Posted at Sep 28/2006 03:39PM:
Amy Hartwell:
Hi, Welcome to my page!
This is a little about me.
Professionally, I am teaching first grade this year at Central Elementary School in Fluvanna County. I am in a year round program that essentially is a nine week on two week off schedule with about seven weeks in the summer. I loop with my students from Kindergarten to First Grade. I have really enjoyed this loop. This is my sixth year teaching.
Last year I was offered a mobile lab with twenty ibooks on it. I took this as an opportunity to learn more about technology. This really sparked my interest. My students were working on the computers and being more successful than anyone had anticipated. This year I am really interested in taking on more challenges with this group.
Personally, I have been married to Tim for five years. I have two daughters, Trisha is a junior at JMU and Brandi is a senior at FCHS. They have both been an inspiration and a great help when I am stuck. The funny thing is that they truly believe I am totally illiterate when technology is involved. Although, I admit that I have a great deal to learn, I have more knowledge about different aspects of technology than most people in my school.
I am working toward my NETS*T so I can be the first one certified in our building and hopefully work my way into an ITRT position.
I also want to put out there that I am very appreciative of any help or suggestions that anyone would be able to share!
That wasn't so short after all!
Posted at Sep 29/2006 10:39AM:
Goldy Purcell: Hello Amy. Thanks for the note. We need to get together and compare notes about Mac's and PC's. I am sure we could be alot of help to each other. We will have to stay in touch this year. Good luck with your NETS*T certification.
Posted at Sep 29/2006 05:46PM:
Amy Hartwell: Professional Development: Over the summer I signed up for a Web Page Design class through ed2go at Piedmont Virginia Community College. The web site at our school has much to be desired. I decided to learn some basics and hopefully be able to jazz up the site. The class was a fundamental course. All web pages were designed in HTML format with no program to assist in the design. Although I don't believe I will design a page using what I learned, I found it very beneficial to have a basic knowledge.
As far as the web site, I have still not gotten approval to improve it.
Posted at Sep 29/2006 06:10PM:
cbridges: Amy - I am also working towards NETS*T certification - and hopefully an ITRT position when (if) one becomes available in my division! Cool that you work at a year round school. I have always wanted to do that! Learning HTML from scratch was fun wasn't it? I do find that it comes in handy at times - especially when I am working on sites like Quia.com - where you can use some HTML tags to spice things up. But... there is something to be said for programs like Frontpage! Have a great year!!!!
Posted at Sep 29/2006 08:05PM:
Margaret Kostal: Hi Amy,
Sounds like we have a lot in common. I am working towards NETS*T because I too want to become an ITRT. One thing about technology is that it really levels the playing field where students are concerned. The ones that do very little with traditional lessons can really shine when you put them in front of a computer. My daughters(ages 20 and 17) think I'm technologically challenged also, until it comes to their homework assignments and Microsoft Office software!! I'm not a whiz at downloading music or iPods, so I guess I need to work on that. Good luck to you as you work through the rubrics--this is a very challenging assignment--don't you agree?
Posted at Oct 01/2006 08:48PM:
Marie Pearson: Amy, I am glad to hear that you're using the computers with the younger children. Before becoming an ITRT, most of my classroom experience was in kindergarten and those students are so eager to learn anything we give them. A great age to get started! I am also working on my NETS*T certification. Hopefully, we can all be an inspiration to each other.
Posted at Oct 08/2006 11:51PM:
zetwicta: thanks amy!! I love the change and i learn things from him i didn't know i would ... unbelievable
Posted at Oct 14/2006 07:28PM:
Margaret Kostal: Amy, I attended a digital story-telling workshop this week and the instructor has used it with second thru fifth graders. Her advice was to have the students plan their stories first--like storyboard them, and then go from there. She did lots of videos of the kids talking together informally to show them how to look and act enthusiastic while telling their stories. Hope this is helpful.
Posted at Oct 23/2006 07:29PM:
Amy Hartwell: October Professional Development: I am taking another Ed2go class. This one is called Integrating Technology into the k-5 classroom. I'm not sure exactly what I will get out of it but I think that by taking one idea and implementing it into the classroom it will be successful.
At this point it is a self evaluation stage. The lesson references the Apple Classroom for Tomorrow (ACOT) study called Creating an Alternative Context for Teacher Development. This study researches the learner-centered teaching style. My hope is that I will be able to utilize the ideas that I learn to integrate with the direction my school is going. There are twelve lessons over a six week period.
Posted at Nov 08/2006 01:00PM:
Goldy Purcell:Hello Amy - I am looking for any written help on using a MAC that I can find. Do you have anything that would be helpful to me that your division used?
Posted at Nov 12/2006 02:12PM:
Amy Hartwell: November professional development: I started taking Integrating technology into the K-5 classroom. It started October 18 and the fianl exam is relased on Nov. 24. This class puts out a lesson every Wed. and Fri.It started out slowly with intro into technology and how to set up the ideal classroom. Now we have discussed the internet and search engines for young people.
I found the lesson on keyboarding interesting with the different timelines and suggestions to start young students out with proper skills. Even though they suggested programs to develop keyboarding skills. I am happy with the program. Learn to Type Jr. that I am currently using.
The lesson that integrated reading and technology had some very ideas on how to evaluate software programs. I also learned of some useful online sites for books and other reading activities. I have added these to my portaportal so my students can access them at home too.
The lesson on writing inspired me to learn more about Kidspiration so I can adopt that program into my writing time. At this time I am still in the very preliminary stages.
I have to admit I am behind one lesson now but I am hoping to catch up with the science lesson this week.
Posted at Nov 15/2006 05:18PM:
Margaret Kostal: Hi Amy! I found your timeline very interesting for keyboarding skills. I'm a real proponent of introducing correct form early on--by the time I get the students in 6th grade, they have had lots of time to develop bad habits--two fingers--and it's really hard to break those. With some, I never do. I don't blame the poor elementary teachers--they simply cannot do it, but keyboarding instruction in elementary school would be a great idea. The graphic organizers do seem to help children formulate and organize their writing--I have used them with special ed students for many years. Good luck with your class!
Posted at Nov 15/2006 11:26PM:
Marie Pearson: Amy, the keyboarding timeline you posted on the Ed Tech News page seems to be very developmentally appropriate for the K-5 students. It would be beneficial for the students to learn the correct techniques at the elementary level rather than the "hunt and peck" effect. We were just discussing today that keyboarding as a class needs to be moved from the high school level to a lower level so the students at the high school level can spend their time becoming proficient with other technology programs and tools. We use Kidspiration at our elementary levels and Inspiration at our middle and high school levels. Hope you will find it as user friendly and useful as our teachers and students have. Good luck with your class.
Posted at Nov 18/2006 01:26PM:
Amy Hartwell: Professional Development- Last Wednesday I conducted my first professional development on the Smartboard and the Airliner wireless slate my county just purchased. I was very excited to be the one that put my hands on them first. During a meeting I invited others to use it as well. The teachers asked if I would give a class on some of the things I have learned. We took about an hour and I showed them the basics and then sent them some premade lessons that they could use to help interact with this new technology. So far three of the teachers have tried out the Smartboard and 4 the slate.
Posted at Nov 21/2006 01:46AM:
Marie Pearson: Amy-You asked about the InterWrite Schoolpad. I was not familiar with the Airliner Wireless Slate, but after looking it up on the Internet I would say that it is similar to the InterWrite schoolpad. It gives the teacher the flexibility of teaching from anywhere in the room and also involving students from anywhere in the room. The Schoolpad can be used with just a computer and an LCD projector or can be interactive with their InterWrite Schoolboard (whiteboard). Here is a link if you'd like to see the Schoolpad: http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/interwriteschoolpad.htm Hope your teachers like the Wireless Slate as much as our teachers like the InterWrite Schoolpad.
Posted at Dec 03/2006 02:01PM:
Amy Hartwell: Professional development: I finished the Integrating Technology class. I think that I learned about many new sites to use that will be exciting to use in the classroom. As a researched the sites I added many to my portaportal.
Upon reflection, many of the topics were a good review to bring ideas back to the forefront when trying to think about what would be successful. One of the lessons dealt with netiquette. I found this to be another good review. This chapter also discussed when and when not to use technology. As we add equipment to the classroom a teacher must prioritize just what will be useful. The discussion brokedown the things to look for when weighing what to implement. I believe that many teachers struggle with this especially with limited funding from localities.
Overall I learned a great deal with the 12 lessons.
Posted at Dec 08/2006 12:55AM:
Amy Hartwell: This was a great learning experience for me. As I built this tutorial the pictures were much better in my picture viewer than they were once the completed project was saved into a video. I did find it interesting that the pictures I downloaded had a poor resolution in Media Player but not in Photo Story.
Photo Story Tutorial.wmv
Posted at Dec 08/2006 01:51PM:
Goldy Purcell:Amy - Your Photo Story looked great. This will be a big help for us when we try to teach Photo Story to our teachers. Great Job!
The schoolpads run about $500.00. How much did your slate cost? Does it just work with the SmartBoard or alone also - like our Pad does?
