Course Reflection

When I began this course, I thought I was up to date on the technology.  I quickly learned I was wrong and that I had a lot to learn just to keep up with my students.  This course has introduced me to so many new tools available online.  I am not proficient in any of these tools but over time this will change.  Eventually this information will help me be a better teacher to my students, as I will be able to allow them to create assignments with different online tools and be able to effectively assess them.

The two projects that I found most beneficial and something I can use immediately are the spreadsheet and the webquest.  The spreadsheet is not only useful for tracking grades but also as a tool to help student learn about graphing data.  I really enjoyed creating the webquest, once I was free to utilize any web 2.0 technology, and I probably will use this in my classroom especially as a substitute lesson plan.  How often is the substitute lesson plan is just busy work for the student and a lost day of effective instruction?  A webquest has the ability to offers effective instruction with little to no instruction from the substitute.

Looking forward to improving not only my skill but also knowledge of web tools.   

Course Reflection

This course has really shown me how technology can be integrated into lessons.  I enjoyed learning about pod casting and discover that it is not that difficult.  However, I am  realist and have to admit that I probably will not use it in my lesson during my first year of teaching.  I would eventually integrate it into some of my lesson especially a lesson for when a substitute has to watch the classroom.  I can see how pod casting really beneficial for students that are not able to attend school on a regular bases due to a illness.  Even though I may not be a master of pod casting, however I feel I now know enough that I could allow my student to use it as a medium to demonstrate their mastery of a concept. 

I am also doing my field experience this semester and I have not seen a lot of the technology discussed in this course use regularly in the classroom.  I wonder if this it due that teachers are not aware of all this technology or they just do not have time to integrate it into their lessons.  I think it is the latter teachers do not have enough time to create lesson and to create pod cast to integrate into the lessons.  There is a learning curve in understand the working of pod casting and for that fact any of these other programs discussed in this course so far.  Hopefully we as teachers catch up with our students that see to know and understand how to use this technology from birth.

Signing off to work on the next assignment, webquest.  

Course Reflection

I have to say I have found some of the assignments useful.  I honestly can see myself using a wiki in my classroom to help student link to online resources and as an expansion for topics.  The newsletter ended up being simpler than I thought as I had used some of the features before by mistake.  However, I do not really see this as a tool I would use in my classroom as it is time consuming.

So far the tool I found the most beneficial is Google documents.  Since creating the grade book, I have used it to upload my documents for sharing let alone I can access the document where ever I can log into Google, a big plus.

As I said in my prior post I do not care for Power Point, it is to difficult of locate the tools needed to perform a task.  I also had issue with macro-embedding and uploading to Google documents.  Prez.com is so much easier to navigate and they have numerous example of features it is capable of performing.  Prez can be either linear or non-linear which is the main purpose of the program.

Module 8 Assignment

I just completed my first Power Point presentation every and I will never use it again.  I learned to do presentation on Prez and after doing this assignment I see why people do not like Power Point.  You are welcome to view my presentation on Matter and offer your suggestion.

What's a Wiki?

I had to create this Blog for my Instructional Technology class.  Before this class I thought I was fairly literate and savvy with computers.  Two weeks into the course I quickly realized this was not true and that I am actually behind in computer technology.  The information and technology available online for personal and educational usage feels very overwhelming to me right now.  I am just going to take one assignment at a time.

 The First assignment I had to complete was to create a wiki.  Before this assignment I thought a wiki was part of  the wikipedia and was created by some encyclopedia brain.  I quickly learned that was not true and that to create a wiki was fairly easy and could be a useful tool for a teacher.  I wish this technology was around when I was in school maybe school would not have been as boring.  Anyway back to my assignment which was to review two web 2.0 technology and create a wiki about the two programs I reviewed.  The number of web 2.0 technology available was limitless and probably the reason why am feeling overwhelmed.   I did find two I liked and if you are interested you can link to my wiki to check them out.

I hoping that as I explore and learn more technology throughout this class that I might be able to see it in actual use during my three field experiences I am also doing this semester.  Otherwise I will just have to file all this new knowledge away until I actual have my own classroom.

Signing off until the next technology assignment..