How A Bill Becomes A Bill

After watching this video write a paragraph explaining the process of how a bill becomes a bill.

Trick Or Treat-Halloween History

Happy Halloween. Halloween is my favorite time of year! There are a lot of fun things to learn about! Have you ever wondered when trick or treating was started, why was it started? Come and learn about the Trick or Treat history of Halloween. This web page will explore Trick or Treating history from the beginning upto the current history of this fun Halloween tradition.

Welcome To The 5th Grade

Hello to all of my new 5th grade students and parents! My name is Ms. Funk and as you can see my classroom is going to be full of some Funky Monkeys this year! I enjoy having fun while learning and that is the goal of our classroom this year. We are embarking on another school year and I am excited to get the chance to get to know each and everyone of you! We have an exciting school year ahead of us and are going to need everyone's support in order to succeed. This blog is was started for use by students and parents alike. Please check it often as this is the place where you will find information about the different things we have been learning and doing in our class throughout the school year. My contact information is also on the page, if you ever have any questions or concerns please contact me. This year we will continue to work with your students to improve their reading skills, but parents, we are going to need your help. Please know that we would like your child to spend 15 minutes each day reading to you. Please set time aside for this, also as we send homework home, please set aside time to review your child's homework with them and help them with any questions they may have! Parents please remember that your child's education is a team effort, if we work together we can help your child succeed. I am excited for this new school year and look forward to working with all of you! Welcome to the 5th grade!

This Is Me

My name is Bridgette Funk, I am an Elementary Ed major. I have always loved kids and have known that I wanted to teach since I was old enough to babysit. I am the oldest of 4 children, I have three brothers, so yes that makes me the only girl. I have been a Utah County girl my whole life, I graduated from Lehi High School. I then went to Snow College in Ephraim Utah for a year and then transfered to UVU in hopes of getting involved in the Elementary Ed program there. My dreams came true and here I am a year later starting the program. I love to do absolutely nothing in my spare time (because I hardly ever have spare time). I currently work at a company called OrangeSoda and am going to school full time, which keeps me plenty busy. I love music, particularly playing the piano and singing, I also enjoy to read when I have time.

Professional Development Profile

My Beliefs About Technology In Education

I have never really had to sit down and think about my beliefs in regards to education, technology, and student learning. But after giving it some thought I have come to the following conclusions. First and foremost I believe education is important, obviously I believe that or I wouldn’t be going into education or even continuing my education further. I believe education can change a person’s life. It is an amazing thing and we as future teachers have a huge responsibility to help each child succeed.
In order to help children succeed I think integrating technology into the classroom is vital. We live in a fast paced world and our students are going to be bored if we don’t change the way we present the material. Right now I have a job in which I am on the computer all day. I have also learned a lot about technology from my job. Personally I already get bored in a classroom where I just have to sit and listen to a lecture for a couple of hours. I know that the students that I am going to have in the near future spend a lot of free time on the computer and it is important for us to keep up with technology. We are going to need to provide our students with resources that will help them learn. In addition to this there are so many free things we can use out there on the internet to teach our children that we don't really have a good excuse not to. The way students learn is ever changing because of technology and we are going to have to continually change the way we teach in order to help students learn.

National Education Technology Standards

The National Education Technology Standards have given me a great idea at where I need to head in regards to incorporating technology into my classroom. After reviewing these standards I feel I am only at a very basic level. There are many things that I am already doing to incorporate technology in my life, but there are a great many other things I need to be doing in order to meet these standards. After comparing the NETS to the UNI standards I still feel like I am at the basic level. I think I have a pretty decent start but still have a ways to go in order to meet these standards.

Pedagogy & Student Learning

Being a teacher is one of the most important jobs in the world. We have the opportunity to shape the future leaders of our country. We have the opportunity to change the lives of children for the better. I believe students learn in many different ways, so there is not only one correct way to teach. I believe we need to teach in a variety of ways so we can engage all of our students. Our students live fast paced lives, and are stimulated by some form of media every single day, and so we need to incorporate this into our classrooms. Each of our students should have equal opportunity to succeed and if we only teach a certain way all of students are not getting equal opportunity to succeed and learn. We have a responsibility to teach our students how to live in the 21^st century, in order to do this we need to stay on top the information ourselves.

Reflect & Synthesize

After watching the first video, I am astounded to see the numbers and I know those numbers have only steadily increased since the video was made. As I watch that video I can see that we have to step up our game. What are we going to do when our students know more about technology then we do? They already will but it is our job to prepare our students for the 21^st century. Technology is constantly changing, we can see that as new technology is continues to be released, but technology is also becoming easier to access and cheaper to own. For example the price on the iphone, computers, etc… has gone down.
Technology is changing the world and has the potential to change education and the future of the world’s careers. It has been changing the way people learn as well as lowering the cost of providing training. The next generation of short hand article gives us a little peak into the future of IM and text messaging. We are going to have the responsibility as teachers to help our students learn how to communicate effectively in the real world and not only in the cyber world. It is easy to forget how to really type or communicate but it is necessary to learn those skills. Obviously in the article we can see that it will get easier and easier to just shorten things and talk that way. It also proves that not only the younger generations are into these things but also adults. They are learning how to communicate in the ever changing technology world.
Most schools are lagging when it comes to integrating technology into the classroom. It is interesting to think that integration truly means integrating technology into all aspects of education and all subjects that are taught. Technology changes the way teachers teach. And gives us the ability to reach different types of learners and assess those learners in their own unique way.
Students will use engaging technology in their learning environment if they have teachers who are willing and able to use technology’s power to their advantage. This is the vision on k-12 students today. I have always known this was true but it has been interesting to think about. 21^st century learners spend a lot of time watching TV, gaming, listening to MP3’s, email, text messaging, instant messaging, blogging etc… But not enough teachers have used that technology. Children learn by doing; if they just sit there they are not learning anything. Because of the lack of technology in education only half of America’s students will graduate from high school. It is because we don’t incorporate the things that they use in their everyday life into their learning. We need to teach them how to do exciting things on the computer, to help them feel like they are engaged in learning. That is the true vision of k-12.
We can see this in the video about the Millennial Generation, students talk about taking everything you want & need on the go. For example pictures, music, basically you entire computer, they think that our media should be accessible anywhere at anytime with no limitations.
The world of social networking is pretty new to me, I only started using Facebook in the last year, but from the article we can see that it is another large source of internet use. I was astonished to see that 94% of teens use the internet and 76% of those teens’ social profiles on MySpace, Facebook, or some other social network. These numbers only again prove that we have to increase technology in the classroom to keep these students entertained.
I believe in technology already but after reading the articles and watching the videos the importance of incorporating technology in teaching has improved greatly. It has seemed almost vital to me now that we learn how to do this. We as teachers have to keep up with the ever changing world of technology. This not only gives students an opportunity to succeed in the world but it also gives us as teachers endless resources that we can use to teach our students.

Strengths

Before taking this survey I had a lot more confidence in my technical abilities, but have since realized that I have a lot to learn. I am not particularly strong in any one area, I do know a few things about computers on a basic level. I feel that I have at least some knowledge as to the resources that are out there for the general public to use as well as teachers. I use basic things such as email, Google, Word, Excel etc… every single day and I even know some cool little tricks but I know I have a lot to learn.

Weaknesses

Again I have a lot to learn. My biggest area of weakness according to the survey is using databases. I don’t ever use them and don’t even know how. I think this is the area I need to improve the most. Another area of improvement needs to be in the use of instructional software. I have no idea what is really out there for me to use. Overall I need to improve each area I am not perfect in any one area and can use all the help I can get.

Goals

My main goal is to really use the tutorials that I have found to learn about those areas that I specifically identified as well as just soaking up all the information I can from this class. I think this will be a great class and will help us as teachers realize the unlimited amount of resources that we have for our classrooms.

Tutorials

Step-By-Step Guide to Using Databases

Teachnology Tutorials