Journal 2

School 2.0 Reflection Tool

NETS-T 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning: Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.

After taking the Reflection test, I realized all the different aspects of teaching that we are constantly trying to fulfill. Of course I know that I want to be technologically savvy so that I can keep up with my students and also to keep the classroom fun, exciting and up to date. But, this tool was great because it had tons of resources to help actualize my desires of integrating technology into the classroom. I read a couple of the resources, but my favorite was one called Picasa. Picasa is a website where students can use their Smartphones to take pictures and the whole class can be in an album uploading pictures from field trips. When I think back to my field trips for biology (at a regional park), or science (museum of modern man)...etc, I remember that we would get these boring, annoying worksheets to "prove" that we attended the field trip and what we learned or found interesting. When I think of how popular Instagram has become, its because its easy and visually pleasing to just take a picture of whatever it is you are seeing rather than writing about it. With Picasa, the teacher can give the worksheet out with the questions but it can be questions more like:

1) Go to the dinosaur exhibit, take a picture of your favorite model dinosaur and include in the caption why you chose this.

2) Take a picture of the "fun fact" next to the information about T-Rex. 

The teacher can even break the class into groups so that the whole museum is covered without too many picture repeats. I think this is a great tool that the students would love! 

here's the link to the website if you want to check it out yourself!
https://sites.google.com/site/thingstolearnwith/10-take-a-phone-field-trip---picasa