Blog Post #6

I went to Leon County High School's website and looked at several teachers' pages. All of the teachers I looked at had a side bar that included tabs such as "Meet the Teacher," where the teacher introduced his or herself and discussed what the class was going to encompass. Other tabs that I saw on all pages were "Assignments" and "Class Calendar." I believe that it was mandatory for all teachers to have certain tabs listed on their sites for students to utilize. Besides what I believe to be the mandatory tabs, teachers had other options that were course related. I clicked on a Law Studies teacher and he had tabs such as "Law Studies" and "American Government" and when I clicked on a culinary teacher's website, she had tabs such as "Culinary Arts 1" and  "Culinary Arts 2" for different grade levels. I believe the culinary arts teacher teaches all grade levels, but has classes ranging in difficulty. Here is a link to the Law Studies teacher http://www.leonschools.net/Domain/4907

The main product I would use to ensure efficiency as a teacher is Microsoft Office. Office is a simple way to create notes, tests, rubrics, and many others. As a teacher in the beginning of his career I feel that Office would be the best and most simple item to use. The podcast also mentioned using spreadsheets to help calculate student's grades and I could not agree more. I recall asking my teachers in high school, "What would my grade be if I got this on this project?" or something along the lines of that. My teacher would simply open up his or her spreadsheet software, type in the grade and within a matter of moments my grade would be calculated. The last thing mentioned was setting up a website to  help connect teachers and parents/students. A website would be an excellent way of communicating and help to limit the amount of miscommunication between home and school. It seems that younger students lose so much information that must get to parents and it causes much confusion between the parents and the school, so a website could be a possible solution.

At the Technology Sandbox, we saw many different pieces of technology; from Google Glass, 3D printers, and Smart Boards and Promethean boards. I was very interested in the Smart and Promethean board because of how simple they could be integrated into a classroom. The boards were an excellent source because they make class such a hands-on experience. At one point one Martin brought up the example of having a teacher ask a student a simple question such as 2+2 and then answering it on the Promethean board. I feel that something as simple as that could help a lot of students get the hands-on opportunity many of them crave. Also the ability to show objects on screen in a 3 dimensional point of view was amazing. Science classes could be drastically changed if the boards were integrated into the classroom; no longer would students be analyzing a one sided picture in a textbook, wondering what the other half looks like. It seems that the possibilities with the Smart Board and Promethean board are endless and I cannot wait to seem them seamlessly integrated into schools all around.