My first teaching experience...

I know…I haven’t been keeping up with my blogging…I’ve been bad! But really busy. Two out of the four weeks of my first teaching block are almost over and I can’t believe how fast it’s gone by so far. Let me fill you in on these past two weeks of this first teaching block of mine. As I mentioned in my last blog, I’m teaching the ancient Greece unit for a Grade 11 course and I’ve been using the Smart Board in every lesson. I’ve been using it mostly for images and clips with the hopes that I’m enriching the content that I’m providing for my students. I’ve also used the Smart Board the emphasize important points in the notes that I provide (for example, I would have a fill-in-the-blank type note projected and then I’d write in an answer that a student gave to emphasize an important point—one tiny tip for first time Smart Board users: play around and get used to writing on the Smart Board for a couple of minutes to avoid atrocious penmanship and the incorrect spelling of “independent” because you were too focused on your atrocious penmanship…it’s not like I did that or anything). I also used the Smart Board as a way in which my class could create collaborative lists that everyone could make a part of their notes. And finally, I used the Smart Board to project a 360˚ viewing of the Parthenon that students could move around in order to identify what type of architectural order its columns were.

(Students were able to touch the Smart Board and get a 360 viewing of the Parthenon - from http://www.acropolis360.immersive360.com/)

Of course my lessons using this technology could be more interactive and innovative but, as a busy teacher candidate and a first time user of the Smart Board, I give myself an A for effort in attempting to integrate this technology in the classroom.