In this weeks class, our discussion begun with thinking about the technology we have seen used in the classroom on our Wednesday visits. I have not seen too much technology being used in my classroom thus far. My mentor teacher uses a projector to show videos and slides, as well as the camera projector to show worksheets and experiments. My class also has a cart of Chromebooks which they use to do research as well as Google Classroom. As for communicating with parents, my teacher has the students write in daily planners that their parents are supposed to sign. The parents can leave notes for the teacher, and the children get tickets to be entered into a raffle if they bring back the planner signed. I think this is a great strategy, as it allows the students to learn about responsibility and ensures the parents are aware of what is going on in the class. I remember in my last year of elementary school my teacher had a website where he would post homework updates, photos (password protected), and we had the ability to ask questions and engage with our peers. I think this website was more targeted at the students, but parents were able to view the work we were doing and the homework assigned. I am wondering which of these strategies I think is better. I think the blog allows for more depth as it is written from the teacher’s perspective, but the parents may not engage with it. The planner system my mentor teacher has set up allows for quick notes, such as if they have PE the next day or what homework is due, and ensures the parents have read it. I don’t know which I will choose when I am a teacher, but I think both are good options.

After our discussion on technology in the classroom, we discussed coding and how to teach this to students. Personally, I have absolutely no knowledge with coding, so I think I would be a bit hesitant to teach this. However, we were provided with some great online programs to get the kids started. We broke up into small groups and focused on exploring one website. I decided to look further into the website “Hour Of Code”. I really enjoyed this website, as it had a variety of activities for different ages that made coding fun. My group looked at one game called “Dance Party” which allowed students to use coding to make a character dance to a song of their choosing. We looked specifically at an alien dancing to “Cheap Thrills” by Sia, where we were able to see the inner workings of the movements. I thought this was really fun and is definitely something I would be engaged in personally. The only issue is that each activity does take an hour, which could be a bit longer than wanted. These types of resources definitely made me feel less nervous about coding and I am hoping I will be able to bring it into the classroom in some way.