Importance of Technology

In this age of the boom of technology, education has been keeping up to date with the technological evolution. Now, classrooms are filled with tvs, computers, and even ipods are accesible to students. These advances i the classroom give the students a more appropriate environment for them to learn and be come more creative in expressing their ideas. Techonology gives teachers an aid in order for the class to run smoothly and the students get engaged in a topic and they can learn and aply it in the real world.

The question that comes up is, how capable are students in handling these technological advances? Schools should implement more classes that involve the use of computers. Students should not only have a basic computer class. They should be able to create websites and post them. Students should use blogs as a method of learning and comparing their work with other students from different school, and maybe different ages ranges.

unit planning

This past week was a very busy one. Unit planning for the upcoming year had to be done. Unit planning had alot of particulars that i had not seen. As i sat down next to the other teachers, they were all ladies. In my case, it was actually kinda of amusing because it seems that not alot of men become spanish teachers. These ladies helped me alot during this week to understand and grasp the concept on how to be organized ahead of time.

As we sat down to see what had to be done, the first step was to set up a timeline for every unit. These units had to be taught around 6-8 weeks, each unit. Now with this set, each unit had to be created. The creation of the unit had a computer template offered by the school district for each teacher to follow. These templates included: what goals should the teacher accomplish at the end of each unit. What goals should be accomplished by the students. What modifications are going to be done in case of a special ed student being present? What Bloom's taxonomy vocabulary is going to be measured by the teacher?

This eperience was extremely useful as a student teacher. It refreshed my memory on bloom's taxonomy and how it shud be used efficiently in a class. But, what i really got out of this experience was how to apply the core curriculum standards to a unit and how to make your units work with another academic discipline.

attention seekers

As I sit down during my student teaching, I start comparing my sophomore and junior field experience to student teaching. I start comparing how students try to gain the teacher's attention. To give a little background about the school i went to do the first two experiences at a public high school in long island. The city where the high school is located, can be described as predominately white, where people live well. At this school students had access to almost everything. The students, when at school, came to study but, at the same time came to share social experiences with their peers and even their teacher. With no shame, teachers were knowing all their students personal life. In my opinion, this is a mechanism in order for the teacher to grow fond of the student. The student wants to captivate the teacher in order for the students' own benefit.

Now, being at student teaching, the background of the high school is predominately hispanic population, where kids come from a hard working society, or even from a broken family. These students seek the attention of teachers in a different way. The students see the teachers as authority figures and even maybe as role models. So, the attention seeked is more of the teacher being a positive force in a students life. When a teacher is angry at the student, the student goes and faces a harsh reality of another person giving up on them. This is where disciplnary problems occur. If a students feels this abandonment, the student does not have anyone else to impress or satisfy. The students act inresponsibly and do not care for the teacher figure anymore.

With this comparison, I am still left with two puzzling questions, is there ever going to be a way to figure out how to control both sides of these attention seekers? Is the teacher fighting a battle in vain, in order to help, guide and provide the students an environment where the can succeed in life?

introduction

Hi, my name is Hernando Santamaria. I'm a fifth year senior. My major is Spanish. I just started doing my student teaching at Hoboken High School. This is why i am never in class. Its been a fun experience so far. I hope i can say that by the end of it all.