Pen Pals

When I was in second grade, we were pen pals with the eighth graders in my school district. Every month we would exchange letters and during the school year, we visited them at their school once and they visited us at our school once. It was something that each student looked forward to every month and it also improved the students' writing. It was really neat to talk to someone older than us and I would like to do the same in my future classroom. However, I think it would be fun for the students to video chat with their pen pals. With today's technology, students can meet someone from across the country instead of just in the same town or even state. Creating a pen pal program with a classroom across the country would teach my students about traditions and cultures that occur around the United States.  

Ease Testing Anxiety

I think that there are many ways to ease test anxiety. A main way is to make a study guide with everything that will be covered in the next exam. Also, the students should know the set-up (multiple choice questions, essays, short answer, etc.). In high school, my Spanish teacher would let us copy the test questions if we put in the effort to stay after school. This is a great way to ease test anxiety because students will know exactly what they are testing on. The parents also do not need to worry about how their child is getting home because there is always a late bus after school.

Growing Up With Technology

When I went into kindergarten, we were not allowed to use computers. There was one computer in the classroom but that was only used by teachers. Once I entered first grade, we had computer classes. For the next eight years, all that we did in computer class was type. Whether it be words or just letters, we typed for forty-five minutes straight. I vividly remember my wrists aching at the end of each class. We would do website research once in a blue moon but that was very rare.

 Every once in a while our computers would randomly shut down. Each class at least one computer was not working. We were assigned a specific computer every year and had to sit there. At first we got to pick our seats but as I got older, we started sitting in alphabetical order. The best activity I had ever done on the computer was anything that did not involve too much typing. At the beginning of seventh grade, my teacher had us draw a picture and senior year we got to look at it. It was funny to see what we were like five years prior to this.

What Brought Me to SNHU

               While I was looking for colleges to apply to, I went to a college fair. SNHU was the first one that stuck out to me. It had a great education program and the students got to observe in classrooms the very first semester. All of the other colleges that I had previously looked at, did not have that option. While I was finding more out about SNHU, I went on a tour of the campus. Even though it is a cliché saying, right when I drove on campus, I knew it was the college for me. Everyone was very friendly, happily answered whatever questions either myself or my parents had, and the campus was small; I was not interested in going to a large campus whatsoever. I also liked that the professors had such a close knit relationship with the students.

                EDU 235 is the fourth education class that I have taken, including SPED classes. This semester, I am also taking another EDU class and along with another SPED class. I am excited to learn from this class because I do not know anything about technology. Even though our generation is “technologically savvy,” I have no clue what I am doing half of the time. I cannot begin to imagine what the next generation will be like. I heard somewhere that a majority of children learn how to use technology before they know how to talk. I believe it is unfortunate that in the future there is a high chance children will give up handwriting all together and just use technology. Also, some schools have stopped teaching cursive which is a huge negative because if there is a discovery somewhere from prehistoric times that is written in cursive, they will not be able to read it.