Blog Journal #9

I feel this project will be helpful for the teacher we are doing the lessons for. It's good for us as well because we are getting to put everything we've learned to use. If we hadn't had to do this project, we would have learned a lot of really helpful information from this class and not done anything with it.

I think I put in a lot of work, just as the rest of my group did. We created a slide show and I personally created a whole crossword puzzle on Excel using poetry terms.

I don't think I've learned much in the previous week. I guess I kind of learned that making a crossword puzzle on Excel is SO MUCH EASIER on Mac's than on a PC. Other than that, I was only using things I've learned before.

Blog Journal #8

WebQuest would be most beneficial if used with middle schoolers because they are more technology savvy than elementary leveled students. It allows them to look up words, for example we are teaching the students about poetry so maybe they could look up poetry terms, and add them to the Wikispace.

I could not find one particular lesson that I thought would be helpful from this website because I did not understand how to navigate the site. Everytime I searched for something, it would just give me books from Amazon.com with their prices and whatnot.

New things I've learned this week that will be useful in a classroom was MS excel's ability to create crossword puzzles and calculate grades. It's way easier than doing it by hand and not too confusing. I think teachers should use this in their classroom because it will save them so much time at the end of the year when they need a total calculation of their classes grades.

blog Journal #7

A good web based tool I could use is The Homework Site. It's a website that allows teachers to post homework or any other kind of information online and students are able to access it from a school or home computer. The students can post their homework on the site instead of printing out paper and bringing it in to class. It would also be easier to grade.

I think I would use Excel for the sole purpose of creating personal letters for the class without having to actually type up different letters on MS Word. I thought that was the most helpful way Excel can be used and I believe I would use it often. I find Excel otherwise to be extremely difficult and confusing.

Any time I would need to use a spreadsheet basically would be a good time to use Excel. I feel like I personally would use Excel only in extremely rare cases because it confuses me so much. There are many other programs that are simpler and less stressful, to me, than Excel.

blog Journal #6

In my PP1, I used colors and fonts that were easy to look at and would keep the childrens attention. For that same reason, I also added graphics, including clip art and word art.

To incorporate non computer visuals and peripherals in the classroom by having educational and informational posters around the room. When I was in grade school I always loved when my teachers would have colorful posters that would teach me something around. To incorporate computer based technologies with other methods of teaching by maybe using those posters to teach a lesson along side a powerpoint.

I learned A LOT about powerpoints in the last two classes. Before this, powerpoint was like a foreign language to me. I think powerpoint is important in teaching because its a fun way to teach and keep the kids attention at the same time, which can be hard to do!

Blog Journal #5

The website I chose is YouTube.com. YouTube has many headlines, video clips, and graphics. Advertisements are displayed on the main page. The text font is fairly consistent throughout the sites main page, other than when the sites name is presented or the font of advertisements. Each advertisement is a different color from the rest of the page, which is mostly white with blue font. Most text is next to a picture/clip that is linked to a video. The creator made this site very user friendly, with easy to find links and a big search bar at the top.

The biggest advantage of using presentation software is it's more interactive for the students and creates a fun atmosphere to learn in. I feel students are more likely to be interested in a lesson that is visually appealing rather than a lesson that involves nothing more than the teacher standing in front of the class and lecturing. A disadvantage of presentation software is it's less helpful to students who aren't visual learners. Not every student is advantaged by a fully visual presentation. Students who learn better through auditory lessons or more hands on lessons would not focus well in visual lessons.

Using MS Powerpoint, I could make a slide show with sounds, images and sections where the students must copy down parts into their notes. This will hopefully keep the students attention for the entire lesson since it would be interesting and more hands on.

Blog Journal #4

As a teacher, I would teach my students to use outlines and idea maps to help make their creativity/ideas more organized. MS word is a good program to help students create these outlines and idea maps. With bullets, paragraphs, graphics and tables it becomes easy to organize and combine ideas relating to the topic matter presented to the students.

I would definitely encourage the use of outlines and idea maps because they are so helpful in organizing lots of ideas and putting them all in one place. This will make students more aware of the importance of organizing thoughts and ideas, making the overall process less stressful and hectic.

Mail merge is a really great technique we learned that I didn't even know existed! It makes writing individual letters to students in the class so much easier! Had I never learned about this tool and had become a teacher, it would have taken SO MUCH time to individually write each letter.

Podcast!

:)

Blog Journal #3

A lesson I could create using technology could be a review game, resulting in extra credit for the test. Using MS Powerpoint, I would create a slide show that had questions/answers for useful information for a test. The class would be divided into groups and each group would write down their answer on a piece of paper and turn them in. The team with the most correct answers gets a few extra points on their test.

The main concern I would have in a technology based classroom would be that students would take advantage of the internet. I know when I was in grade school, if I had internet access I would usually use it for things other than what was assigned. For middle school aged kids, I believe a lab assistant would be especially helpful to watch over the students. Also internet website blockers are pretty important.

http://www.thekidzpage.com/learninggames/learningonline.htm
The kidz page is a great website for kids. It has online games for math/numbers, word games, and sudoku games. This website would be good for print out's or for homework.

Blog Journal #2

As a student, I've used MS Word to write essays, papers, and outlines, and to create portfolios. I haven't really had to use the special features (i.e; picture/word graphics) yet, just used Word in a basic, almost beginner, way. I have seen teachers use MS Word to create their syllabus on or to demonstrate something to the class on. Sometimes, if the teacher did not want to or was not able to print out something important for the class, they would put it in word and either put the file on Blackboard or pull it up on the screen in class for the students to copy down.

In middle school I was required to make a portfolio of poems for an English class, using MS Word. Besides the obvious of typing the poems, we were allowed to pick the font, font color, font size and insert as many pictures as we wanted. I enjoyed this because it allowed us to use color and make it completely unique for ourselves. This is the most creative thing I can think of using Word.

New skills I've learned that I think could be useful in an educational career would be quiz making and short cuts in using Word that make typing, presenting and completing documents easier. These short cuts will save time on the actual computer and allow for more time actually teaching.

oh hay fish.. like oh hay dinosaurs!

Blog Journal #1

Computers and new technologies are important parts of the educational experience because so much of teaching has become dependent on them. Certain computer programs have made it much easier to make lesson plans or display the information being taught. It's also important to teach about computers and technologies since the kids learning about them are entering an age of technology. I agree for the most part about the issues brought up in Chapter 1. I don't agree that computers will help with social, ethical, legal or human issues but I do agree that it's essential to productivity and professional practice.

I think we will use computers in the classroom to become more computer literate to, in the future, be able to teach others the same skills. In order to be able to teach, we need to understand the computer's programs and softwares, how to use them, and what they are best used for, which this class will teach us. I hope to learn how to use programs that, until now, have seemed foreign to me. I would like to eventually be able to reiterate what I will learn in this class to my peers and, if I somehow end up in the field of education, my students.

I have absolutely no idea how to use PowerPoint or Excel and random other computer programs and would love to learn how to use them! I feel myself to be a fairly computer savvy person so hopefully this class will enhance my expertise. I'd also like a better understanding of computers/technologies in the classroom, I guess. I'm a creative writing major so education/teaching isn't exactly what I'm interested in.

Blog Journal #0

Prior to this class, my experience with technology has been very basic. I know how to use a computer, navigate the Internet, type a paper on MS Word and somewhat compose a power point in MS Power Point. MS Excel is like a foreign language to me; I couldn't tell you a single thing on how to use it or what it's used for. My basic knowledge has enabled me to perform the simple tasks wanted or needed.

I hope to learn how to use the programs on the computer more thoroughly from this course. A greater understanding of the programs will help me further in other classes I will take during my time at Florida State, and therefore after. There's no room for ignorance in the technology age and I'd like to be as informed and knowledgeable as possible!

The learning style questionnaire showed me that I am pretty well-balanced between most dimensions on the scale. I am slightly more of an active learner than a reflective learner, which I learned means I am more successful in learning when I can try it out for myself rather than thinking about the subject matter first. I am significantly more intuitive than a sensor, which means I'm more innovative and comfortable with abstractions rather than solid facts. Being slightly more verbal compared to visual means I grasp concepts better with written and spoken words as opposed to learning more from graphs, diagrams and visual presentations of the material. I am almost tied between sequential and global learning, leaning more on the global side. This means I have a tendency to absorb information with little to no understanding of it and all of the sudden it will click in my head.