# 6 Schools and their Sandboxes

             The school website that I used for this just happens to also be the school that I do my Observational Learning at for another class which is Cobb Elementary School. I was surprised to find when I was going through different class pages that they did have a lot more information public than I thought they would. Some class pages had more information than others but all of them generally had pages such as a Welcome page, Meet the teacher, Class Calendar, and a Student Resources page shown in the 7th grade Civics/Yearbook class below. Some pages had a lot of detail put into them along with many resources for the students such as assignments and an online book. The schools home page has access to information about upcoming events, clubs and the magnet program with a very positive outlook on the school as a whole. 

           Using productivity tools has become very important in the classroom and I plan to use as much as I can myself to keep up with the technology-consumed society. There are many different things that can be used such as classroom management software, productivity software and even twitter is becoming more common for classes. I would like to be able to use these programs to keep my students up to date and actively engaged in all activities. While going through some of the classroom sites I came upon something that I found very interesting to use in the classroom and very helpful for students. Instead of using twitter this teacher had a classroom Instagram, where she would post at the beginning of each week the agenda for the upcoming week. There were also posts of positive messages, if there was a notebook check the next day and even fun and informational pictures of maps for class. I find this a very interesting approach and would truly consider using it myself in the classroom. Children are always on Instagram, so what better way to take advantage of that than use it to update your students to keep the classroom productive and always prepared. 

 
            Going to the tech sandbox last week was so much fun. I was able to see the new technology that we hear about all the time and actually get to use it myself. One of the items that I felt would be very helpful in the classroom would be the Smart Table, which is specifically designed for preschool/elementary age children. With useful applications of telling weather, seasons, colors and so much more, enabling multiple children to stand around the table and all be able to get involved would be very beneficial. Along with the actual Smart Board itself, which many students who graduated high school within the past couple years, are familiar with using in their own classrooms. I remember using the Smart Board in the classroom all the time it was specifically helpful because the teacher could write on her notes and it be projected up and the students can get involved and write on the board too to solve problems. Something new that I had not seen before with the Smart Board is the 3D cube aspect to use while teaching. Essentially what it is is there is a cube that you can get that goes along with the 3D application on the Smart Board. Then when the cube is placed under the video projector on the screen showed an image of your choice, whether it be the human ear, a skeleton or even the moon. By rotating the actual cube you would be rotating the new 3D image of your choice on the screen in very high quality. I would love to see this used in my own classroom one day and think that the technology to be able to do this is so amazing and it is just going to keep getting better.