10 Ways to Integrate Technology in to Your Internship

Early Childhood Education (PK-3)

Ask your mentor teacher or media specialist what types of technology are available in the school and how you go about accessing them. For example, can you check out digital cameras or a projector from the media specialist? Second, read your school’s Acceptable Use Policy and find out if all the students in your class have permission to go online.

Teachers Using Technology in Classrooms

1.    Create a graphic organizer for a concept in Word or Inspiration.  Ask your mentor teacher or the media specialist if Inspiration is available in your school.

2.    Use a WebQuest that has already been developed to teach a topic.

3.    If you are lucky enough to be in a classroom with a digital whiteboard, ask your mentor teacher how to use it!

4. Create a PowerPoint Presentation to teach a topic.

5. Use the internet to look up interesting facts about the subject you are teaching.

Students Using Technology in Classrooms

1. Use Kid Pix and have them draw what they are studying in class. Show students the different tools they can use in Kid Pix.

Ex. If you are studying about themselves, have students draw a picture of themselves doing an activity. Then they can type “I can ______.”

You will be showing students the drawing tool, the color tool, and the typing tool.

Within the typing tool, you can also show students the space bar and shift key.

2. Have students take digital pictures of

a. Things around school that start with a, b, c …

b. Different shapes

c. Different kinds of employees, such as classroom teacher, Principal, Art teacher …

d. Daily activities, starting with the beginning of the day and going through the end of the day.

Print out the photos. Have students write about them and make a book, poster … or make a slide show using Kid Pix or Power Point.

3. Make a class slide show using Kid Pix or a Power Point presentation.

While studying a topic, like animals, assign or have students pick an animal. Have students draw a picture of their animal on the computer and then make a class slide show using all the students’ drawings.

a. Students can do this individually or in groups.

b. Students can also type several facts or record facts on computer.

4. Use the internet to look up different facts on whatever students are studying at the time. Make sure you have sites for them to go to.

5. Have students draw a series of activities (First, second, third, …)on computer and put them in a slide show or in Power Point. Have students type a description or record a description.

a. Daily Routine

b. Vacation

c. Making a sandwich, etc…

6. Read a book to students. Look up author on internet. See what other books he/she has written. See if there is a way to communicate with author, like email or letter. Then have students illustrate their favorite part of the book on the computer. Then put it in a slide show or Power Point.

7. Look up current events on the internet, like weather. You can also do virtual tours of museums and different countries or places.

8. Come up with a database about the students. Some of the fields could be first name, last name, birthday, gender, grade, family size, appearance (hair color, eye color, height, weight) With the help of teachers and assistants, have the students fill in information. Now the whole class is in the database.

Then ask questions like:

How many students have brown hair?

How many have birthdays in September?

There are so many different questions to ask that they could learn to sort and compare.

The students could also email another class and have them fill in the database. Then students could draw a picture of another student in the other class based on their information in Kid Pix. Then they could either print it out or email it.

And this project could go throughout the year. At the end of the year you could see how students have grown. The possibilities are endless.

Databases could also be done for anything you are studying at the time.

9. Using Kidspiration, the students can make a diagram of their family and then compare their family with other students’ families. The teacher can make a diagram that has “special people”, “where we come from”, and “special traditions”. Send home a prepared sheet that the parents can help the students fill out. Then when they bring the sheet back students can input the information into the diagram on the computer using their own symbols.

Activity could be used with all different types of information.

10. Using Kidspiration, you can have students go and do activities with anything you are studying at the time. There are templates or you can develop your own.