Lisa Lorenzini's Page

I was able to complete my elementary field experience at two different schools. I worked under Lesa Bak at Penrose Elementary School in Colorado Springs School District 11 last fall. During this time I was able to observe Lesa work with classes across all grade levels as they continued working on their research projects. Each grade level, first through fifth, had a different research project they were completing. During this time, I not only got to observe Lesa as she held a review session at the beginning of each class, I was also able to assist students as they worked on their projects. I was truly amazed at how efficiently Lesa conducted each class so that optimal learning could take place. It was quite obvious that students at Penrose have had extensive opportunities to integrate technology into the school’s curriculum as they all seemed to be comfortable with technology and the different researching assignments they were conducting.

I spent the majority of my time at Kaiser Elementary in the Denver Public School System working with Karen Epps. From the first day I felt like I was part of the school and was able to work with Karen in all aspects of her job. Karen made sure to take time each day to discuss the lessons that would be taught as well as show me the different Web 2.0 tools she uses with students. During my time at Kaiser, I was able to observe Karen teach across all grade levels and observed a variety of lessons both in the library as well as the technology lab. As Karen is in charge of the technology in the school, I was able to set up my first Mimio from beginning to end (with Karen, of course!) As neither of us had set one up before, we had a great time figuring out how to set it up and of course we had to spend time playing with it.

I conducted my collaborative lesson at Kaiser. Working with the second grade, students created a Voki to present a piece of poetry they had written. Since this was a new technology to the school, it was great working with staff who were excited to learn something new. I really enjoyed how the teachers embraced me and were willing to help me out in any way.

Both of the schools I did my experience in are High Performance Power Libraries. I really enjoyed learning from both Lesa and Karen. Next year I will be in charge of teaching all the technology in my school. Working with these two exceptional librarians, I was able to take away many new technologies and ideas to use with my students.