Blog Post #10

•    This weeks assignment was a little bit difficult because we had to create a quiz using powerpoint. This is something that I had never done before so I didn't know what to expect. Once I started it got easier and it became really fun. I liked that we could make a quiz about whatever we wanted. I made a quiz on Greys Anatomy. It's one of my favorite shows and I thought it would be cool to make up a quick quiz on it. I think I can use this while teaching a lecture. The whole class can do the quizzes together so that it can be more fun.
  
  
  
  
  
  
        I would use data collection tools a lot. In class we learned about using surveys to get feedback from students. I think this is a great idea and I would love to use it in my classroom. Since I will be teaching elementary school students, I don't think that they would be able to complete the surveys, unless I teach the older students. I think that instead of using surveys for students I could use it for the parents and see what they think about the homework that I will be giving. I could also find out a little more about what students are doing at home, like how many hours they spend reading, or doing homework.
  
      I am enjoying blogs more and more since I started using them. I think it is a great way to share ideas, and communicate with people outside of your community. While looking through my classmates blogs, I like how they each have a different opinion even though we are all writing about the same topic.
  
      I am interested in continuing to learn about excel because it has always been a mystery to me. I have tried to use it a few times but I'm not very good at it. I found today's lecture to be very interesting because I didn't know that you could do so many things with excel. I didn't even really know what it was used for.
  
      I think I will just play around with excel a little bit more. This way I can get used to it, and learn everything that I can do with it. Knowing how to use excel is a great skill to have for future jobs, so I think that it is very important for me to try an learn everything that I can about it.
  

Blog Post #9

As stated in chapter 10, the flipped classroom is a classroom where instead of getting a lecture in class and homework later, you watch or listen to the lectures at home and then discuss them in the classroom. I think this is a very interesting way of teaching. It puts a lot more pressure on the student to be able to watch the lectures, and then try and understand the information given. I think that it might also make learning easier sometimes, because you already have an idea of what is going to be happening in class. You also get to be in control of how you learn.

http://www.watchknowlearn.org

In the podcast it says that professional development is what teachers learn throughout their years of teaching. Before teachers would attend conferences and classes at colleges to learn new things. Usually they were already scheduled at a specific time even though that time might not be convenient for you. Today, these are still ways to develop professionally, they allow you to interact with different people and are a great learning experience.


Now there are a lot of other opportunities for teachers to learn new things by using technology. For example, Blog, or webinars. Blogs are very useful because when teachers blog about their classroom, they can give tips and tricks to newer teachers so that they can run their classes more efficiently. Webinars are also great because they are online and you can go on whenever you would like, which can make scheduling very easy. There are a lot of free websites that have webinars and go over new things regarding teaching.

http://blog.com

I really enjoyed this assignment. Since I want to become an elementary school teacher when I'm older this is a great skill to have. I can use a powerpoint like this to teach a lesson on anything, and they are very convenient. You just need to write up a few points you want to talk about and elaborate on them. I really liked how we were able to chooses whatever we wanted to put on the powerpoint because it gives us a lot of creative freedom to do what we would like with it, while also learning about the basics of powerpoint.

Blog Post #8

      In chapter 12 it talks about Cloud Computing. I believe that this hold the biggest promise for education because it allows people to store and share data. This is great because if students are working together on something they can use cloud computing to make it easier for them to share the information and edit it. According to chapter 12, cloud computing enables students to share research, and collaborate on experiments. I really enjoy working in group projects because I can hear other peoples opinions on our assignments, so I think that cloud computing would be something I use in my classrooms in the future. 

     I think that smart boards would make a huge impact on education. Smart boards are being used today in some classrooms. A smart board in an interactive whiteboard. It helps make students engaged in what they are learning in class. There are many things you can do with a smart board like play games with the students that will help reinforce what they have been learning in the classroom. 

http://education.smarttech.com/en/products/smart-board-800 

The podcast talk about the digital divide. Digital divide just means that there are some people who have technology, like computers, available to them, and others who don't. I have computers and technology available to me. I have my own personal laptop, and I am able to go to the library for other technological resources I might need. I think that there are still a lot of people out there that do not have access to a computer or other technologies, so it is hard for them to understand how to use them and get the information that they might need. In the schools there should be computer labs, so I would take my students there and show them how to use it.

Blog Post #7

Powerpoint is a great tool that can help students learn. If I were teaching students about the different shapes, the powerpoint will reinforce what I will be saying so, it will help them understand the material. By understanding the material, the students will then be able to remember what has been taught to them. If they can understand and remember what is being, in this case shapes, then they can apply it by doing their homework on shapes. By seeing the different shapes in the powerpoint the students will be able to analyze them and organize them into groups. Once they fully grasp the lesson on shapes they will then be able to apply it to other parts of their studies like math, and with that they can do basic geometry.

In chapter 4, it talks about using adaptive technologies for children with exceptionalities. One that I found interesting was talking word processors. This technology is used for students who have poor reading skills. As stated in chapter 4 this specific technology is able to read aloud whatever the student wrote. It can be read as word by word, sentence by sentence, and entire paragraphs and documents. A challenge, that can occur in the classroom, in using adaptive technology is training. Both the student and the teacher need to be able to use this technology efficiently so that it can help the student.

I thought that the web page design assignment was a very interesting assignment. I have never made a website before and thought it was kind of hard. Since there are many different websites online to help with making websites it has become a little easier. I like the fact that we were able to design the website however we wanted. It will be interesting to see how other student designed theirs. I could use this in my future career by creating a website for my class. This way parents can see what is going on in the classroom and students can go on it if they have any questions.

Blog Post# 6

    I looked at the website of Riley Elementary School here in Tallahassee. In this school there are students from kindergarten to 5th grade. While looking through the website I noticed that it had a good color scheme. It only has a few colors so that it does not overwhelm the viewer with too many colors. The links all work properly and the website seems very simple to use. It shows you important information about what is coming up in the next few days and even has announcements. It has tabs for parents and students to look through, which is very important because parents should be involved in the student's education.

     In Chapter 7 it talks about using word processing software. I think that word processing softwares are extremely important. They allows to do so many things like create documents, organize data, and correct spelling mistakes. This is a great technology for me to use since I want to be teacher. It can help me create lesson plans and many other things. Also, students will have to learn how to use a word processing software to of homework or assignments. Chapter 7 also talks about classroom management software which I found very interesting. It assists educators in accomplishing the many task associated with the day to day management of their classroom. 

      

    I really enjoyed working on the web evaluations project. I had never used a wiki before and I think it is a great way to do group projects. In my other classes we have done group projects but it is very hard for us to meet up because of our different schedules but with the wiki we are able to put down all our information and work on it together online. I think this is a great resource to use in the classroom because it will allow students to work better in groups.

      

Blog Post# 5

       As stated in the Podcast some web 2.0 technologies are blogs and youtube. I think that blogs are very useful because they allow students to share their ideas. Blogs make students more excited about writing because it's a different way of writing. Students are also able to comment on other student's blogs so that they can also get ideas from others. Blogs are a great way to communicate with students in the classroom and it will help them learn about others in their community who also have blogs. YouTube is also a great web 2.0 technology that can be used in the classroom. In the Podcast it talks about how teachers can use youtube in the classroom to show examples of things. In many of my classes many of my teachers have used youtube as a way to share information. In our textbook it talk about the different equipment needed to share information. The equipment needed for blogs and youtube would just be a regular computer with internet so that the student would be able to get online and access these technologies.


       YouTube is an interesting web 2.0 technology. Many people think that youtube is only for entertainment purposes and not supposed to be used in the classrooms. I used to think that way but then I found out the youtube has a lot more than funny cat videos and cool makeup tutorials. Youtube has many video tutorials on a variety of subjects. If you are having trouble in math in particular you can go on youtube and find a video on what ever you are learning at the moment.

    I would use this in the classroom when explaining a difficult topic. Students learn in different ways so it is good to expose the students to different forms of learning. For some students it might not be enough to stand there and explain to them something but if you can find a youtube video on the subject or a tutorial it would make it easier so that the students are able to understand it.

    While working on the concept map I learned a lot about using Word to create a concept map. There are so many different things that it will allow you to customize. I really enjoyed this assignment because this is a great skill to have. When you create a concept map it organizes ideas in a more compact way. It is also easier to present information in a concept map. There wasn't really anything that I disliked about the concept map I thought it was a fun assignment. I can use this when working in the classroom. I think it will make things easier to understand for students.

Blog Post #4

Standard: MAFS.3.G.1.1

Understand that shapes in different categories (e.g., rhombuses, rectangles, and others) may share attributes (e.g., having four sides), and that the shared attributes can define a larger category (e.g., quadrilaterals). Recognize rhombuses, rectangles, and squares as examples of quadrilaterals, and draw examples of quadrilaterals that do not belong to any of these subcategories.

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-third-grade-math/cc-third-grade-measurement/cc-third-grade-geometry/v/introduction-to-types-of-quadrilaterals

In chapter 8 it talks about using tutorials which are self-contained lessons. I think that tutorials would be great to use in the classroom because sometime students have a hard time learning specific topics so tutorials would be good for them. As stated in chapter 8, tutorials are able to give students control of the pace of instruction. Khan academy is a website that has many tutorials for students, they try to make learning different subjects fun and easier to understand.

I believe that using the internet to support student research is very important. The internet has a lot of information and you can look it up by just typing a few word into a search engine. It is very useful because if a student is researching a specific subject they can look it up on the internet and find the information they need. The only thing students should be careful about is using unreliable resources. The internet can be full of relevant information but it can also have a lot of false information. Students just need to make sure that they are researching their topic to a great extent to make sure that the information that they find is correct. 

For me, I first do a regular search go my topic and see what pops up. Then, I read through some of the websites and gather information from there. I also try to find websites that are known for being credible; New York Times, or Huffington Post are some of the ones I like using. I also look for the author, date, writing style, and sources of the website. These can give you an idea if the website is credible or not. In the podcast it does talk about seeing if the website has an author, and talks a little about the writing style like if the grammar is correct. 

While working on the Web Hunt I learned about the different standards. I thought it was an interesting assignment that provided us with the opportunity to get more familiar with the different types of standards that there are. Web hunt challenges: 1.Your students are learning about the water cycle find a website that illustrates the water cycle. 2. Your students are learning about geometric figures. Find a tutorial that would help the students with this lesson.