Post #10

PowerPoint 2, Blogs, Skills, Future Goals

     I learned how to make a Jeopardy game with the PowerPoint 2 assignment.  This will be very beneficial to me as a teacher because I plan to make many Jeopardy review games for my students.  I really liked this assignment and felt like it was very useful.

     Some of the topics I found most interesting were the reviews on different web 2.0 tools.  I think that these tools will be useful for teaching and the reviews helped me to determine which I actually want to use.

     I would like to learn how to use Prezi.  In several of my other classes people have used this tool to present to the class and I have never learned how to use this site.  

     One of my future technology-related goals is to make a class website.  I will look up some of the sites recommended by my classmates and determine which is the best.  One of my other goals is to make many Jeopardy review games for my future classroom.  I will use the skills I learned in this class to do so.  

     

      

Post #9

Peripherals and non-computer audio-visual techniques, web-based resource, Exel, and PowerPoint

     There are many ways that I could integrate peripherals and non-computer audio-visual technologies in my future classroom.  I could have my students use a camera to take pictures that represent a novel, and them have them load them on to a computer and make a PowerPoint or collage out of them.  I could also have them create a PowerPoint presentation at home on their computer, then download it onto a flash drive, and then present it in class on a computer.  These methods would integrate peripherals and non-computer audio-visual techniques in a way that would be extremely beneficial to the student.

     A web-based resource that I might use when teaching is One Stop English.  I would like to be an English teacher, and this website would be an incredible source for my students.  It includes resources to help students that are learning English, all the way up to advanced English.  It includes Grammar lessons, skill lessons, and exams to track progress.  I will refer any students that are in need of extra help to this site.

    This web-based resource is very beneficial because it allows students to interact with the material.  It also allows them to pick any areas that they need help in.  The site includes games that will help students learn, while also making it interesting.  

     As a teacher, I will use Exel to track my students' grades.  It will make it very easy to make a graph and see how well the students are doing.  I think it will make it very easy to see if I am making the tests too hard or too easy.  I think that this will help in any grade or subject level.

     I already knew how to make a PowerPoint, but I did learn how to make a Jeopardy game.  I will definitely use this ability throughout my years of teaching.  I really enjoyed this assignment and I think it will be very useful.  Teachers use PowerPoint all the time and it is very important that they are comfortable using it.  

     

Post #8

Presentation Software, Digital Divide, and Educational Technology

     I think that using presentation software is a big advantage. It makes class much more interesting for students and keeps them involved.  It also allows them to visualize the information that the teacher is presenting and allows the teacher to easily show them videos.  I don't think that there are any disadvantages to using presentation software. 

     I am on the side of the digital divide that does have access to, use of, and knowledge of technology.  I think that the digital divide will affect my classroom because if I decide to use adaptive technologies such as Goodreads, it will require students to go on the internet on their own time.  To address this problem, I will recommend that the students that don't have internet access go to the library and use the computers there. 

     I am very interested in the problem of the funding for educational technology.  There is a big debate over whether spending a ton of money on technology for students is worth it.  Some schools spend money buying an individual laptop for each student.  I don't think that this is worthwhile, because some students don't have internet access at home, so the laptop wouldn't be beneficial to them.  I do think it is important that students have access to technology at the school.  Having a sufficient amount of computers in the library and having computer labs is an extremely important tool.  Here is a journal that discusses this debate: The Great Debate: Effectiveness of Technology in Education.

     

Post #7

PowerPoint, Adaptive Technologies, and Web Page Design

     I will use PowerPoint to support my students with factual knowledge by putting important information on slideshows.  I would help them with conceptual knowledge by explaining concepts in detail and going over them in class.  I would help them with procedural knowledge by explaining how to do a project.  I would help them with metacognitive knowledge by making a PowerPoint that helps them to pass the Advanced Placement test. 

     Adaptive technology can be used to support learners in various ways.  They are primarily used to help the students interact with the classroom and to make their learning experience more fun.  I don't know anyone that has used such technologies.  A challenge to using adaptive technologies is that some students may not have a computer at home, so they wouldn't be able to use any programs that require internet access. 

     The Web Page Design assignment was interesting, but I don't think it will be very useful for me in the classroom.  I will be working with high school students, so they will most likely already have a grasp of appropriate web sites to use. 

Post #6

Web Sites, Technology, and Web Site Evaluation

     When I become an English teacher, I am going to create a class website.  I think that it would be extremely useful and would especially help keep the parents connected to the class.  I would make the website fun and interactive and it would provide a place that I could put up links for any online homework assignments.  I would keep the homework assignments on the website so that students could always refer to it if they had any questions.  I think that it would be worth the trouble because students could refer to the website if they had any questions before asking me. 

     I will definitely use technology to maintain and further develop my skills as a teacher.  Through forums and websites, I will communicate with other English teachers so that we can pool our best ideas and projects.  I will use online sources to keep up to date with criticisms and analyses of novels so that I am teaching my students up-to-date information.  I will also search the internet for new novels that will be best suited to my students' needs.

     I did not particularly like the last assignment, Web Site Evaluation.  I was already aware of what to look for to make sure that a website is credible, so I didn't learn very much from it.  I also found that it was very difficult to write an entire page single-spaced about the assignment.  Most of it was common sense and hard to elaborate on.  I will not need to use a website evaluation as a high school teacher, as most students should already be aware of how to find a credible website.  

Post #5

Web 2.0 and Web Hunt

     One Web 2.0 tool that I find extremely useful and well-designed is Goodreads.  This website provides its users a place to keep track of books they have read, books they would like to read, and books that they are currently reading.  It allows the user to rate his books, write a review of the book, and read reviews written by other people.  The user can become friends with other users and view the books that they are reading and their comments on the books.  This website also has an app that can be accessed from any smartphone.  

    I would like to become an AP Literature teacher, so this website would be extremely useful for me in the classroom.  I would have all of my students create a Goodreads account, and we would all become friends.  I would require them to add each of the books we read in the class and write reviews on them and give them star ratings.  They would also be required to view their classmates' reviews and respond to them.  This website would be extremely beneficial because it would allow the students to engage in the material and make it more interesting.  

     Web 2.0 is very beneficial for K-12 education.  The podcast mentioned that it can be a very good tool for students to become actively involved in the material.  It allows students to take the material and think about it in a different way.  Tools such as Goodreads, Prezi, and many other Web 2.0 tools can exponentially help students in the classroom.  Not only do they become more involved, it is much easier to grab the students' attention and make them interested in the subject.  

     I did not learn much from the activity last week, Web Hunt.  Most of it involved simply typing words into Google and copying and pasting information.  I have been doing this from the time that I began using computers in Elementary School, so it was no new information for me.  Though I didn't learn anything, the skill of searching for data on the internet is a useful tool for a teacher.  There are so many resources on the internet that can exponentially benefit a teacher in the classroom.

Post #4

Web-based resources, Student Research, and Inspiration

      There are many ways to use web-based resources to support student learning.  I would like to incorporate powerpoint by having game show reviews that are interactive for the students.  I have participted in games like this in the past and they were a lot of fun and are a good ways to learn the information in a different way.  I would also like to create a class webpage.  This would allow me to make announcements, post class photos, and communicate with parents.  It would allow students to connect more to the class and feel as though they are a part of something special.  I would also like to incorporate PowerPoint by having the students present projects to the class.  Public speaking is an important skill to have and this is a very good way to slowly introduce students to it.  Finally, I would like to have students complete a webquest.  This is a guided search of the Internet for specific information.  The ability to search the internet is an invaluable tool in today's tech savy society, and this is a fun way to teach this skill to students. 
        The Internet can be a great tool for research sometimes, but not such a great tool other times.  Sometimes it is not useful because the quality of the information on the internet is highly variable.  Sometimes people completely make up information and post it on the internet, and it can be taken as the truth.  Another reason it isn't a good tool is because the text can be directly copied and pasted into a student's work.  Copywrite infringement is a huge problem with students' essays- many will not take the time to rewrite the information into their own words.  Though there are some problems with using the internet for student research, it can also be very useful.  It is a great source for an enourmous amount of information for students, and it is very easy for them to access. 
      In school work in the past, I have used various Internet-based resources.  I have used PowerPoint more times than I can remember, and this is an invaluable tool that I will use for the rest of my life.  I have used it for many presentations, and it has improved my public speaking skill exponentially.  I have also used web searches for research papers.  These web searches are very useful, but it can often times be hard to determine if information on the internet is valid or not.  My methods are similar to those in the podcast.
     I acquired many skills from the Inspiration assignment.  I used Inspiration in elementary school but since I haven't used it in so long, I completely forgot how to use the program.  This assignment was a great refresher and now I feel completely comfortable with it.  It will be useful if I ever need to diagram things for my students or if I end up teaching an elementary school class. 
    

    
 

Post #3

Website Critique, Open Content, and New Skills

     www.facebook.com is an extremely popular website that has become an extremely important networking tool in the United States today.  Rule 1: Facebook makes very good use of general design principles.  The sleek design and bright blue color allow students to remember it very well.  Rule 2: Facebook orients users very well.  The tool bar at the top of the page is extremely well organized with icons that clearly show users what they need.  Rule 3: The text is carefully justified on Facebook's page.  Rule 4: Facebook doesn't follow this rule very well, they use much more than three type styles.  Rule 5: Facebook sticks to the colors blue and white on it's page.  This follows rule 5 very well and makes the webpage memorable and not overwhelming.  Rule 6: Facebook does follow this rule as it sticks to its color scheme of blue and white.  Rule 7: Facebook is certainly enhanced with graphics and interactivity.  It is extremely interactive, as you can post things onto a personal page or comment on other people's activity.  Rule 8: Facebook doesn't eliminate extra items, as often times spam appears and adds pop up on the screen.  Rule 9: Facebook does use upper and lower case.  Rule 10: Facebook does keep text lines short. Rule 11: Facebook does use single spacing. Rule 12: Facebook does have a very simple, easy to use structure.  Rule 13: Facebook does limit the focus of the website.  It has seperate pages for a person's personal page, and then another page to follow other people.  Rule 14: Facebook makes good use of bold and italics.  Rule 15: Facebook caters to its audience and often times has games available and different features for different age groups.  Rule 16: Facebook doesn't use flashing text. Rule 17: Facebook does use lists.  Rule 18: Facebook does navigate consistently.  Rule 19: Facebook doesn't stack text.  Rule 20: Facebook does include multiple graphic types.  It includes list as well as pictures.  Rule 21: The screen is extremely organized.  Rule 22: The sizes of everything on the screen is relative to it's importance.
     I think that open content is not important to educators.  I think it is cheating the author of the work if their words can be used without due credit.  I would not contribute to open content materials and I would not use them. 
     I learned so much from this week's assignment! I think it was very useful for use in the classroom and I plan to make good use of this new skill as a teacher.  I had never heard of mail merge before and I think that is an extremely beneficial and worth-wile skill to have.


    

Post #2

Microsoft Word

     I've used Microsoft Word all throughout my years of being a student.  I've used it for projects, homework, writing papers, and many other things.  My teachers have used Microsoft Word to make quizzes and tests.  As a teacher, I might choose to use Microsoft Word to make handouts and papers with helpful hints. 

    As a student, I never had a problem with copyright, but I heard about several students that got in trouble because they didn't site their work.  As a teacher, I would make sure to stress to my students that it is important to give credit to the author and I would make sure that they knew how to properly site work.  I would have them turn in their papers online so that I would have the ability to check whether they copied and pasted the writing off the internet, and I would make sure that any student that cheated got in a lot of trouble.  

    I found this week's assignment very interesting and helpful.  It was fun to play around with making a quiz, and I plan to use this a lot as a teacher! I learned how to make a quiz look interesting by looking up quiz templates on Google.  I also got the chance to think about different ways I can ask a question, through multiple choice, matching, or fill in the blank.

Post #0

   Prior technology experience, what I hope to learn, and my learning style

    I haven't taken any technology classes prior to this one, but I have plenty of experience with technology.  I have had a Twitter and Facebook for years and have been using Word Document and Powerpoint since middle school.  Exel is the only program that I don't feel very comfortable with. 
     I hope to learn technology skills that will help me with my future teaching job.  I hope to one day be a high school English teacher, and I hope that this class will provide me with skills such as higher proficiency with Word Document and Powerpoint.  I would also like to learn more about Exel.
     I am an active, sensing, visual, and sequential learner.   It helps me to see things diagrams or pictures when I am learning, and doing things for myself or explaining the information helps me to remember it.  I find working in groups to be very helpful.