Post #7

The web-based tool I selected was teach-nology.com. It's a website that contains lesson plans for different subjects, printables,and educational games. The parts of the website I saw being most applicable to my classroom was the page-maker section. It had templates you could easily create rubrics, print out signs for your classroom, or handouts based on subject area. The hand outs I could see myself using for an eleventh grade english class would be fill in the blank, matching, and proofreading. These worksheets could easily be used for daily warm-ups or weekly quizzes.

The main use I could see for Excel or a similar program would be as a gradebook for keeping track of my students grades. I love the ease of copying formulas and series into the program. I will more than likely use its functions to evaluate each student within their own class and in comparision with all my other classes. By using averages and seeing where each student falls in comparision to the class average and all of class averages I can better see which students require extra assistance and if class averages seem low than I can re-evaluate my teaching strategies. Also, if one of the assignment's average seems unusually low when compared to others then I will know I need to re-visit teaching that area. Basically, using the averages and charts will help me to evaluate myself and my students so I may do my best to teach them what they need to know.

An idea I found was using Excel to teach budgeting. This would probably be more easily applied in a Math class, but I want to teach my students the skills they will need to survive in life. So if I could find some way to incorporte this to my curriculum I surely would. I think it would be easily relatable to juniors in high school because they are soon to be going to college and the sooner they learn this life skill the better prepared they'll be.

Post #6

Overall, I think my presentation was well put together. I was impressed with my ability to create a background that looked like one of the ready to go templates. My content was good in the sense of the many varieties of media I had working for me: pictures, sound, clip art, media, etc. However, my content as far as sentences go could probably use some work. I think I did a good job on navigation throughout my presentation, linking my slides to one another and outside sources in a cohesive manner, with fully functioning hyper-links.

I think I could use computer peripherals such as a disc drive to play music that has something to do with what we will be covering that day in class. By playing the music first thing it gives students some time to transition and mentally prepare for my class and can even foreshadow what topics we will be discussing that day. Plus, I just think it's fun. From there I could go to the dry erase board and use the board to write on instead of always using a power point. We could have class discussions and I could write important phrases the class needs to know on the board, so they may make sure the key phrases are included in their notes.

Last week I became a little more familiar with the powerpoint program. I had no idea you could create your own background and once I was able to create one that looked as professional as the templates that came with the program I was on board. I think the assignment to create your own presentation, like one you would use in the classroom was a great activity because it really got me excited about using technology in the classroom; I'm one who abhors using power point to teach! Now that I see it can be fun and interactive I think I am more willing to use it and now that I have the skills to make the presentation interactive, I will be more likely to teach some lessons using Powerpoint.

Post #5

The website I critiqued was the Florida State homepage. The website did a fairly good job at remaining within the range of the guidelines established by the text. There was a cohesive color scheme (the school colors) and very little changing between different types of fonts. There was a large flash graphic which switched between (seemingly important) stories. It was a little distracting, but other than that information was displayed well. To the right was a bulleted list making information pop out at the reader. And the toolbar remained in the same location when navigating through the pages. The color scheme was also closely related as the viewer went from one page to the next.

I feel there are more disadvantages than advantages to using presentation software in K-12 classes. This could be that I am just not well enough acquainted with how to get the most out of using programming software to teach, but I feel that sometimes technology detracts from the lesson. In instances of technology taking awhile to set up or going through the proper steps of problem solving a teacher can lose the class's attention and take fifteen minutes to get it back. I can see how it would be valuable if you were a travelling teacher, instead of having to write a flow chart up on the board eight times a day, or even if you remained in the same classroom, but erased the board to cover other information. I just feel that outside of obviously easier applications that these new technologies are too heavily used/relied upon. Also, I think if I were to try and get my students to use these technologies that I would have to spend more time teaching them about the computers than the content.

Power Point could easily be incorporated to one of my lessons and accommodate each of my students and their different dimensions of knowledge. An example of incorporating Power Point in the classroom would be getting my students to put together short presentations to help prepare for vocabulary tests or go over topics we have been discussing in class. Specifically, students could create a presentation in which was colorful, interactive, and displayed creative ways to help remember the words definitions and spelling. Also, they could include bulleted lists of study tips. I would group my more advanced students with beginners and hope that the more advanced would help the beginners understand the process more.

Post #4

As a teacher I would use outlines and concept maps in my classroom if my students seemed to be struggling to organize the thoughts for papers. I like that by using computer programs, such as Inspiration, it minimizes students' ability to copy information from encyclopedias or the Internet. Using concept maps helps students to better understand how to put ideas into a logical order and by incorporating technology it forces them to actually gain the knowledge and not just copy answers.

I would encourage, but not require my students to use outline and concept maps. I would not require it unless the class as a whole demonstrated that they were struggling with organizing the ideas they had for their papers. If that was not the case I would not require my students to use these concepts because I know each student is unique and not everyone learns the same way. I would encourage their use though because outlining is helpful in determining what needs to be in your paper and weeding out what is unnecessary. What made me see how I could apply concept maps to an English class was the table on 128 which broke up short stories into sub-groups.

Learning how to determine what to look for in a website to use for class was probably the most valuable lesson from last week. First off because it helps me pick out good sources to use and secondly, if I know how to determine good websites, I can teach my students how to find reliable sources. Also the lessons on Google short cuts were helpful. I'm not sure how all those tricks will be applicable in the classroom, but things such as looking up definitions instantly have been useful to me already in college. I think I could use the website to check errors for websites I created or wanted to use which I see being most valuable for the former because I am still hesitant in my computer savvy (even though I can tell I am already getting better.)

Stephanie's Podcast

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Post #3

I liked the text-reading software mentioned in thee second field trip of the chapter. I would try to incorporate that into a lesson plan for a sixth grade language arts class. I know, as a student, sometimes even I find reading monotonous--as shocking as that is for a student studying to be a English teacher to admit! I would find a program that reads the text to me to be helpful and as the text stated it leaves students to perform higher on Bloom's taxonomy because the computer is dealing with the lower level functions. I would use the text-reader technology to scan in a short story that had something to do with what we had been going over. If we were working on a theme it would tie in that way, or if we had been focusing on literary devices, the text would tie in some of what we had gone over. By using this technology in the classroom it would free up students to pick up on what I was hoping they would learn. If they were usually bogged down in the reading, they'd be (hopefully) take notice of the symbolism or theme of the piece rather than being worried with the mere words on the page.

Concerns I have about supervising a technology based class room in the sixth grade are that not everyone comes from a well educated classroom. I fear the use of computers would impede learning rather than enhance it because perhaps not everyone has received an education in using a computer. I think more of class time might be spent in my assisting students with the use of the computer rather than facilitating higher learning. Also, I'd have concerns at keeping my students off of MySpace or Facebook and other inappropriate websites. Being only one person overseeing the classroom, if I were assisting a student who is less familiar with the use of a computer, I might not be able to make sure the remainder of the class are staying off of these sites. Eleven and twelve year olds could get themselves into some trouble by wandering onto websites or viewing content they know is inappropriate for the classroom. Yet, they might do it given the opportunity to look cool in front of their friends.

In perusing the Internet I came across http://www.abcteach.com. This website seemed to be useful because (with membership) I would be able to create my own worksheets. It would generate handouts such as crosswords, word searches, circle & spells, unscrambling, and more English related subjects. I thought this was cool because I've had to generate a word search before without a template and it was not as easy I initially believed. Also, the generators they offered were new and insightful. I had never considered circle and spells before (which are the same word spelled correctly once and incorrectly three other times and students must circle the version of the word which is correctly spelled.) I think access to these generators would help me save time and have a wide range of different activities ready to go. I've had teachers before who used worksheets for extra credit. It was a easy way to fill the remainder of time if the planned lesson finished early that kept the students engaged and continuing to apply what it was they had just learned. Also, it doubled as keeping students from pestering the teacher about extra credit points if they had fallen behind.

Post #2

As a kid I used to spend hours on MS Word, writing creative stories and comedic routines. In school I have used MS Word primarily as a tool to write and edit papers. Recently, I started to re-type my handwritten notes into Word to organize the information more clearly and to re-visit the information I quickly scrawled in class. My teachers seem to keep the use of Word to the obvious applications: writing up handouts, study guides, and tests.

However, I once had a teacher who broke the mold and used Word in a more creative way. She used the table and text art features to design bingo cards for her classes. The idea was to turn that weeks vocabulary into a bingo game to be played in class. She would write the vocabulary terms in the rows and columns of the table and read the definitions of the words she called out. It was up to the individual student to know the definitions and match it to the word on our card. This was an easy way to incorporate the use of Word in the class room in a fun way that was applicable to what we were studying.

The skills this class have taught me so far that I see as being useful are: formatting tests, use of the print screen button, and shortcuts I wasn't aware of before. Tools such as page break will be useful for formatting tests I administer. I can see the knowledge of the print screen button coming into use should I need to make a tutorial to show my students how to navigate around/operate a computer. I can copy the images of screens they need to see, paste (Ctrl + V) them to a program such as paint, and save them. Then I can use a program such as Movie Maker to create a tutorial, using the saved images. It will be a presentation I can show to the class or post to a class website where they can view and get help outside of class. Other shortcuts I've learned are little things here and there, such as how to increase and decrease the size of the paint brush in the Paint program, beyond the options that are available to click on. Also, the actual ability of creating a short cut to programs I may need to readily access.