A. Design, develop and implement student learning activities that integrate information technology for a variety of student grouping strategies and diverse student populations.

The key word in this standard is "integrate." It says nothing about "teaching" information technology; it is inherent in the wording of this standard that teachers are to use information technology as a means to an end, rather than teach technology as its' own curriculum. I consistently work to make this happen in my own classroom. I have lots of good ideas for using technology, but I also have the good sense to drop an idea if it doesn't achieve a content objective for my students. We have precious few months to cover a lot of curriculum, and I try to make every lesson count. The only times which I teach a technology skill are when it is necessary to introduce or review a skill for the students to complete the assignment. It is this policy that helps me to seamlessly integrate technology (Standard A2).

It never seems like I'm teaching students about computers or projectors or SmartBoards because I'm not. In activities such as our visits to several live webcams to watch animals in their habitats, I used several technologies that were new to the students. There are several sites on the Internet which have live pictures and video of animals. The concept of showing live animals is what motivated me to include this activity. It is what separates the activity from showing a video with a standard TV/VCR or looking at pictures in books (Standard A1). This presentation involved many technology elements: SmartBoard, Laptop, Projector, Speakers, and Internet connection. This was the first time many of them had seen this technology set up, and they were very excited by it. I took time in the beginning to answer questions to quench their curiosity so I could then focus on the content with them. Then, I began showing the sites. During the activity, I focused on comparing the habitats of the animals we observed. Informally, meaning mostly demonstration without verbal instruction, I modeled many navigation concepts as I presented the sites. Through our discussion, I was able to draw out higher level thinking skills such as comparison and evaluation of different habitats and animals (Standard A4).

After the activity, many of the students wanted to use the information we found at home or for their research report. I created a page on the website with links to all the sites we viewed, along with instructions for which players they may need to view them at home. This was the first of several sites I created for them, including one about our field trip to an area science center and butterfly garden, pictures of our chicks hatching in the incubator, and a page about our ecosystem group projects. (What you will see on these work sample pages are copies of the content [minus our site navigation system] from actual sites I created because I may disable sections in order to prepare for the new school year.) These sites demonstrate my ability to use technology for content addressed in class according to the standards (Standard A8). When I create sites, I use my online learning and website creation experiences to create visually stimulating, easily read presentations of content. Once these sites are created, I use them as a computer center, in which students use part of their center time to log onto the class website and visit that particular page. This helps me again in seamlessly integrating technology; it's a part of our everyday activity. I am careful to make sure students don't spend their time just looking at the pictures. Just as when they read books, they are expected to use the pictures if they have trouble decoding any words on the page.

It is important to me to maintain curriculum standards for students because they guide all teachers in all grades, but also because they ensure that I am not teaching activities, but content. This was the case with our Paint projects. Although the standards for students only require them, as early elementary students, to be able to use computers to interpret electronic text, I found that this was an opportunity for them to use computers in a creative manner. It could be contested that students could have just drawn these on paper with marker or crayon and had similar products. However, I have students doing drawings like this for other things. Creating it on computer provides a lot of them with a great fine motor experience, and they all improved in their fine motor skills during this assignment. It was also a new, motivating way to publish their work.

This project also is an example of my ability to vary student grouping depending on the instructional goal; from whole class, to partners, to groups (Standard A3). This lesson involved several parts. First, I taught students to write a riddle for the animals that they were doing reports on. After drafting, revising and editing with me and with partners, and writing final copies, I showed them a sample paint picture done on my home computer. To begin the computer part of the assignment, I reserved a computer lab to demonstrate the basic tools to all students at the same time. During the time at the lab, we created backgrounds and started drawing the animals. Some students also managed to type their riddles during that time. The second part of the computer assignment was done as a computer center. Students were responsible for finishing their animal and adding the text during center time. I took the files home and printed them on a color printer.

In fact, computer centers are where I put a lot of my focus for students to learn. I didn't have a whole lab in my room, but I did have a total of three networked computers. This helped in giving all students to progress in the assignment at their own pace, individually (Standard A6). The first time I did a computer center, it was to introduce our classroom website. Students worked with me two at a time to learn about it, as well as how to use a search engine for their animal reports. Being the first activity with computers during my student teaching, the individual attention allowed me to assess their knowledge and needs for working with computers. I helped all students understand how to use the site; helping each student make progress in their own way.

During that first computer center, I was using direct instruction, but I make sure that is not always the case because I am capable of using technology for a variety of instructional roles (Standard A5). The class website displays data, communicates with families, and provides learning activities. I provided visual examples to students as we viewed webcam sites and went on our virtual field trip. Since we were unable to arrange for a two-way virtual field trip to a zoo, I decided to create our own virtual field trip as a culminating activity for the unit. However, I found an excellent site that had an interactive activity that exceeded my expectations.

I acted out the activity with them, reading the text, which was beyond their reading level, and pointing out important parts of the Spin-U-Lator (see work sample). They were very excited, and listened intently as I read our "briefings." After each of four briefings, we had to decide which of three animals didn't belong in the habitat we were "sleuthing" in. We took votes on it, and they got the first three right, getting the last one on the last try. Throughout the activity, they noticed things like messages from "Spin," our navigator in the form of a globe. At the end, we received our "souveniours." I had preprinted the "Way to Go" page for them prior to the activity.

Although this was an activity most of them could not do successfully on their own due to the reading level required, they understood the content from the unit enough to make decisions as I read with them.

It is important to me to make sure that all students can learn, and I am careful to make sure that the technology will not interfere with the content for any student. I design lessons which apply to all students, no matter what their culture, economic standing, or learning style (Standard A7). For example, in the paint projects, I had different expectations for different students. I wanted them all to improve their skills during the assignment, but that means different things for each student. There is a difference in the first and second grade example given, even though each student met my goals for them. Also, during the computer center with the ecosystem website, each individual was able to learn from the site in a text manner, in addition to the oral presentations given by groups in class. This assignment as a whole, from doing the project to presenting to reading the website, reaches bodily-kinesthetic learners as well as visual and textual learners.

Throughout all of the activities of the unit, I placed emphasis on learning about land animals. During the unit, students of all ability levels and learning styles also learned new technology skills that assisted them in completing lessons and assignments. I spend very little time teaching them how to use technology, but they spent lots of time with technology that allowed them to improve in their skills as they learned.

C. Demonstrate knowledge of uses of multimedia, hypermedia, telecommunications, and distance learning to support teaching/learning.

Here again in this standard I note a phrase that changes the meaning of using technology. This phrase is "to support teaching/learning." It is one thing for me to know how to use technology, and I've mentioned that I have many skills in using technology that I chose not to use because they didn't support teaching and learning. This was probably the area that was most challenging to me. I am a very reflective, metacognitive person, and I knew it would take hard work and serious evaluation of my philosophies to make it work.

The success of my work to ensure teaching and learning is evident in several samples. For example, I took advantage of technology's ability to expand beyond the barriers of the normal classroom (Standard C1) when we visited webcam sites and again during the virtual field trip. These are also examples of my ability to integrate technology into my presentations and communications (Standard C2). Text, drawings, graphics, photographs, and video are just a few of the elements that increased student learning throughout the activities.

I am also very capable of using technology for communication with families and school personnel (Standard C3). I created an initial permission form and introduction of our class website with MS Publisher, where I create many documents. Our class website is also a great communication tool because I post announcements and important events. There is also email to me from the site, and I communicated with several families via email. Our sites about our ecosystem projects, field trip, and the student pages area were also sharing of information. I feel it is important to acknowledge students' interests and hard work. Student Pages is my way of doing this while sharing this information with families. I first took pictures of each child and had them fill out a survey about their favorite things. I created the pages and made it a computer center activity set up like a treasure hunt with specific information to find. I also include student work on each page to acknowledge their accomplishments.

Before all this technology can work, it must be properly set up. Having older computers serve as student workstations meant there were several updates for me to perform in order to implement the individual and center activities I had planned (Standard C4). One computer only had Internet Explorer version 1.0, so I updated it to 5.0. I also uninstalled several applications which were no longer used and defragmented the computers. I then installed new applications for the unit: GeoSafari and Animal World Encyclopedia.

It takes a lot of skill to implement the multifaceted technology I integrate on a daily basis. It is a lot of work to get the technology to perform in the desired manner. Implementing the technology, if it is understood how to do so, is worth the work for the benefits to teaching and learning as well as for its benefits to building the classroom community.

D. Demonstrate knowledge about instructional management resources that assist in such activities as writing and updating curriculum; creating lesson plans and tests; and promoting, reinforcing, and organizing data regarding student performance.

As much as integrating technology can aid student learning, it also makes my job as a teacher easier because there are many tools I can use. Some of the productivity tools (Standard D1) I use are Microsoft Word, Publisher, Excel, and Access, as well as Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks.

I use word processing programs on a daily basis for lesson plans, letters home, newsletters, mailing labels, etc. I created a database for the reading and writing levels of the students to create personal data pages on the class website for famliies and students (I am still learning how to code the pages to read from the database, but I did already create the database structure and add content).

Samples of my work using the productivity tools are the unit plan, which was created with Publisher originally and later reworked in Fireworks to display here. I also used Macromedia Fireworks and Dreamweaver for the webcam sites, field trip site, and student pages for the class website.

The unit plan is also indicative of my thinking about specialized software (Standard D2) such as Inspiration. Although comfortable with the software, I choose to use Publisher for the level of teacher-control and freedom. I am an advanced user, and as such, I prefer to have more control over my content and layout. That's why I didn't just create a Blackboard class instead of a classroom website. I like having the control over all aspects of the site.

In order to implement many of the activities, and to create the classroom website, I must be able to move documents between software application, and platforms (Standard D3). When I worked as an Instructional Technology Assistant and then as a Web Instructional Technologist at Saginaw Valley State University, I learned a lot about this area. I understand the importance of making content available to all configurations and platforms, and I work to always have content which will work at even a low connection speed or old browser, etc. The unit plan, for example, is one which I used in two software applications. Also, with my webpages such as the field trip site, I ensure that I only use coding that will work in both Internet Explorer and Netscape, and that images are optimized as much as possible for shorter download time.

As a technologically literate teacher, I know which tools are available to me and I make use of whichever ones I feel will benefit me in my many roles as teacher. I am definitely comfortable with instructional management resources, and make them a part of my routine as needed.