Blog Assignment #9

What can we learn from Mrs. Cassidy? For this blog assignment, I first watched the video, Little Kids...Big Potential about Mrs. Cassidy's first grade class. This video shows how first grade students use technological tools such as blogs, classroom webpages, wikis, Skype, and Nintendo DS to learn in the classroom. Students in this classroom are also already learning how to collaborate with one another.

Mrs. Cassidy approaches the use of technology in the classroom as an essential learning tool. A statement from Mrs. Cassidy that jumped out to me was, "The world has changed. There are so many opportunities available online now for collaborating, for learning from other people, that you are handicapping your students and yourself in fact by not taking advantage of those tools."

A technique that I might use in my own classroom that I learned from watching the interview of Mrs. Cassidy and my EDM310 professor, Dr. Strange, is a class blog. I think that a class blog would benefit not only my students, but my students parents. Mrs. Cassidy created a classroom blog in which she posts her students' work on about every week. Parents could view this class blog to see their child's progress. Mrs. Cassidy emphasizes the use of Personal Learning Networks, especially Twitter, which would also benefit my classroom. Twitter would benefit me as a teacher because it would expand my PLN which would allow me to be exposed to different learning tools and other teachers ideas.

The benefits from using Mrs. Cassidy's approach to technology include class involvement. From participating in classroom projects in the first grade, students are learning to collaborate at a young age. I also like that Mrs. Cassidy mentioned the support of the administrators at her school. I believe that this support is crucial to Mrs. Cassidy's success in the advancements of technology in the classroom. She also notes that by using the internet for projects, students can view other students opinions and work. Instead of viewing this as a way to cheat, Mrs. Cassidy looks at is as an opportunity for students to collaborate and mold their own opinions.