Ginny+Walters

Hi everyone! My name is Ginny Walters, and I am currently working on my Masters in Secondary Education. I graduated from UC in June with a Bachelors in Secondary English Education and received my teaching license in January. I completed both of my field experiences and my student teaching experience in urban schools. My hope is to work with urban, underprivileged students because I love that environment.

In addition to my coursework, I am also a graduate assistant in Athletic Academic Services, where I work with UC student-athletes from an academic standpoint. I am also involved in the start of a new non-profit based in Northside that revolves around emergent and early literacy and creative writing. Our basic premise is helping students find their voice through literacy and project-based initiatives. I am very excited to begin developing and implementing curriculum for this project!

I am a born and raised Cincinnatian. The picture to the left is one of my dad and me at a UC football game. I am a huge Bearcats and Reds fan, and my dad and I go to a lot of games together. While I have never lived anywhere but Cincinnati for an extended period of time, I enjoy traveling. I visited Moscow last year, which was a marvelous experience. The picture below is one of me in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, which is the most beautiful building I have ever seen. I just returned from a visit to Rhode Island, my first trip to New England. I am looking to visit Italy and some other areas of the Mediterranean in the near future.




 * __Hope__**

My hope is that I will gain some insight as to how to better use technology in my classroom. During student teaching, I found that although there was a SmartBoard in the classroom, I did not use that technology to its fullest potential. When I did use it interactively as opposed to just as a projector screen, my students were more engaged and involved in the lesson. It was an interesting study in terms of what motivates our students to learn. Technology has the ability to tap into that motivation so that students can channel it toward positive learning.


 * __Fear__**

My fear is that I will learn things in this class and fail to incorporate them into my classroom. I want to make sure that what I learn in this class holds great value to me and my students, so that I have the ability to use it when I begin teaching full time.

__**Educational Technology**__ Educational technology provides us with tools that allow us to teach concepts and skills in a unique way. The more perspectives that students can see, the more likely they are to internalize the content we are teaching. In addition, various points of view can help students come up with new ideas that they may not have thought of without being introduced to that perspective. Educational technology can be very valuable if - and that's a big "if" - it is used in the correct and most efficient way.


 * __Educational Blog__**

One of my favorite educational blogs is The Nerdy Teacher, which is written by Nicholas Provenzano, a high school English teacher in Michigan. I found him via Twitter. You can follow him at @thenerdyteacher. I enjoy reading his blog because he talks about the incorporation of technology into his English classroom. It's a blog about what he's actually doing and using in the classroom and whether or not it works. I joined the conversation about a Real Time Great Gatsby Twitter account he created for his students to use as they read the novel. It was empowering to contribute to a conversation about educational technology actually being used in the classroom. I asked him for a follow up at the end of the students' study because I want to know how they did with the Twitter account and whether or not they enjoyed using it. I'm eager to hear what he has to say.

I have created a blog for this class to discuss the use of blogs and other educational technologies in the classroom. Follow [|this link] to my blog!
 * __My Blog__**