Blog #10

In this class I have grown more comfortable with computers. I have learned how to do Jeopardy games using Power Point and to do many other activities that I will definitely be using in my classroom. I have also learned about the blog site and Wikispace, 2 things which I had not considered ever incorporating into my curriculum. I have learned more about Excel and Word and Power Point and am extremely glad this course was required for my degree.

This project was a good way to incorporate everything I have learned over the course of the semester. We used Wikispace and tried to take advantage of every possibility to make our pages as interesting and fun for the students as possible, while still including the necessary information for them to learn.

In the future I will probably use Excel for my gradebook and to send out things in mass context. I will also use power point to make games for review sessions for my classes. In addition, I am more familiar with programs that I will be using in my classroom and are more comfortable with the different options.

I learned through reading my classmates blogs that we all would like to be more technologically advanced and that we hope we can remember all of this information that we have learned in this class when we actually go to teach in our own classroooms.

Blog #9

I really like our project so far. It is definitely making me put to use the things I have learned in this class. We are doing a Wikispace for the students of Fairview Elementary. It is a really cool way for the students to improve their writing and read each other's work. It is all online so it is interesting for them and will help them learn better.
This week I have contributed to my team by going to meet with the teacher to discuss the things she would like us to include in our project. I have also done my assigned pages and made them appealing to middle school students. I have included discussion questions as well to make sure they understand the assignment.
This week I have learned to be more comfortable with Wikispace and can do many things on it that I could not before.

Blog #8

In our project we could use a WebQuest. The students are in middle school and our project is for an english class. We can have them use a WebQuest to look up other commonly used words to add to out Wikispace. There are any pages on the Wikispace, each with a different topic. We could have the students get in to groups and have each person in the group work on adding to a different page using the internet to find information.
I think this is a good example of a WebQuest because it has a very creative topic. The students have to pretend they are aliens from another planet and are looking for the best place to live. They have to go through and look at the different climates of desert vs city and the different lifestyles there and decide where they would want to live.
This past week I learned how to use Wikispace a lot more in depth than I did before. For our group project we are using it and we began to edit it and figure out how to use it. I became much more comfortable with the site and we even got creative adding discussion pages to go along with some of our information!

Blog #7

A web based tool I would like to use in my 6th grade english class would be www.blogger.com. I would have my students submit blogs on topics that I post (much like we do in this class) but I would use it more for creative writing. I would also have the students read their classmates work and proofread it online and make suggestions to save paper from having them print it out and bring it to class. This is also good because then I will not have to waste class time having them proof read each other's work.
I will most likely use Excel spreadsheets as my grade book. It is an awesome way to keep track of assignments and the grades students got on them. It is all on the computer and can keep things organized (and its easy to fix if i make a mistake!)
I could also have my students use it for a science project in which they have to keep track of plant growth over time. A spread sheet would be an easy, organized way for them to keep track of the data. They can measure how much the plant has grown, how many buds and flowers have developed, and how often they water it and keep track of it all on the spreadsheet and be able to see the growth of their plant numerically.

Blog #6

I used the same idea for my power point that I did for my inspiration project. I think teaching kids how to write a research paper is a good topic to use a visual device, like power point. It is easy to keep their attention by including pictures and having bullet points of what the important things for them to include are. Overall, I think the power point is an excellent way to visually show information and make it easy for the students to remember and understand what you are teaching.
Peripherals such as the printer are very useful when it comes to computers. Without the printer, we would not be able have physical documentation of the things we see online. It is also a good way to save information- if you print it out you do not have to be worried about losing it if your computer crashes. Another awesome advantage of technology is being able to include audio into your power points and things on the computer for students who may be visually impaired.
I took a computer class in middle school, so I was relatively familiar with power point and how to use it. However the program has added a lot of things over the years and it was nice to be reacquainted with it and learn some new tricks. Copying and pasting is making things a lot easier in terms of creating games and using shapes. I can definitely see myself using power point to do fun educational things for my class like Jeopardy and a storybook.

Blog #5

The website I evaluated was one on Abraham Lincoln. This website did not have very many pictures to go along with the information – in fact, it only included one at the beginning of a portrait of Lincoln. Everything was left justified because it was all text, no numbers. The text style remains consistent and it is very easy to read, with one text color as the color scheme and the same font for everything. The headings have been bolded and use a larger font to emphasize the topic of the text underneath. Superfluous items have been eliminated and the page is very simple, however it may be perceived as too simple and therefore boring to read. The author used both upper and lower case letters and single spacing between words. No flashes or stacked text is used. A list at the beginning would have been useful to quickly show the topics that the author is going to address. The text moves chronologically through Lincoln’s life and makes sense.
The biggest advantage of using presentation software in the classroom is for neatness and reusability. Flow charts made on the computer are neater and easier to read because you can format things to look presentable. Students are more likely to pay attention and understand things when they are easy to read and use bold colors to highlight important things. Presentation software is also useful if you are going to be presenting the same chart to different classes at different times of the day. Instead of having to erase the board and redo your chart, you may bring it up on the computer again if it is saved. You can also post it on a website for students to access it at home.
Power point is a useful tool because it helps break up information. A student can visually see the difference between things because they are put on different slides. It also makes the information not seems as overwhelming because they are getting little bits at a time. History is a good subject to use power point with because there is so much information. You can have a slide for each topic you are going to discuss, and include pictures of what you are talking about.

Blog #4

I liked the tree map to use in my classroom. I think it will be useful in elementary school for showing the hierarchy of things we may be studying. It is a good visual way to break things down so the students can see how they relate to each proceeding topic. I would use either Microsoft Word to accomplish this, or even an old fashioned chalk board or white board if I wanted to keep things simple. I also liked the concept map to show how many things can relate to one central topic. Both of these ideas are good to use with elementary aged kids, more likely in 3rd grade, to visually show them how things relate and give them a new technique to remember information.
I would definitely encourage my students to establish outlining, idea mapping and story boarding skills because they are useful ways to help you break down large chunks of information. It is especially useful for kids who are just beginning to learn by reading pages of information to then learn what to do with everything they just read. Eventually I think once the students have learned how to process pages of text and know what to take notes on or highlight, outlining may not be necessary but that takes a long time to perfect. I also think it is a good way to make sure students have actually read the information.
I have used some of the search tools we learned last week when I have been looking things up on Google. When looking for something and not wanting a certain word to come up, I remembered to use the dash before a word. All of the search tools will be useful because they will save me time going through useless website and helping me narrow down my search to things I can actually use.