Week 2

My name is Lana McFarlin and I am attending Texas A&M Commerce to receive my all level Kinesiology degree. I want to coach and teach high school physical education and health. I would also love to teach physical education for any grade Kindergarten through twelve. I played soccer in high school and here at Texas A&M Commerce. I want to coach girls high school soccer, softball, and volleyball. I think coaching and teaching would be a great career for me since I am a single mom and it would also work well with my two sons schedule as well. Their names are Connor who is four and Hudson who is two. My hobbies are working out and that consist of lifting weights, running, playing soccer, and spending time with my family and friends.

 I think that education technology is very important. It makes teaching easier and quicker for the teachers and students. Teachers can teach their lessons from a computer using a slide show instead of a chalkboard. The lesson will not take as long to teach because the teacher will not have to write everything out on a chalk board.  The lesson is already planned ahead and typed up and then the teacher can move from one slide to the next quickly. Then the students can learn more at a time. I feel like as an educator the students expect me to know more than they do about education. As an educator I think I should know more about technology than the students. If the students think they know more about the information than the teacher, then the students will probably not pay attention to the teacher. So that is very important for the teacher to be very prepared and know what they are teaching the students and to also know how to use different technology devices the same as the students do.  Also students now come from a generation of growing up with technology in their everyday lives.  This makes it easier on the students and more difficult for the educators because we have to catch up with what the students already know. 

My goals from this class are to learn different ways to teach my classes by using different technologies.  Students already know more about different technologies than I do so I hope to at least get on the same level as my students will be.  As a teacher I want to figure out what students are interested in as far as learning with technologies.  If I know what the students like and what interest them then I can use that to keep their focus.  Once I have their focus then I can have their total attention and the learning process will be easier for them.  I would like to have an overview at the end of each class and use clickers to quiz the students over what they learned.  When using clickers I will be able to see as a teacher where I failed and what I connected well with the students.  Clickers will not pressure the students and they will feel more comfortable in their environment and I think this will help them learn more efficiently.   Also if the students did not understand what I was discussing the first time they can have a second chance to retain the information presented to them.