Meeting with Ms. M on 2/11/08

So I am really excited to be working with Ms. M on the Technology Infusion Project. I am also really relieved to be pulling all sorts of things I am working on together this semester in a culminating project - my ESOL endorsement, my final project for Elementary Ed and all of that technology support I am trying to get in one huge assignment. Ms. M is a teacher I met during my student teaching back in the fall at GE, but instead of working in the lower grades where I was, she is a 4th and 5th grade ESOL teacher. I am excited to do technology with ESOL students, or with upper grade students in general, because I feel like it will add to my experiences with different kinds of students (something I am always looking for) and because this past weekend at the Job Fair (!!!) I felt like I could explain that weak spot on my resume (lack off technology) to people as something I am tackling as we speak. It is just going to really be the icing on top of my Curry degree I think.

Anyways, Ms. M is a great teacher and is really excited to share her class and students with me. I have to get a certain number of requirements done with her just based on my syllabus for the ESOL placement alone, and we spent a little bit of time talking about that and what it entails. I have some lessons to do, some work with a one on one child, and along with that comes a weekly log/journal type thing outside of this blog.

On the technology front, we just brainstormed some ideas of things that would be great to use: webquests (on the server), websites, smart boards, computer lab time and space, etc. She also told me she is going to dig up some examples of student work from other student teachers she has hosted, and I will be able to get my hands on some things. We talked about the schedule also. Ms. M's day is set up so that she pushes into different classrooms to help certain teachers with ESOL students, but in terms of when she teaches them herself, they have times during the day when they come to her room for reading and writing and word study, etc. They also have computer lab time with her - and she seems to be pretty savvy in general. We talked about specific dates that they won't have school, etc and we talked about using my spring break or theirs to get some serious work done.

In terms of how she uses technology she is good with websites - always looking for materials to use and has a ESOL website through the GE one that refers parents and students to certain resources for them to use when not at school. She uses a Promethius Active Board (smart board) all of the time - whether students are up and using it (she prefers this) or she is using it to call on students, write up what students are contributing or show movies. She has also done work with server webquests and was familiar with movie making as well. Whatever I don't end up using, it sounds like she will be happy to teach me how to use...I am excited to add things to my bag of teaching tricks.

Lastly, before I left we just talked about standards of learning in these 4th and 5th grade content areas like social studies and science. We bounced around quite a bit the idea of doing a content area focused lesson - having hte students pre assess themselves on a topic, doing a web quest and then post assessing them to see what thye gather. I am just going to sit on these ideas for a few days and think...