Blog #10 – PPT #2

I learned how to use PowerPoint to make an interactive lesson or review game. Learning how to navigate PowerPoint’s without using the traditional methods will be useful in creating a high quality, interactive lecture/lesson. Most of the tips I learned from the PowerPoint 2 assignment I used in the previous assignment, so not much was brand new.  Knowing how to insert sounds and transitions to a PowerPoint can make its content more interesting to the audience and keep their attention!

Next, I would most like to learn about Excel. Ever since high school I have thought that excel is too complicated and not worth the trouble. However, since getting a brief lesson last week I think it is a highly useful tool and can make calculating grades, etc. much easier.

I can further achieve my future educational technology-related goals by following blogs, websites, and twitter profiles that provide insight on the latest technology and how it can be used. Staying up to date with technology is crucial to using current technology effectively.

Blog #9

Using peripherals (scanners, printers, probes, zip drives, cameras, etc.) in the classroom can be useful to use other forms of technology in the presentation of the lesson. For example, using personal examples of the concept being taught by taking pictures with a camera can make a lesson a little more interesting. Students like learning funny things about their teachers.  Also, using scanners can make uploading material to the computer to go hand-in-hand with the lesson. All in all, these devices can help the educator enhance the lesson and make it more comprehendible for the student(s).

C Palms (http://www.cpalms.org/Public/), a web-based resource, would be useful as a teacher. It provides the objectives and standards that each grade level should achieve and provides helpful materials for the teachers to aid the process.  I is also convenient as a teacher because all this information is available on one web address. As a teacher, I would not prefer hoping between various websites to find necessary information.

C Palms is organized well and is colorful and fun to use. It’s easy to follow and search for concepts, etc. to help the teacher understand what’s expected and materials to enhance their lesson plans. This website covers grades k-12, being useful for every grade and a wide range of educators. This can also bring uniformity to the school district and among the teachers.

As a student I am not a fan of excel, probably because I never properly learned how to use such a program. However, I believe that everything Excel can accomplish would be highly useful in the classroom. Especially for Math subjects, being able to properly create graphs that accurately illustrate the proportion of values is a key aspect to effective teachers and maximizing the students’ understanding. It can also be useful to the teacher personally for managing the class and keeping track of grades, contact information and attendance (if such programs are not already supplied by the school).

PowerPoint is useful for an extensive list of reasons. However, most importantly, it is used to get the lecture content across. By learning how to create a PowerPoint more detailed and interactive makes a lecture more interesting for teachers and students alike. I enjoyed the skills I learned from these assignments and the information is useful even today as a student. For example, I had to create a PowerPoint as a project in a class and I was able to use the concepts I learned to make my PowerPoint really amazing. By adding sounds, animations, colors, etc., as a teacher I will make what PowerPoints I make fun to listen to and enhance student participation.

 

Blog #8 – The Digital Divide & Presentation Software

Using presentation software makes creating a lesson more interesting for the teacher and also makes the availability of the lesson convenient to students who may have missed class or want to review more on their own at home. Using presentation software can also help make the lesson more interesting and/or interactive for the students. Some down sides may be that students, most likely older, would take advantage of the presentation being posted and never come to class. However, I think it’s more beneficial to use than it is to not use.

The digital divide is a term used to explain the gap between those who do and don’t use technology. it effects everyone from third word to first world countries. It also impacts access, knowledge and skills. A disadvantage of the digital divide in the education system is that it can create disparity between the students. I am on the wired side of the digital divide. I have used and currently use all sorts of technology for my education and work. For example, I have used computers, iClickers, iPads, iPhones, iPods, etc. I think I know how to use technology pretty well. I have used it for submitting assignments, doing homework assignments, keeping in contact with teachers and fellow students, and to see what’s going on in the world and at my school. I can’t be sure on how exactly the digital divide will effect my classroom. A lot of it seems to depend on the area in which I will teach. If I teach in a rural area, the digital divide may have a considerable  impact. However, if I teach in an urban city the likelihood of running into issues with the different amounts of technology each student uses will be less likely.

http://screencast.com/t/52iMFY0jcKL

I really enjoyed making a PowerPoint presentation using Jing. It was fun to be animated and to explain things in such a way that I can hear myself afterwards. It would be really useful to use in the classroom and at home for the students. It made the PowerPoint more fun and interactive rather than a traditional lecture. I can use this software to post the PowerPoint so students can review it at home, so parents can see what’s going on or for student who may have been absent and don’t want to fall behind. I can use this program in the future when I am a teacher to post PowerPoints that elaborate on the days lessons as homework, make lectures as homework, as projects and as a way to keep parents informed about what is taught and what the child should know.

PowerPoint assignment

Blog #7

My website homepage

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Resources

PowerPoint is a tool that can be used for a variety of reasons. While going to school as a kid and teenager, my teachers would always use PowerPoint or have us do a project that involved creating a PowerPoint. Like it was suggested in Chapter 5 software, like PowerPoint, is useful because it helps students comprehend the material better by incorporating images, sounds and video using hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are a cool tool because it allows the teacher to jump back and forth between pictures, videos, websites, etc. and come back to the PowerPoint. As a teacher I will use PowerPoint to help elaborate on the material being learned by providing examples and by organizing the information in such a way that it is easy to comprehend.

Adaptive technologies are an important tool for all students but even more so for students with disabilities. Using technology that can translate, read the material on the screen or use a brail keyboard are crucial to the success of a disabled child’s learning. For example, I know a young boy who is blind and he is able to set his IPhone to say everything on the screen and listen to what he says he wants to do. Since he can’t see the keyboard or read what’s on the screen this plays a major role in how he communicates with others. Adaptive technologies help these kids adjust to the learning environment and can make them feel like they belong. However, there can be some challenges in the classroom setting. For example, if a child is blind and needs to use a brail keyboard, other children may make fun of him. Also, if a child with a hearing or vision disability needs the computer to read all the content to him/her it could lead to being a distraction for the rest of the class.

Using http://edtechtimes.com/2013/11/06/top-5-problems-technology-education-today/ for ideas, a couple issues with technology in the classroom are that there are a  variety of websites available during a lesson (I.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and using the internet as a crutch. When we don’t know the answer to a question as common response is, “Google it!” However, this can be problematic when you want your students to actually think or try to work out the problems without aid. Also, to a student, mindlessly scrolling through Facebook information that is not important is more fun than listening to a dull lecture. I even see this in college, put a computer in front of a student during a lesson and odds are they won’t be taking notes, they’ll be updating their status, “Bored at school…save me!”

After creating my own websites, I see now how beneficial it could be to my classroom. I learned how to organize my information using different pages and also choose bold fonts and colors that don’t make you dizzy. Using a website could be a great tool to use to communicate with parents as well as students. With a “Parent Page” and a “Student Page,” everyone can stay in the loop and not fall behind because they don’t know what is going on.

Blog Post #6

As a teacher I would maintain a course website, however maybe not as a wiki. While I was in middle and high school, my teachers used a website called “Edline.” Each parent and student had a log in and served as the course website where information, grades and materials were posted so everyone could have access and parents to keep up to date with what their child is learning and progressing. It proved very useful through all those years and I feel strongly that in this day and age it’s a necessity.

As my web evaluation I chose a website that gave teachers tips on how to effectively teach their students to get use to writing and a series of recommendations to help promote effective learning of the topic. As a teacher, I will need new ideas and effective tips that I can use to help my students learn. Things can change pretty quickly and with one hit of the Google button new information can be at my fingertips. Also, I can use technology to share what I learn with other teachers and help create a sense of community with my co-workers. Having a good relationship with other teachers is crucial as a new teacher and to learn from other peoples’ experiences.

On the Web Evaluation assignment I learned about what specific things to look for when considering a website as a reliable source. Many things play a factor into the authority of a source including the background of its author. Granted, it may be more work to have to really research your research but in the end it can make you a smarter individual and well respected. Next time I will google search in a different way, using some of the google search tips. What I learned about organizing my wiki and the different criteria for evaluating a website will be useful in my future as a teacher, as well as in my technology usage for college courses now.

Web Evaluation Worksheet

Personal Use of web evaluation worksheet.

Blog #5

Web-based resources are highly utilized in today’s k-12 classrooms. Though it may not be directly in the lesson plan, teachers may use these resources to elaborate the lesson and look up facts for themselves. Outside of the classroom, students use these resources, google, wikis, blogs and YouTube to do further research if they don’t understand a concept. If a student is doing that outside of the classroom, why not use it in the classroom on a daily basis. I would use the web for videos to elaborate on a subject matter. Also, in college I had a professor who would start off class with a funny short YouTube video. It set the tone for the class and lightened the mood. I would like to use that in my classroom some day as a sort of relaxer and treat every once in a while.

Using the internet to support student research is a great tool. It opens the door to extensive research and makes it possible for a child to learn so much more than normal. On the other hand, it can also be dangerous when it comes to what kids might find, plagiarism and how children interact with other children. For the most part, it’s highly useful but along with the pros of technology and resources, there are some cons.

When using the web for research I try to stay away from wiki blogs because my teachers and professors have said that they are unreliable. If my research is an article from a well know paper or research group, I tend to use those the most. Also, sometimes when I would cite my work using a program, it would tell me if a website I was using was reliable. Those are usually the boundaries I use for my own research. For the most part I agreed with the podcast except for the usage of blogs and wikis for the reason of not knowing how reliable they are.

Something I learned from the web hunt is how to efficiently google search. I remember reading from the google search tips to leave out unnecessary words and type what I want to search straight to the point. Honestly, I’ve never really liked googling multiple things in a row, I find it tedious and stressful. Maybe next time to make my search more efficient I could use more google tips to specify my searches. However, no matter how much I may dislike Google for extensive searches, I will more than likely highly utilize it in my classroom for lesson plans, materials and ideas.

 

Useful Tips for Google Search

1) Use quotes to find proper names and places in Google, I.e “Nicole Kidman”

2) Use a – sign operator to find pages without a particular term. The – sign shows that you want to subtract or exclude certain pages that contain the same term. Do not use spaces with the – sign because it will not register as though you want to subtract certain pages, I.e. Dolphins -Football

4) Use the ~ sign to help search a term, its different forms and its synonyms. This is a useful tip for when it comes to writing essays or if your search is broad enough to include different terms. I.e. ~run

5) Use “..” to show that you are searching something that includes a range of numbers

Blog Post #4

As a teacher, I would make use of concept maps to illustrate and explain a point or lesson. Chapter 7 lists six steps of a hypermedia assignment: an outline, idea map, storyboard, flow chart, development of software product and then the presentation of the final product.  Concepts are extremely important because they utilize examples and properties. Examples were something I grew up with in all of my 12 years of schooling. They helped solidify lesson point and illustrate their meaning. They were highly utilized and effective by all my teachers. The second is properties, a form of examples that go deeper than the basic or most common form. Computers and various software will be usable to use these strategies. I would encourage my students to use these steps because they can help each student create and visualize a learning objective in a way they best understand through organizational patterns and categories

I think the Inspiration 9 Program is an interesting tool to utilize as a teacher. It’s complicated to learn at first but as time goes on and becomes more mastered. I like how pictures can be integrated into the diagram and details can be added. I don’t like how complex the program is. It’s kind of an inconvenience how much time it takes to try and learn the program. What I learned can be used in my future career extensively for various subjects and lessons. However, if there is a simpler program out there, I would rather utilize that one.

 

Blog #3

Home

The website uses good general design when it comes to spacing, illustration, colors and is straight forward. It also provides labeled tabs that provide information on the main point of that specific web page.  the website seems to have a centered alignment. However, the website uses more than three different fonts and sizes. They do follow a simple color palette of blues and white. They use this color scheme constantly on all the tabs. There is a balanced amount of information and pictures and has meaning. They do not use all capital fonts. The information doesn’t keep its sentences short. The website uses double space between paragraphs instead of indentation. There is only one main idea per screen. They do use bold, italics and underlining to emphasize certain points. The website seems to try and reach a wide audience by providing facts and activities for children, as well as history and fundraising opportunities for adults. It does not use flashy text effects to get  the audience’s attention. The website does not utilize lists. Navigation buttons stay in a consistent spot.

Open source and content are important for educators to utilize. Sometimes, when a student may be sick or absent for some reason the student can be able to access course materials online and follow along, even though not at school.  Also, open content can help teachers elaborate a point by using videos or other materials to further explain a point. This can also make teacher easier on the educator. I believe I would use open content and open source software materials in the classroom. As I become a more experienced teacher, I may eventually contribute to them if I have an idea that is worth sharing with other teachers to help further the students’ learning.

Thus past week I learned a lot about how to make a newsletter. I found it to be a lengthy, tedious process but still something I may use someday in my own classroom to communicate with the parents on a weekly or monthly basis. I didn’t like how it was difficult to maneuver an already established template but I did like how the template already provided a uniformed font and color scheme. I think Microsoft Word’s Newsletter feature is an important one to utilize.

 

Blog Post #2

Microsoft Word is a very important tool to utilize. Understanding how to maneuver the program and use all that it has to offer is important when creating worksheets, tests, writing letter and essays. Simple aspects of the program, such as spell check, are widely used. As a student, I’ve used Microsoft word for writing essays and papers. That’s really the only reason I have ever had to use it. I saw my teachers use it to post notes, create tests, create worksheets, to write letters for recommendation or for parents (before e-mail was the main source of communication) and to make any other handouts. Before, I had never thought about taking a word document and turning it into a PDF. I think that’s a smart way to solidify whatever assignment it is you want your students to learn in a way that cannot be altered if emailed out to the students or posted on a school’s website, such as Edline or similar to BlackBoard.

I’ve never had any issues with copyrighted material. I always properly cited my sources and tried to paraphrase as much as possible. I know other students who had several encounters with plagiarism and as a punishment received in school suspension and/or a failing grade. Now being in college, not copyrighting and fair use is important in every subject and the punishment for plagiarism is not worth the risk. Now, there are programs that can go through your document and pick out phrases and sentences that can be found online and give the website. It’s much more difficult to get away with cheating. When I am a teacher I’ll make sure use of ways to protect my work. By saving, posting and sharing in a specific manner I hope to protect my intellectual property from those who will try to pass it off as their own. Also, depending on the grade I teach, in the beginning of the year I’ll go through and explain what copyrighted material is and what it means to plagiarize. Even if I teach a grade that won’t necessarily use it, I will still make it a point to bring it to their attention for future use.

By working on this week’s assignment, I learned various things. I learned how to automatically format the date, make the borders of a chart invisible and utilize borders and other formatting aids. I enjoyed working with Microsoft Word and finding various new ways to use it. As a teacher, I believe I will enjoy making worksheets and tests. Once you have the confidence to use technology an experience how much easier it makes your life you wont want to go another day without it. It’s a lot to learn all that Microsoft has to offer. At first, it can be a bit overwhelming. However, by practicing the program will become easier to use. Everything I learned from this week’s assignment can’t be used now and once I begin my teaching career.

Do you know your words test