Website that work... at least for my students

Since my students spend only about 30 minutes in the computer lab, 3 times a week. Therefore, most of their time is spent working on educational websites. I hope that in the future, they work more on projects, but these websites seem to be helping them with their basic reading and math skills.

manythings.org
This site has a lot of language and vocabulary practice.

elfnet.com
This is a great vocabulary site, especially for English Language Learners.

spellingcity.com
This site allows you to put in your students' spelling lists and it generates teaching, practice, and testing for them from that list.

hoodamath.com
Some of these are more fun than mathematical, but there are several good games that focus on beginning math skills.

softschools.com
This site covers a variety of topics, but I use it for the 1st grade math skills. You can also produce practice worksheets for homework or extra practice.


There are a ton of educational websites out there, and it is hard to say which ones really are the best, but it has really been through trial and error that I have found what works best for my students.

Creating a Professional Portfolio

I have to admit that at first I was not very excited about this project. Making a resume has never been one of my favorite things. However, once I got started, I had a lot of fun! I never realized that putting together samples of my work could be done in such a fun way.

There are a lot of ways to put together a digital portfolio, but I chose a website format. I thought that it would be a good idea because I could actually give the link to potential employers so that they could easily file through some of the work I have done and learn things about me that my resume does not show.

If I were going to give it to a future employer, it would definitely need some editing and tweeking first, but I am glad that I feel pretty comfortable designing a simple website because I think that will prove to be a valuable tool for me in the future.

Here is the link to my portfolio: http://web.me.com/yvette.grenz/Professional_Portfolio/About_Me.html

My Professional Development Plan

When I first started out, I was not really sure what I should develop a professional development program on. So, I started talking to other teachers, and the principal, to see what things they felt that they needed help with. Since I am at a small school (only 10 teachers) it was easy to make this a personalized experience.

Most teachers said that they were pretty familiar with Microsoft Office, or at least as it pertained to anything that they might use it for at this time. However, the one thing that all of them struggled with was how to use the technology that we have available, other than just having their students work on our mandated (and suggested websites).

So, after speaking with all of them and seeing who would actually be interested in a training session, I began to develop a session that would give them some ideas and resources. It includes some basics of PowerPoint, as well as other software that we have on our computers. From there, I went to websites and other tools that they could access for free to use in their teaching in the classroom.

I have not performed my session yet, but I hope that it will be beneficial and that even if they do not immediately implement the things that they learn, that they will feel comfortable coming to me with technology related questions in the future.

My Action-Research Project

After writing a lot of research papers over the course of graduate school, I thought that it might be interesting to take a different approach, and perform my own mini-action-research project with my students. We have recently purchased a new program for our district that is called Skills Tutor. I did not know anything about it before this semester, and my students had never used it either.

It is a really useful program because it is divided into sections for language arts, math, and other subjects. The teacher goes in and enrolls each student by giving them a username and password, and then is able to select topic areas for each individual to work on. When the student logs in they are prompted with a variety of practice tests and then guided accordingly. It also gives a score for each time they attempt a task and you can set your own passing percentage.

I have found it to be really beneficial to my students, at all levels. It is very basic, and I am not sure how well it would work for upper grade levels, but it does a great job of working with beginning letter sounds, grammar, and basic math skills.

The website is http://www.myskillstutor.com

Understanding the importance of professional development and personal growth

Before I got my first job I knew that teachers were required to attend professional devlopment seminars in order to renew their certifications, but I did not know much else about it. After attending my first district-wide staff development sessions this summer, I began to see some of the benefits. I felt like I really got to know other teachers, got a good idea of how to use the curriculum, and built relationships with some of the leaders in the district.

Now, after teaching for a semester, and having created and attended more professional development sessions, I have definitely developed an understanding about why professional development is so important. Even just working with a few older teachers who aren't as up-to-date on new teaching pedagogy has made me see how it would be easy to get set in your ways and not want to learn about new ideas.

I hope that even if I teach for 40 years, that I am still open to new ideas and continue to develop my teaching skills and keep myself informed on new trends and theories in the education field.

My future as a leader in technology

Technology is susch an exciting field to be in because it is constantly changing. Even in the year and a half that I have been in graduate school there have been a lot of new advancements in educational technology. I think that being in technology and education, my future possibilities are virtually endless.

Since I still have to wait to have taught another two years after this one before I can receive my MTT certificate, I can only imagine what changes will take place between now and then! However, once I do have my certificate, I hope that I will be able to become a technology specialist of some sort, or at least be at a school that has a very technology-rich environment.

I think that technology basics are often taught, but many simple technologies are not utilized in education to their full potential. It is my goal as an educator that no matter what type of situation I am in, I strive to teach other educators about the importance of implementing technology whenever possible and keeping yourself informed and up-to-date on recent developments.

What MTT means to me

When I began my journey in the masters program at SMU, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I attended SMU for my undergraduate degree, and was very familiar with the education program, but was not so sure what getting my Masters in Education would entail. When I sat down with my advisor to plan out my courses, I knew that I was very interested in gifted and talented education, but was at a loss for what other content area I would really want to focus in. She suggested technology because the demand for technology-proficient educators is growing so rapidly, so I agreed and jumped right in.

I had always considered myself to be fairly proficient in technolgy, but I have learned a lot throughout the program. Not only have I increased my own knowledge about ways to use softwares that I already knew about, but I have also learned that there is a lot of technology for education out there that I never knew existed.

My favorite class was the multimedia class. Despite some computer problems that prevented my from being able to do everything the best way possible, I really enjoyed learning about the various forms of multimedia and how I can use them in my classroom.

Overall, I have found the MTT program to be very beneficial. I have learned a lot already, and yet I know that I still have a lot to learn in the future. Technology is a very important part of today's education and I am happy to have vhosen to be a part of the progress.

Continuing Education

This class has made me think a lot about my own personal growth as well as my own professional development. As I come to the end of my masters program, I begin to wonder what the future will hold. I had always hoped to go to graduate school, but I feel like it really flew by quickly. However, it has been an extremely rewarding experience. It has put me back in line with a profession that I love and I have learned so much already.

I do not know what the next few years of my career will hold, but I am fairly certain that I want to begin classes towards my EdD in the near future. It will be spread out over more time than my masters has been, but I know that if I do not go back within the next few years, I may never do so. It is amazing to me how educating myself just makes me continue to realize the importance of education and its future in our country.

Since I am fairly young for an educator, I am sure that there will be a lot of changes to the education systems that i see over my career. I am not really sure what path I will eventually end up taking throughout my future, but I know that I want to continue to try to make a difference in as many childrens' lives as possible. Now I see that the best way to do that is by continuing to educate myself as well.

Inferiority Complex

As I was planning my professional development, I also developed a bit of a nervousness about whether other, more experienced, teachers would some how see it as my way of showing off. I know that seems silly or immature, but it became a real worry of mine as a first year, first semester teacher trying to teach other teachers something.

However, as I began to feel out interest though, I was surprised at the number of people that were willing and eager to participate. I think especially in our particular situation with limited technology in a computer lab setting, teachers who are not comfortable with technology feel as though they are at a loss for things to do. The upper grades are also supposed to use certain websites and software for an alloted amount of time, which doe not leave much time to develop new technology skills.

I would definitely be nervous before performing a professional development session in front of a larger group of educators, however I definitely feel that this experience taught me a lot and helped to develop my confidence. Professional development is important to educators, and I hope that some day I can create a larger development session, or maybe even travel to other schools in our district as well.

Becoming a Mentor

I have had many mentors throughout my life, and I am sure that I have been a mentor many times before, but have never labeled myself as one. It is somewhat of an overwhelming task at times to be someone's mentor. Being a mentor carries a lot of weight because you have influence over a person, and it implies that you know more about a certain subject than someone else.

Growing up in a household with both my parents being engineers, they were always big advocates of my technology skills, even from a young age. I always took learning about technology for granted, but considered myself to be fairly technology-savvy. It has been a rewarding experience to mentor someone else because the questions she has are things that seem simple to me, but that I find hard to explain step-by-step to someone else.

Being a mentor is a lot like being a first grade teacher because it involves breaking everything down in to simple and straight-forward terms. I hope that in the future, after I have been teaching for a few more years, that I will be able to mentor first-year teachers and help them with a lot of their questions and concerns.

Teaching Blog

As I began my journey in my first classroom, I knew that I would be facing a lot of challenges, as well as a lot of rewards. Most of my family is in California, and therefore I do not see or talk to some of them often. I also knew that being in my first semester of teaching full-time, in addition to completing my last semester of graduate school, would be a daunting task and would not allow me a lot of free time to call and update friends and family on how it was going.

For this reason, I created a blog to document my experiences. As you can see, I began by writing almost every day, and now it has turned into several weeks in between posts. It has been a little overwhelming to say the least, but I am looking forward to looking back on it someday and relieving these once in a lifetime experiences.

Here is the link:
http://teachingmakesyoucrazy.blogspot.com/

Digital Photography

I have always really enjoyed photography, but I have found that my students really enjoy it when I take pictures of them and put them up around the room or in the hall. It is a great way to document activities that we do in class, and also something I have found useful for my own professional portfolio. Each week I send home a weekly newsletter, and I try to include a picture of the student of the week, and also a class photo if we have done something exciting or especially memorable that week.

It is my intention to make them a memory DVD. I am not sure if I will do it for the holidays, or at the end of the year, but I want to make sure that I have plenty of photographs to include. Our school also does a video yearbook at the end of the school year, so I want to make sure that my class is well represented in that as well.

Here are a few pictures that I have taken so far:

My Class and Me on Pajama Day


My Class at the Zoo

I am really glad that I learned about creating movies in the multimedia class so that I will hopefully be able to use those skills to put together the photos into multimedia that my students can save for memories.

Media Room

Though our school is very small, the are continuously trying to make improvements, whenever the funding is possible. We have two computer labs (one for the lower grades and one for the upper grades) with 20 computers each. However, that is about the extent of the technology that we have accessible to us. Each teacher also has a computer on their desk, but it is not ideal to use for presentations or anything within the classroom.

The newest technology that we have gotten at our school is a brand new media lab. It is designed like a small movie theater with about 22 chairs that all face a wall. There is a projector that is connected to a DVD player, as well as a computer. I'm sure that most teachers will use it, mostly, to show DVD's to their students as a reward, but there are so many ways that it can be used to enhance education. I hope that I can create my own videos, or have my students create videos that we can share in the lab. I also hope to provide the other teachers with resources for ways that they can access useful videos.

I am really excited to be working in a place that is moving forward with technology. While smart boards are still just a pipe dream, if we can continue to make these advances it can only benefit our students. It will also help to encourage all of the teachers to keep themselves educated on the most current changes in technology as well.

Easier Said Than Done

So far in my experience, I have found that integrating technology into the curriculum is much easier said than done. It was really easy for me to come up with hypothetical ideas when I was not in the classroom, but actually carrying them out has proven to be a really difficult task. I was never sure what type of technology I would have available to me in the classroom, but my current classroom has even more limited resources than I anticipated.

It is also really difficult when my class is as behind as they are in reading and other major subjects to then have time to also teach them about technology and its importance. Since the other subjects are of high importance in the curriculum, the limited amount of time that we are able to spend in the lab does not allow me a lot of time to teach about new technologies, but instead I end up falling back on things that they already know how to use so that they can spend more time working in those programs, or on those websites.

Although most students to do not have computer access at home, it is essential for them to gather basic computer skills now so that they can use them later in life. I am impressed with how fast my students are able to learn to use technology, and if I could find a more seamless way to integrate technology, I think that they would only continue to benefit.

My Mentors

My teaching career is really just getting started, but I have had many mentors already that have helped me so much along my journey. All of my Education professors in undergrad were very influential, but my mentoring teacher during student teaching really had a large impact on me. She had been teaching first grade for more than 20 years, and yet was still very open to new ideas and constantly trying new things to make sure that her students were learning to the best of their abilities.

Since I did not go into the teaching field after student teaching, my next set of mentors have been both my colleagues in the SMU masters program, as well as my professors. I feel like i have really learned a lot from other teachers' experiences, and all of my professors have been great resources during my job search and my first year of teaching.

At my current job, we are assigned mentors and the other first grade teacher is mine. She has been teaching off and on for 10 years, 9 of them in first grade. While technology is not her strong point, she has provided me with a lot of lessons, resources, and ideas. She has also really helped me to stay organized and plan ahead, which has reduced a lot of stress during what could be a very overwhelming time.