Just as this smartboard is not being used, so is the one in our classroom.

 I believe all of the classrooms in the school I am in have smart boards; if they are utilized to their highest potential, I doubt it.  When I followed a special needs student around last week, I saw his math teacher using its many features including drawing circles and lines, zooming in, free hand writing with the markers, etc.  However, I do not think all teachers use it to the same extent as he did.  This is most likely the product of the fact that smart boards are new to these teachers because the building they were in last year only had one smart board in the technical education drawing class.   My teacher uses the smart board as a glorified projector screen, tapping the board to make it switch sides.  We have also used the DVD player and the projector, but that is all that I have seen it used.  In one class, she did use the markers on the smart board to show a sample essay paragraph to show editing potential.  I am not sure what other technologies are available to teachers to use.  I believe the SOL technology standards are being met, but I do not believe that the technology in the school is being utilized to its highest potential for learning.  Students are expected to know how to use the computer and the internet through miniature research projects.  She has assigned fact sheets on various religious where students are to find the different aspects of each, prominent locations, holidays, etc.  I would definitely want to incorporate the abilities of the smart board into my instruction.  For example, the polling through cell phones or iclickers is a great tool to use in the classroom.  While my teacher still uses the overhead projector to show maps, I want to use the abilities of the smart board to enlarge, color regions, draw lines and much more. 

I believe this week’s theme was on the spot.  My teacher got a call on Monday that her child was sick and she needed to pick him up from school.  I had a five minute warning before the next class was coming in and I was expected to teach.  A fellow social studies teacher was supposed to be “covering” until the office found a substitute, but that came to a “I’m across the way if you need me” and I never saw her again. This class was different from the previous classes, so the material was completely different and it has been a long time since I studied ancient India.  My goal was to not let this show and I structured the class sort of like a set of communal learning activities.  She had a blank map copied so I had the students work together to label the map.  When it was time to go over it, I asked for volunteers to show us one label at a time and as a class, we agreed if it was accurate or if it needed tweaking a bit.  Next, we did a read aloud of the next section of the book, stopping to sum up and ask questions of what we just read.  Finally, there was a worksheet that was meant for homework that the students were given to work on for the rest of class.  BY the time the substitute came three periods later, I was an expert at my lesson plan for the day and became more and more comfortable with each class I taught.