Week 3 of the Practicum

Much like the weeks before, I did not see a significant amount of technology used in the classroom that I am working in. My teacher has been teaching for several years and has many routines and lessons she uses that don't involve the use of technology. The only technology that I really see the students use is when they go to computers for half an hour every week. In talking with some other members of my cohort, we found that it is difficult to use technology in younger classrooms, especially if they aren't used to it, because they get distracted and excited and it is hard to manage the class. We did talk about using that aspect as an incentive to get students to behave, like saying "If you don't sit quietly and pay attention, we won't use the technology."
This week, I used technology once in one of my lessons. I read a book about turkeys to my class and I made a PowerPoint presentation showing different pictures of turkeys. The students really enjoyed it and were able to see what turkeys truly look like.
One idea I had for a lesson using technology, as it is Thanksgiving soon, I would like to read a story about the first Thanksgiving to the students and then use Google earth to show the locations of different events that took place.