What to discuss today, what to discuss today...
There is so much running through my mind right now. Today wasn't even that eventful of a day, but I still feel like I could write a novel about what I'm thinking right now. Maybe it's because the semester is winding down and I have so much to talk about and only 17 days to do it. (17 days? Really?! Oh my gosh!) I think today, though, I'll talk about technology.
The amount of technology used in daily life today is incredible in and of itself, but the degree to which we use it in the classroom is what really blows my mind. In all of my student teaching field sites (Block II, III, and now IV) I have been in a classroom with a Smart Board. My teachers relied on it (especially last semester and this one) and used it for everything. Right now I use it for opening, math, and reading most days. I plan half of my lessons using that thing. So when it's not available to me (like today...more on that later), it's a little bit of a scramble to make do. I know in my gut that it shouldn't be like that. If I can't use a Smart Board, I should be able to do the same lessons...but from a practical standpoint I just don't see how! I asked Aryn how she did the things we do during our opening without a Smart Board, and she basically said "We didn't." The same things were taught, essentially, but they were done in completely different ways. Now I can have the kids come up, roll random number dice, write addition number sentences on the board, read them aloud, and then erase the problem all within a matter of 30 seconds. It's just harder to do that on a white board, and even harder to do it on a chalk board or chart paper, where you can't really erase things at all. I'm thankful that I have it. I like it! And I think that I'm using it appropriately. Just on days like today I wish that I had a better backup plan. I wish that we all did -- in my classroom, there is nowhere to write besides the Smart Board. There is no chalk board, no white board, no nothing! On most days I don't even notice this because I don't need anything but the Smart Board, but today I noticed.
Story Time break: Right in the smack-dab middle of my pirate lesson today (and of course this was the one I was being observed on), the Smart Board just turned itself off. My immediate thought was "Oh, shoot, the bulb went out." No, that's not true. My immediate thought was "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod" but that one only lasted for a half second. I tried to turn it back on using the remote, but it quickly became clear that it was not coming back on. So I switched the lesson to a read-aloud (I had a good pirate book ready) and we finished up our discussion and lesson without losing (too much) teaching time or getting side-tracked. I think I handled it pretty well, since the kids didn't lose their minds and stayed pretty tuned-in to the story. It turns out - we discovered later - that something had gone wrong in another room with the electricity, and so the custodian flipped the breaker for that room to try and fix it...except he hit the wrong one and got my room instead! It really would not have mattered AT ALL except for that one 30-minute block. Of course. My life. He came in and messed around with it later but we still couldn't get it to come back up. It didn't really matter at that point, and we told him to not worry about it. (We'll figure it out tomorrow. I don't even really need it tomorrow, anyway.) I wasn't too shaken up by it all, surprisingly. Usually the perfectionist in me would have panicked, but I honestly did not feel rattled -- except for that first half-second.
This brings me to my point for the day: technology is good. Technology is GREAT. But technology can come back to bite you if you rely on it too much. I think today's little lesson helped me to remember that you always have to have a backup plan. My backup plan was to read a story, which worked, but I wish I would have had a backup plan that was more similar to the original plan. Plan B should kind of follow along with Plan A, if possible. However, I did what I could with what I had. I think today also gave me a lesson in flexibility. The lesson was this: I am pretty good at being flexible! I surprised myself with how calm I was as everything was turning disastrous right in front of the person I was trying to impress! I think that one of the most important things I've learned over the last few years, both in my field sites and at work, is that you have to just CALM IT DOWN and KEEP IT GOING. Always, always, do these two things. If you keep calm and carry on (cliche but whatever) you will be okay and your kids will be none the wiser. For all my kids know, I meant for the board to turn off because I just couldn't wait to read the super-awesome pirate story!!!!
(Just so we're clear...I did not mean for the board to turn off. It was not pleasing.)
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