Introduction-A dash of me!

Well, I'm fairly new to the University of Utah and to Salt Lake. I swore I would never live in Salt Lake City and as you can tell, I've had to eat my words. I moved up here quite drastically about a year ago. I quit my job in St. George, said goodbye to Mom and Dad and moved in with my best friend, and I don't regret it for one minute. I have truly loved living in the "big city" and attending the University of Utah.

As for a few tid-bits about me - well, I am the youngest of four girls and despite what you may think, my Dad loves it! I have four nieces (with another one coming in about 2 months), and two nephews. I spend as much time as possible spoiling them and getting them all riled up for mom and dad. I also love the outdoors. I love to go hiking, camping, four wheeling, swimming, and since moving to the cold I have also discovered a love of sledding. When I'm not working ten hour days at my job, or attending school, I spend as much time as possible wearing pants with an elastic waist band and playing five crowns with my roommates.

Another important trait about me is that I love to learn. I've always been that way. It's one of the reasons that moved me to think about becoming a teacher. I felt a desire to reach out to others and help them see great things. I love that part of teaching. I love being able to connect to another person and see the light go on.

Teaching has changed over the years so much. Teachers are much more approachable now. I want to continue that in my classroom. I want to be a part of the learning experience, not just the dictator of knowledge. As we've evaluated different types of technology in class I've thought of a couple ways I could use it in my classroom. I really like the idea of using a camera to record a discovery about a particular subject. For example, if we were in a science unit and studying insects, I would love to go out to the playground and take pictures of all the different types of insects we could find. Then, we could put them into a type of PowerPoint to showcase what we learned.

Another idea (which I must admit I found on the Internet) had to do with a unit on the solar system. The teacher created a website where the students had to report to receive their orders. Each student took a particular role and went on a pretend mission to a different planet to conduct research. Then, they had to report back to "space command" on what they discovered. How cool is that?