I haven’t done much in the way of reflecting, at least in a written format in a week or two. I've been super busy. I've started helping 3rd grade classroom in the computer lab. Smarter Balance involves a lot of typing and a lot of the 3rd grade teachers fear their students haven’t had enough opportunity to work on typing. Thus I am helping both the students and teachers work on their typing skills.
Deerfield has a account with typingtraining.com. I asked my mentor to give me an account so I can practice with the program first and learn all I can about the program. It’s a really awesome website, which is wonderfully interactive and does it all. The first class I helped I got students to log on and get them on the website and log on with another username and password. We ran through account setup and the basic than they were on their own. The website uses an avatar which gives instructions. After they started all I had to do was answer a few questions and make sure they had both hands on the keyboard. It’s fun working with younger grade levels.
I also got the chance to teach a few computer lessons to kindergartners. This was a lot of fun. Its a completely different environment. Just being around those young kids your energy levels sky rocket and everything is so much fun. I helped them work on numbers and number lines using Abcya.com. They got to play different games and used a paint program. I run them through how to save their work and how they can even print their work. The best part of this internship is working with so many different levels of learners, students and staff alike.
Another fun little thing I have been working on is three projects for a special education reading groups. There is three different groups, each one working on a different technology based project. The first group is working on a stop animation project using legos and an iPad. First they used Google draw to create a storyboard. The next step was to create the sets and the script. We are currently recording the animation with the iPad. The second group is doing an animation in scratch. They also created a storyboard first. They are currently working on animating the different scenes. The third group is working on creating a newspaper. Each group member created an article and found a picture, now they are working together to put the final project together. I’m doing all the grading and planning for the projects which has been a good deal of work, but almost everyone really enjoys doing the projects.
We also had curriculum night last week. That was a different experience. I was in the computer lab with the students from the middle school STEM club and my mentor for both the club and the tech class. The first part of curriculum night I was super intimidated to talk to anyone. I talked to kids and made comments about what we do in club or class, but I didn't really converse with any parents. Toward the end of the night managed to melt the ice and began talking to some parents and students alike. It wasn't so bad, I mostly answered questioned about what we worked on or working on and talked with some parents about some extracurricular like STEM club and a summer camp.
Like I said very busy. I've also been creating a month long STEM club for 3rd through 5th graders and a summer camp for programming. A lot goes into playing extracurricular activities! I've got about 4 weeks left in my internship, which is kind of sad but also means I need to work on some things for finishing my degree and getting my license and finding a job. Its going to be a busy month in May. Wish me luck!
