Week 4: UEN

After exploring and using the UEN website, I think adding its options to my classroom google site will really benefit me as a teacher. I have realized that the UEN website has a lot to offer my future classroom and students. I love that the core curriculum is right at my students, their parents and my fingertips. Following the core curriculum is a very important asset to my teaching methods and I know that I will refer to it a lot on my web page. UEN has so many options for research as well, and I love that. Since research and information is such an essential part of my core curriculum, I know that we will be using UEN a lot so my students can find reliable sources.

Another great thing about the UEN website is that they have lesson plans I can refer to for ideas and use for teaching. Sometimes it is nice to compare ideas or build from other teachers lesson plans and teaching methods. I usually look over lesson plans and don't like them completely, but I can find a few great ideas to apply to my personal lesson plans. This is a really good resource, especially for a new teacher like me. The lesson plans are really useful too because they apply to utah state core curriculum.

I absolutely love the interactives because they have grammar, vocabulary and spelling games that my students can play. A lot of high school students need these kind of visual games to use because grammar is such a hated trade for students. I hope to use a lot of online grammar, vocabulary and spelling quizzes for my classes because the visual and technology helps a little with making it a little more of an enjoyable activity. Kids seriously hate this part of my core and I will be honest, when the kids hate it isn't the most fun to teach. Hopefully the interatives from the UEN site can make it a little more bearable.

Pioneer library is a pretty cool option that UEN offers teachers. It actually found some interesting things while exploring this part of the assignment. I am totally going to SIRS over Google for research for my students when we research. I love how it targets their learning level for the information they are searching for. It is true that a lot of information on the Google is beyond their learning level and they have a good chance of using a website or information that is not as reliable of a source as the the sources they can find in the Pioneer Library. Even thought I wasn't pumped about UEN because of comments I have heard about it; I am extremely surprise with how much of it I will apply to my teaching and classrooms. I am overall pleased with the part of UEN this assignment covered.