Electronic Portfolio

EDUC 215Fall 2011

Kasey Graves

Table of Contents

Personal Information………………………………………………………………………………………..3

Role of Technology……………………………………………………………………………………………5

Word Processing……………………………………………………………………………………………….7

Telecommunictions…………………………………………………………………………………………..8

Spreadsheets…………………………………………………………………………………………………….9

Presentation Software………………………………………………………………………………………11

Favorite Internet Sites……………………………………………………………………………………….12

My name is Kasey Graves. I am from Idaho, born and raised in Challis. I headed to Boise to continue my education shortly after high school. I have dreamed of becoming a teacher since I was in the 4th grade. I look forward a career helping children learn and grow. I explored a few other occupations right out of high school but I always turn back to education. I had a beautiful little girl about 20 months ago. I want to continue my education for her. I cannot think of any other career that would allow me to spend as much time with my children as educator. When I am not doing school work, or occupied with my daughter I am a foodie. I eat new foods, critique restaurants, and then of course I myself create new and exciting dishes for my family and friends to enjoy. Besides family, friends, and school food is my true passion in life!

Personal Information

Goals as a TeacherSimply stated my goal is to be a great educator. I do not just want to teach materials. I want to bring my class to life. I want the students to not only enjoy learning, but also to retain the information that I provide them. To accomplish this I believe it is crucial incorporate all learning styles into my curriculum. I will not be the teacher who just lectures. I plan on presenting material in as many different ways as I can as well as provide my future students with different ways to complete tasks. Classroom management is also a HUGE goal of mine. Not just in the way I treat my students, but also in the way I have my class arranged. Little things make big differences.

Role of TechnologyIn my classroom I plan to use technology to enhance the lessons that I provide for my students. I will do this by creating PowerPoint, or Prezi presentations. I also will use a classroom blog. I think a blog is a great way to keep the students and parents connected to the classroom outside of school. I also would like to utilize the internet as a source for my classroom as often as possible. YouTube has great educational videos. I also think it would be great to somehow use Skpye in my class. Doing research and being able to talk to anyone from anywhere is truly a great opportunity. I also plan on gathering useful materials from the internet. I can provide my students with webquests that they can do, I also can create all my own lessons online. I will use Word to send out letter to parents, or to create newletters. I will use a program like Excel to create a grade book.

Technology provides us with a new world of communication. I will use it with other teachers, and administrators in the school. It is a great way to gather everyone's information and compile it into one file. When I think of why we would need that IEP students come to mind. I also believe e-mail is great. It is a fast and efficient way to send a message out to many people. If the principal were to call a staff meeting I am sure they would do it through e-mail. It would also be a good way for the teachers and staff to reach parents. I can’t tell you how many times I was sent home with a note that I “lost” on my way home.

Word Processing

Word and Standards

Newsletter

In my class I will use work to do amazing things like create my class newsletter, or other letters that I need to send home to parents. I will also have my students complete some of their projects using word. They could type there spelling words five times each. I will use grids in word to create my lesson plans. I can go in and create a template of my own and just modify it to fit my day. I also will use it to keep track of my students and their grades. I can take role if all their names are on a clipboard in front of me. For grades I will not use a grid to complete all of them but maybe weekly points they would earn from reading. (Reading log)

Telecommunications

Blog

I will use the internet to provide my students with materials that they would not find anywhere else. We can watch science experiments from a YouTube video that we may not be able to perform in class. We can communicate with other cultures via Skype. Those are just a few examples…the possibilities are endless.

E-mail is a great way to communicate with others. I will send my parents an e-mail when I need to get in touch with them rather than over the phone or a letter Two reasons I think e-mail is the best communication. First, it is not going to get lost. Second, you can save everything so if a parents were to argue that “this is the first I have heard of that”, you could always refer back to the e-mail.

I will most certainly have a class blog. I want to provide my students with additional information that they may not be getting from the textbooks. I want to post useful videos. I also would love to do group projects through the blog. I think it will be a great way for the parents to ‘check-in’ and see what the students are up to. It would also be a great way to communicate if a student missed a class.

Grade Book

M&M's Graphing Spreadsheets

I will use spreadsheets in my classroom to create a grade book. I will also use them to keep track of my students; attendance, fire drills etc. I will also use them to show my students achievement after standardized tests so that I will see what areas we need to be working on. I think it would be a good idea to have a graph of some sort the students can look at as a reward system. Maybe they earn extra recess time everyday and I graph it and show them so they have a little extra motivation to behave. I will have my students use graphs for projects pertaining to social studies, and also science experiments or any other time I have them collect data.

Presentation SoftwareBack to School Slideshow

Content Area SlideshowI will use presentation software in my class to provide a better visual aid for my students. I am thinking ‘warm-up’ problems would be great to do on a slide show for math lessons, or reading lessons. I like this because I can personalize the information to suit my students. I also will have my students create some sort of presentation that they can show to the class. I really like PowerPoint, but I also think that Prezi would be a great resource to get students brainstorming…for instance I would recommend using Prezi while preparing to write a book report.

http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classmetric.html

http://www.mathsolutions.com/index.cfm?page=wp9&crid=122

http://www.softschools.com/math/money/worksheets/addition/This website is great because you can create printable worksheets that will teach children how to add and subtract decimals. (money) I like this site because it provides you with many examples but you can also personalize it to suit your class and what standards you are presenting by creating your own worksheets.

What I like the most about this site is that it provides lesson plans that would fit any learning style. It is teaching the same subject you can just choose a different way to present it and also different activities to choose from. Everything is available in PDF as well. One more great thing is that you can print off different worksheets that the students can do as you are following one of the lessons provided.

I love this site because it is a great way to share and collaborate with other teachers as well. You can post your lessons that you have created. You can also borrow assignments for other teachers. I think as educators sometimes we get into the same routine. Sites like this give you the opportunity to expand your curriculum in ways you never before considered.

Favorite Internet Sites