Speed Geeking

During our last class we were “Speed Geeking.” This essentially means playing around with different technology resources, identifying the purpose, discovering the benefits and drawbacks of the tool, and pinpointing the appropriate grade to use this tool. We spent no more than five minutes on each tool, hence the name “Speed Geeking.”

As I explored these different resources, I really enjoyed myself. As a pre-service teacher, I can never have too many ideas in my teaching toolbox. With busy schedules, a lack of an abundance of my own personal technology, and the absence of my own classroom, I don’t get as many chances as I would hope to simply play around with technology. It was nice to have time set aside to explore each app and make notes of which tools would be useful in my future classroom.

My favorite tool I explored was “Osmo Letters.” This iPad tool allows students to view a picture, and then use the provided letter tiles to create the word that describes the picture. The program can see the word the student is creating, letting him or her know if it is correct. I liked this tool so much because I kept on seeing more and more potential in this tool in regards to my classroom as an early childhood educator. Students could work on picture identification, spelling, and letter identification. This was a fun and engaging way to get students working on their letters. I most definitely will want this in my future classroom.

I would never use the "PhET Simulation" as it is geared for high schoolers and above, not even close to my future classroom age range. This tool simulated STEM activities. I think it has a place in a classroom due to the neat visual simulation, but students would have to have a plethora of background knowledge in order for it to be successful.

I look forward to the next time we go “Speed Geeking.” This reminded me of the Waukee PLAYdate I went to a few months ago, a morning of playing around with technology and demonstrating at the end.