Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Gaming Opinion

Technology is determining the way we think, live, and work. After, thoroughly researching gaming in the classroom, I have drawn many conclusions and opened my mind to explore many possibilities.

Having a greater knowledge about gaming through playing and researching, created better awareness of the opportunities schools have today with new techniques and tools for teaching. Learning can be boring at times and I strongly feel games provide a sense of excitement and interaction that allows children to express themselves differently. Implementing gaming into lessons can be accomplished if the teacher is well trained, creative, and open minded. However, I feel WOW in the classroom is stretching our boundaries and resources into something that could become more detrimental to the students instead of educational.   There are educational games out there, and we as teachers, need to reach out and locate their whereabouts, so we can achieve higher goals as an educator.

Furthermore, gaming can become frustrating for the student as well as the teacher. Over the past few weeks, I have devoted much time to playing and researching gaming. There were many times I experienced failure or technical issues while playing the game. Unfortunately, computers do fail and often we develop a negative attitude towards the game we are playing. Therefore, I feel my skills for game play are weak and this alone creates a negative atmosphere. I know if I am feeling this, one day a student that relates to me will feel the same way.      

In conclusion, gaming is fun, exciting, and educational. Teachers have to be careful when selecting games to implement into their lessons. Being open minded and positive will create a better learning environment for our students. So, go explore!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Interactive Bulletin Board

I have spent numerous hours compling my interactive bulletin board and still feel as if I am lacking the knowledge to create a great learning tool for my class. It is completed, but I make need to make some provisions in the near future.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Learning, Fun?

 How many think of learning as fun? Children are open to learning and exploring the world from the beginning, however without the excitement of having fun they tend to be closed minded. I am absolutely positive that a teacher that has fun produces students that learn and apply what they learn. Having fun as a teacher rubs off on the children. It is sort of like a smile. If you smile all the time you begin to notice many smiling right back at you. I understand that getting an education is serious but we don't have to be serious when teaching our lessons, there is a way we can teach without being serious and it is called having FUN. By the way learning new things in life is very fun, isn't it?

Friday, September 9, 2011

Interactive Bulletin Board

I am going to do my interactive bulletin board about the life cycle of a pumpkin. I thought it would be a wonderful way to kick off the fall season and get the kids excited about Halloween. I will frequently post my ideas and try to stay in touch about the lesson I plan to teach. Have a wonderful day!