Favorite Teacher Blog

My favorite teacher blog is called Adventures of a 6th Grade Teacher. Miss Klohn blogs about her classroom and their daily activities. Along with her posts she also puts up pictures of her boards and projects so that other teachers can have some ideas on how to teach certain lessons. I love how she posts, not just one, but multiple photos about the same assignment/project. This makes it more clear for other teachers who may want to duplicate her idea. I suggest that you check out her blog, she is creative and provides the reader with very useful information!

Printing Posters from your Printer

This is the poster that I wanted to have larger than a 8.5' X 11', so I visited the website called Block Posters. It's a really cool website that lets you make a huge poster out of regular printer paper. There are many awesome websites out there, but a lot of them are confusing and difficult to self-teach. Block Posters is super user-friendly and only takes three steps to go from a tiny picture to virtually as large as you would like! I decided to make my poster 4 sheets wide by two sheets tall. Block Posters even tells you approximately how big your picture will measure out to. My poster will be about 2.5' X 1.8'. If you think this sounds like a fun website I included the link to Block Posters for your convenience.

I would use this in my future classroom for a few different reasons. This is cheaper than printing a real poster, so if I need to save some money I could make a poster this way. I can also create large posters that could cover up a huge portion of a wall. The students could work together to put the poster together. That would create classroom bonding between my students. We could all take a class picture, print it off this way, and assemble and hang it up together.

VCSU's Education Program

 VCSU has a very good elementary program. I have learned a lot about teaching methods and strategies that I will use in my teaching career in the future. I like learning about teaching methods and then seeing it come alive in the classroom. In class we learned about making cards to congratulate students on doing a good job and the my cooperating teacher has cards to give her students after they get a certain amount of stickers for behaving and doing their work. I would like to learn more about specific teaching methods. I want to learn different ways to teach students. Once I learn that I will be able to be a very effective teacher.

Practicum

I started my 40 hour practicum at an elementary school this fall. I am about halfway through my field experience and I am having a blast! I love learning about different teaching strategies and I am taking in as much information as I can from my cooperating teacher. I feel like I wish I knew more about how to teach the students, because I know how to do what they are learning, but I'm not sure how to best teach the students.

It is so different to be in the teacher position than in the student position. I understand more now why teachers teach what they do and why they assess students. How else is the school supposed to measure what the students are learning?

Because of my experience so far, I am looking forward to my teaching career.

Winter

It's October 4th and it is already snowing! Will this be an early start to winter? Hopefully not, I love snowy activities, but please, can't it wait until late November at least?

When it snows I love to build snowmen, go sledding and ice skate. Snow ball fights can be fun, but someone usually gets hurt. Therefore, I tend to avoid the flying chunks of snow.

Copyright

Copyright is not something that should be taken lightly and there are many rules that need to be followed. The site titled, Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians, provides the reader with questions and answers about copyright at school. Teachers need to be careful about making copies, showing videos, and playing music in the classroom. However, there is a ‘fair use’ policy for non-profit educations. Fair use allows teachers to use copyrighted materials without permission, but that is only to a certain extent. Teachers are not allowed to play music in the classroom unless it is in the public domain, related to what they are teaching, or they have permission to use it. Teachers are not allowed to show videos in the classroom unless they are related to the curriculum, recently shown on TV, or the teacher must purchase a license to show other types of movies in class. Teachers are also not allowed to display pictures of well-known characters unless they have purchased the rights.

There is a site called Taking the Mystery out of Copyright which seems like a good site for children. The information is easy to understand and it has cute characters which help make the information more fun to learn. They also keep repeating some of the same information over and over again because repetition helps people remember. This site talked about how copyright protects you. Anything that you create is protected from the moment you write it down. You can also register for a copyright by sending an application to the library of congress. Your registration becomes active as soon as they receive your application and you receive a certificate four months later in the mail.

Copyright protects everyone who creates something new and unique. It is important to follow the law and be informed on what is and isn’t legal. If you are informed about your legal rights as a teacher you will be able to find a lot of materials to use legally. I attached the links to the two websites I found this information on: Taking the Mystery out of Copyright and Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians!