on to the computer, the pictures would open using something that the computer wasn't used to.  So I was in a panic.  I got really upset cause I knew I had a time limit to finish this.  I texted my mom and she knew what to do.  So she resent the pictures, and they opened in the Movie Maker program.  The hardest part was over.  I had to pick the pictures I wanted and the length I wanted each picture to be on the screen to match the story.   I added some songs from Google.com to the file because some just didn't fit the recording.  So I got all of them matched up and saved the file.  It was so nice to be done and all that I had to do was put it on the internet.  I took my flash drive to class and it wouldn't work on those computers so I started to panic again, "all that hard work, down the drain!" I thought to myself.  Well I could have said it out loud.  So I took it back to my room and worked on it there, everything was still on my flash drive.  I uploaded the video to YouTube.com and then listened to the video and I realized that the timing on the video was off, so I had to go back and re-edit what I had already done.  But when I was done with all of that, I re-posted the video and listened to it again and everything was okay.  The most frustrating part was just figuring out what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.  But once I sat down and got everything together, it wasn't too hard.  I could use this tool in my future classroom for something like open house, to show the parents what their kids are doing except for just telling them.  People sometimes need a visual and I think that is a cool way to do that, since its something that they love to see.

Take the Survey!

OER

In my opinion I think that the OERs can be a good thing but also a bad thing.  OERs are convenient in the way that they are lowering the cost of books and education in general.  It is getting very hard to afford the cost of schooling for many families and this helps that situation.  But I also think that is could be a bad thing.  I don't like the fact that teachers are able to access things like tests and quizzes.  I feel that teachers should put together the quizzes on their own, that's the point of being a teacher.  If they can just print off the tests then what else would they be doing in the class since, the websites also have lessons and other things.  I think this is useful for the money factor but I'm not sure about the whole tests part.
These are links that could be useful for teachers and students:
http://p2pu.org/en/
http://openstudy.com/
http://www.oerglue.com/

Belief Statement

                 My name is Bridgit Walters and I believe teaching is about inspiration.  Inspiration doesn’t just go one way, it goes both.  The student and the teacher can be the inspirer. 

                Bellevue Elementary, first grade, Mrs. McSwaney’s classroom, who would have thought my life’s plan, would start here.  There were only a few first grade teachers in our small school, and mine was Mrs. McSwaney.  She was cheery and smart and happy and fun.  She was also patient.  In my opinion she is the picture of what a teacher should be.  Her teaching methods weren’t any different from what every other teacher did, it was just the way she carried herself in and out of the classroom.  When she had to go on maternity leave, we got a substitute teacher (of course).  For that time period, I learned to appreciate the kindness our teacher had. So when she came back it was joyous. 

                The end of the year came and past, but I ended up developing a friendship with Mrs. McSwaney.  Some days in the summer I would help her with getting her classroom ready or just helping her with her new baby.  I knew that she was someone that I wanted to be like.  All of the other years in school, I never realized that I had never made a connection with any one of my teachers like I did with her.  That’s what made her class so special.  Still to this day, we are in contact and we’ve seen each other a few times, so she still is affecting my life.  And I think I affected hers just as much as she did mine.  

                When I become a teacher I want to be able to be like that with my students.  I want them to feel comforted and I want them to see me as a teacher but I don’t just want to be seen as that, I want to be seen as more.   It’s not about having power to be a teacher, it’s about being able to get kids to want to learn and you as a teacher can’t be afraid to learn from seven year olds. 

My Top 10

1.carlyc11.blogspot.com
2.steelers01.blogspot.com
3.angelasedu183.blogspot.com
4.helffrichtyler.blogspot.com
5.jonathangreer8.blogspot.com
6.bryannabujnowski.blogspot.com
7.kailamatlock.blogspot.com
8.caitlingarden.blogspot.com
9.sasyouregonnahearit.blogspot.com
10.ladylancer.blogspot.com

Cool Tool for School

The tool that I found that would be a cool tool for school is the website edhelper.com.  This tool is perfect for teachers that plan on using worksheets and activities.  This resource has a whole bunch of stuff.  In the middle of the webpage, there is a table of contents that lists all the subjects (reading, math,science, language, etc.).  Under each one of those subjects are links to the worksheets for the subject and you can even get grade specific in each of the links.  Scrolling down the page more, there is a whole lesson plan section, monthly theme section and holiday theme section.  This website is also a way to make your classroom so much fun with all the types of themes they have.  All around the rest of the webpage are more activities that can be created by you (the teacher) such as all sorts of puzzles, word walls, and all bunch of fun stuff.  It's really easy to work with too.  All you need to do is find the subject you are looking for and look at the type of worksheets and just print them off as you go.  In my classroom I would use the worksheets that are made because they are very topic specific and would work well with my students, they would also be fun activities that students would love to do.

Inside the Classroom

    An educational issue that has risen is the thought that 1st grade classrooms aren't "warm and friendly" enough.  According to edweek.org, research that was published in the Elementary School Journal, out of 820 1st grade classrooms only 23 percent of them could say they have "high quality" in social and instructional climate. Only 31 percent were deemed high in emotional climate but the academic quality is low.  28 percent of classrooms are mediocre and the last 17 percent are low in both of the sections.  Robert C. Pianta says that finding 23 percent of classrooms that are high quality is actually a good thing. To get this information "raters" had to go to each of the 820 classrooms and getting the data.  Teachers that got the lower score were ones that didn't pay much attention to his or her students.  If the classroom got a high score it was because that teacher was interactive with their students.  This information is according to the website: http://www.education.com/reference/article/study-says-most-1st-grade-classes-not/
    This affects the students in the classroom if they are in a classroom that is low in quality.  They  might not be getting the right information or enough information.  It really benefits the students that are in the high quality classroom because then parents know that their kids are getting the best quality of eduation that they possibly can.  This could really be a problem if students aren't getting the right attention if they don't understand the subject, the teacher could be moving on to fast without helping every student out.  I think that even though Robert Pianta said that 23 percent of the classrooms is a good thing that it really isn't that great.  In every classroom students should feel they have every quality of the education they deserve.
     Someday in my first grade classroom, I plan on being with my students throughout the whole school year.  I will help them and motivate them to learn.  If a students needs extra help on something they don't understand I will make sure that they aren't being rushed and get to the understanding point to move on.  I will try to find ways for the kids to want to learn the new topics every day.  I hope that in my classroom someday that I will be able to have all the qualities of a high classroom.