This has been a really short week for me and I have missed a few classes so I will talk about some of the other things that I have been involved with. On Wednesday I was judging science fair. It is always so neat to see the different projects and ideas that the students have. One general thing I noticed was that doing internet research almost stifled creativity. When I asked the students where they got the idea for their project, most replied by saying they found it on a website they were given. While looking at these places for ideas is great, most students just replicated projects. I would have liked to see the students modify these to discover new things or try to get different results. If the internet was not available I wonder if there would be more original projects and different ideas. I realize that they could just go to books to find ideas but I feel like this would not have as much of an effect.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I was at WestCAST hosted by the University of W. It was great to connect with so many educators that are also just starting their career. It was interesting that with all of the young people at this conference, there was not a greater focus on the use of technology in the classroom in the sessions that I went to. That being said, I learned a lot and took away many different ideas that I want to try out in my next student teaching placement. The one thing that I really want to try is having a 'Genius Hour' which is basically a cool name for time set aside for an inquiry project.
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