Blog Post 10

Interview with Kathy Cassidy 

In the introduction video to Mrs. Cassidy's classroom we learn from her students how they incorporate technology in their learning. The students use blogging, wikis, and learning games throughout the semester. The students ask experts(or people with person experience) to answer their questions.

In the first interview session with Mrs. Cassidy she explain to us how and why she uses technology in the classroom. Mrs. Cassidy explains that in her classroom she likes to use blogging as a reading and writing tool. Many students will be asked to write a sentence on what they have read and share it to their blog. I noticed that when you put students in front of an audience they will put their best foot forward, giving their hardest work. I believe this is a great way to keep the school work meaningful. As we remember reading many short stories in grade school we probably do not remember any of the actual text. While these students are blogging about their reading they will be force to pay attention to the text and hopefully later retain more information on it. Mrs. Cassidy also share that she does most of the class blogging while in centers. She shares to us the first time she received 5 computers in her classroom she used this as a center. I thought this was a very resourceful task and as we know all educators must be resourceful.

Mrs. Cassidy also discusses technology literacy. She explained it best as keeping up with the times. She shared with us that times are changing which means our students our changing. Being able to make a power point and type would be able to cut it 5 years ago but would not today. Teachers must be able to keep their students engaged and with technology today possibilities are endless.

In the second interview session Mrs. Cassidy shares to us where to start. Many educators today want to include technology or at least get started with it in their world of education but have no idea where to start. Mrs. Cassidy suggest to start with the thing you are interested in, such as videos one could create a YouTube account.  I believe this advices transfer directly to our students. Find out what your students are interested in and go from there.

In the third interview session students sit down and ask Mrs. Cassidy questions they had about technology in the classroom. The question that stood out to me the most was "could blogging be a source of cheating" Mrs. Cassidy answered this question with a no and turned it back on the professors. She said we go all over gathering information from others, learning and brainstorming, how we are asked to present the information is the real task. Professors should ask their students to create causing them to make it their own and present the information they have gathered.