week 12 reflection

I saw my teaching partner use a laptop and a projector to present a prepared powerpoint. I also used a laptop and the overhead projector to show the students a video about the first Thanksgiving. My partner's experience seemed to go very well, and mine also worked, but it stopped two times, and I wasn't the one who was able to fix it either of those times. My facilitator had to fix it for me so that we could finish the video, which didn't disrupt the class too much, but it would have been a big disappointment to the students if my facilitator hadn't been there to fix the problem. Also, the students still had computer lab this week and the regular overhead was used for several lessons, so I saw quite a bit of technology used this week. Some experiences went very well, and others had glitches, but overall they seemed to be effective because the students seemed to be more engaged and the teacher had less stress in remembering the material as the technology was either providing a lot of the teaching material or it was a prompt for what needed to be taught. I was thinking that I would like to use a smart board for a literacy lesson, but I asked my facilitator (who is the technology specialist at my school) and she said that they don't have any. I still plan on using the overhead for lessons and possibly doing another video or possibly a powerpoint lesson as the students' seemed to respond very well to those.