u01a1: Blog Your Results

Hello and Welcome!

Once again, I'm Sara E. Perez, and I am a 3rd Grade Teacher at Valley View Elementary where I attended as a child myself.  This is my third year teaching 3rd Grade and I absolutely love what I do!  I feel that incorporating technology in the classroom is very important and here is a link to a video I made on supporting technology in the classroom, hope you enjoy it!

I'm known as the tech-geek on campus, by native and immigrant digital teachers. I implement a wide range of technology from my classroom, and most important to me is my Smart Board and CPU, I just can't live without. I use PowerPoint’s and videos from Discovery Education to introduce new concepts weekly. My eInstruction clickers are one that my students love, they say it’s like the Wii, and I use them to assess my students’ progress through an Internet program called StudyIsland. I also use many links already customized for each concept and grade level by www.internet4theclassroom.com. Furthermore, I use BrainPOP(www.brainpop.com) and BrainPOPJr. (www.brainpopjr.com) to motivate my students, they truly like to watch Moby, and there's always a neat quiz after each clip! Finally, to have fun with my students I create Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire like games on target skills weekly, and we both achieve success, they have fun and I assess!

Why do I choose to use all these types of digital media? It's quite simple, I'm a media person myself, and through my learning experiences I've realized that I learn better when there are different types of teaching methods, but technology is always the most interesting, and I feel extra focused to learn. I know that children in the 21st century are extremely exposed to digital media and well, they just can't live without it! I feel more comfortable teaching when I have so many resources of digital media to help me through my curriculum and help my students succeed! By instigating all these types of digital media in my classroom, I always have 100% participation, 100% attendance, and great classroom management. In my past two years in 3rd grade I've had 100% of my students pass the state assessment (TAKS) in both reading and math, and the use of digital media has assisted me in my accomplishments! I feel the students are more engaged and they have fun and like to attend school, which is something I'm proud of! Saying so, I'd never change the structure of my teaching, I love it and it works not only for me, but for my students!

This is my 5th class in the Instructional Media program at Wilkes University, I'm half way done, YAY! :)  All through the half of the program I've enjoyed all that I've learned and have implemented it in my classroom quickly and easily.  My students have enjoyed all the new techniques and tools that I have brought to them, and they ask for more!   =)