Senior Year

This is my last year of college. The last year of my bachelor's degree. It's taken 6 years, several failed courses (followed by repeats of those courses), countless sleepless nights and ugly cries, but I'm finally at the end. Since this is my senior year, it requires an internship. I think it's quite fitting that my internship is with high school seniors that they are feeling the exact same way that I am. I'm done with school just as much as they are. They're hard to motivate and it's hard to convince them that they need to turn in their work. They've already been accepted to schools such as Harvard and Yale - no, I'm not joking. So, why do they need to hand in a 2 minute speech on their hero?

Along with my senior year are the teaching certification exams I have to take. A friend of mine has been teaching for 7 years and the exams were $50 each when she took them. They're $150 and up now. Since this internship is unpaid, I'm required to find some willing relative to pay for these testing fees. And that relative would be my husband. He works hard to pay the bills for both us just so we can turn around and give the money to testing fees. Kudos, UCF, I'm so glad I pay all of these tuition fees and pay for things I don't need. Like the gym; if I have time to work out, I'm taking that time for a nap. Or to wash my hair or do my dishes. You know, everyday things that I barely have time for between classes, internship, schoolwork, and the 2 days a week I do work just to pay for gas to drive an hour to waste the class talking about someone else's research.

This has turned into a rant, and I'm sorry to the two people that do read this, but I always feel better when I get my feelings down in writing. I feel as though the teaching program is organized very poorly. Especially for the secondary education majors. They want us to pass these tests and say that we need to attend seminars for help, but the seminars are all about elementary education. How and when is this supposed to help me for the English exam? TOTALLY worth the hour drive I spent getting here. 

Now, dear Reader, I don't want you to think I haven't enjoyed my senior year. I've met some great people, made connections at a new high school, figured out what I wanted to get my master's degree in, and am enjoying a blissful first year of marriage. 

But, I'm ready for it to be over. 

Tech in the Classroom

As far as tech goes, I would consider myself an intermediate user. If you want to measure my use in the form of tangible technology (iPhone, computers, etc) then I would consider myself an advanced user. I have an iPad, two computers, a Chromebook, an iPhone, and an iPod (as seldom used as it is). In the form of web technology, I would say I’m a beginner. I’m planning on starting a YouTube channel when we buy our RV and a blog for our travels. That’s as far as my website tech goes.

I attempted to visit the Screencast-O-Matic website but nothing would load for me. I really like the idea; I just wish I could’ve seen it in action! I made my own Kahoot and tried it out with my husband (he wasn’t as excited as I was to learn about Beowulf) and I’m planning on fine-tuning it to use in my internship! My teacher asked me to play around with it and create one for the students for a grade. It was nice that it was assigned for this class too! I plan to use Kahoot in my classroom with my students as a fun way to break up the learning/review into a game. In my experience, if students know there’s a game awaiting them, they’ll be more engaged in the learning.

I feel that writing virtually is important for students. I also believe that collaboration is equally as important. GoodReads is one of my favorite websites because classes can meet and discuss books and share their favorites. It opens up a whole new world to discuss reading. Websites like Prezi and Google Docs create the opportunity for students to work together digitally to publish work. Students can edit and share documents to be posted on a blog or website.

After looking at Jane Hart’s website, I really like the use of WeVideo and signed up for a free account. Since I have no footage on my Chromebook, I can’t edit anything or create a video, but can see how this would be an easy tool for students to create and edit videos in the classroom. I like that everything is done digitally. I also really like Remind which I definitely will be using in my classroom to keep my students updated on assignments.

I plan to try out the Kahoot game and Google Docs and Hangout in my internship class. I would like to have the students collaborate digitally and introduce my teacher to digital coursework. She isn’t aware of Remind either so I would like to try to sign the students up for that to use in the course as well.