my future classroom

      So this whole blogging thing is a little new to me but I am going to give it a try, this week I have been wishing and dreaming of the day that I will be able to have my own classroom and my own students that will look to me and call me Miss Simmons.  I was observing this week and the teacher ran out in the middle of classes to run to the bathroom, while she was out all the students were walking in and asking if I was the substitute. Anxiously waiting for the teacher to come back I quietly would reply "No Mrs. Edwards will be back in a minute" What I noticed and loved about this teachers classroom was that she had a smart board and the use of technology was integrated into her classroom along side activities that did not include technology.  While searching for an article for this assignment I knew I wanted to learn more about how to incorporate technology into my teaching, I stumbled upon an article called "Technology and Teaching: Finding a Balance" This was exactly what I needed!
      While reading through the article, it discussed how in this world there is no job and really nothing we can do where we will not come in contact with technology and the important part is knowing how to find a balance.  What the author talked was how we need to show students a good way to read online and build up our students literacy skill levels, meaning we need to help them learn how to read and understand what they read by questioning, analyzing, and interpreting whatever they are reading.  The article then went on to layout three ways that the author used to incorporate the technology into her classroom.  She talked about a Edmodo which is a way to connect other teachers and parents together to collaborate together and make teaching the best that it can be.  They also discussed using Google sites and Google Drive. I especially love the use of Google Drive, this can be such an easy way to share and save documents from lessons and it will not take up space on your computer because it is all online.  The cool part about reading this article is that these are all practical ways that we as teachers can easily use technology and share things with each other.
     After pondering and thinking over how I want to use technology in my classroom, I realized just how many papers we use every day for one class! This author was genius when she set up a Google Drive account for all her students to share their documents with her online. It saves time, makes sure we don't lose papers, and saves paper and paper can get expensive. Just a few of my thoughts...Thanks for reading.