Education Goals

My goal is to finish getting my bachelor's degree in Special Education with an emphasis on deafness.  School has over all been very enjoyable and a lot of hard work.  Some of the challenges I face is will I be to old to do this in another 4 years. That will put me at 48 when I finally graduate.  Then I sit here and think about what really makes me happy and that is being in a classroom filled with children helping them achieve to their highest potential and beyond.
As far as how to accomplish it, I'll keep plugging away until I finish my goal and I will end up at UALR.    That's all for now!

The Triumphs and Tribulations of Lesson Planning

Well I have made it through another two parts of my lesson planning stage.  I really enjoy planning my lessons, integrating new information, and technology.  I never thought in a million years that I would become this techno savvy. (My nephew would be so proud!)  I think the hardest part is for people who have not worked in a classroom to do the lesson planning.  When I think about the lesson, I am able to think about it as a whole since I was in the classroom for over 20 years.  The tribulations would have to do with time and life situations that came up these last two weeks.

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 it is a social, collaborative, interactive and responsive web.  To sum it up... it is a magic in a bottle for everyone!!!  They save time and give you lots of information.  It's amazing how students would have to spend endless hours grabbing an encyclopedia and nights and weekends at the local library to get the information they would need to create a paper.  Now with just a few clicks of the button, you can go and learn about everything!  Some of my favorite Web 2.0 are Pinterest, Aggie, and WikiNews.  Not only do you get great recipes from Pinterest, but new ideas for classroom lessons by other teachers.  Aggie is an open source news aggregator and it helps me to keep up with what is going on in today's world.  Finally, WikiNews, this is where you can find articles that are contributed collaboratively to a global audience.

Web 2.0

I find the U-tube videos to be helpful when trying to help students get a grasp on a concept.
Sometimes when students can see the process, it helps them to understand the result.  Lesson
Plans can help students to go to a particular U-tube video to see the process, especially in math.

LESSON PLAN 101

Lesson Planning 101 -

While I have done a few lesson plans while being at Pulaski Tech, I feel that the classroom experience I have had really played a huge impact on thinking through lesson 2 and 3.  While the last lesson took some time to think about, I really enjoyed the exercise.  "I want to say thanks to my husband for supporting me while I continue my dream of becoming a teacher!"

My dream classroom.....

The technology I would use in my dream classroom..... would be laptops, iPads, and Google tablets.  There would be enough technology for half of the students to use while I worked with the other children on other skills.  I also would put games and we would build a web page together, have a classroom newsletter and do research on it.

(Picture from Picasaweb)