Class Reflection

     I learned a lot more in this class than I expected. I didn't realize how many different types of tools we were going to work with. I feel better about navigating my way around a computer now. I have learned that they best way to learn about different web tools is to play around with them. I loved getting to play around with all the different tools each week. I plan on using a lot of the tools we learned about in my future classroom. Some of my favorite projects were the interactive white board and the digital story project. This class was tons of fun and a great learning experience!

IMovie

     We used the imovie tool to create a digital story. I decided to create a story about myself. I thought this would be a cool way for a teacher to introduce their self at the beginning of the school year. I could create a video similar to the one I created for class. I liked using imovie and found it to be fairly easy. It was fun finding picture to use and putting captions with them! I could use this tool to create videos to introduce new material or to recap a field trip the class took. This tool will be very beneficial in my future classroom!

Interactive White Board

     The interactive white boards project was one of my favorite projects this semester! I enjoyed learning ways to create pages where students are able to come up and interact with the lesson. My lesson was a 4th grade lesson on the solar system. In my project I had pages where students could erase to reveal answers. I also had a page where students could drag the names of the planets and place them in numerical order. I think I will benefit from this tool greatly when I am a teacher.  I am excited to make more of these types of lessons to use in my own classroom one day!

Inspiration

     Above is a picture of the map I created using inspiration. Using inspiration was really fun! It was cool to create a map. I enjoyed getting to find pictures for it. I used the same lesson that I used to create my interactive white board project. The information is based off of a 4th grade science curriculum.  I think this tool would be great for older students. It could really help them connect ideas when they're studying and learning new topics. I'm not sure how well this tool would work with younger students. I am not sure that they would be able to follow all of the connections. If I were to use this tool with younger students it would have to be very basic and easier to follow.

Wikis

     Wikis are very user- friendly. Throughout this course I feel like I am gaining a decent amount of knowledge when it comes to technology and the internet. However, I feel that I would have been able to use a wiki before I took this course. Someone with very little experience of technology and the internet should be able to use wiki.

     When creating the wiki I had some difficulty adding pictures but figured it out pretty fast. I feel that using wikis is a wonderful way to have group interactions outside of the classroom. There are students who feel uncomfortable working with others in the classroom environment. Wikis allow for everyone to learn social and technological skills.

Scavenger Hunt

     I was absent the night that groups went out and took pictures for the scavenger but some students sent me copies of their pictures! By doing this project I learned a lot about Picasa. Picasa is a website that allows you to create slideshows containing narrations. Putting the pictures on the site was somewhat confusing because I missed a lot of instruction since I was absent from class. Once I figured it out it became a lot easier. I look forward to using Picasa in my classroom because it will allow me to organize images and present them in a more appropriate format.

Animoto

     We used Animoto to create a slide show. It allows you to upload different pictures and add your own captions. The site offers you music to add to your slide show as well. This web 2.0 tool was really fun to use and could be used in a classroom in a number of different ways. Below is a slide show I created using Animoto.

Check in..

     Well so far this semester has been going pretty great. The first class we answered some questions to see what we already knew, and I think its safe to say I didn't know much at all. However now I feel a lot better about course. I feel like I am a hands on type of learner, which has been great in this class because we have been doing so many different activities in class. I love that this class is very interactive. I feel like I have learned a lot and actually retained a lot of the information. Missing class last week has me feeling a little behind, but it shouldn't be to hard to make things up. I also plan to come back in a few days and add more posts on different activities we've done in class.

Wordle

     Tonight we had a presentation on Wordle. Wordle is a free site for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. Words that appear more frequent in the text are bigger in the world cloud. This would be cool to use in a classroom. Wordles are easy to create and can be printed off for a number of different uses, such as creating projects. A weakness to this site is that it works better with certain browsers rather than others because of missing plugins. I enjoyed playing around on this site and plan on using it in my own classroom in the future. It could be used in a special education classroom in a number of different ways. One way would be to help motivate students when learning new vocabulary words. At the beginning of a vocabulary unit students could create a Wordle using the new words. It would be a fun activity, but it would also have them working on spelling the new words before they being to learn the definitions.

Google Docs

      The last class we used google docs to create an assignment for a 1st grade math class. The object of the lesson was for the students to use a website to answer a series of questions. The assignment itself was fairly easy. Google docs is very user friendly and most of my group worked well together to get the assignment done. I like that more than one person is able to edit a document at a time. It is very helpful when working with groups of people. It is also nice because the document is saved online and can be edited from any computer.

WebQuests

     I was really impressed with WebQuest. It seems like a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom. It really helps get students excited about the subject and allows them to explore their creativity. When looking through different lessons that were made by other teachers I realized that this allowed teachers to be creative too.  Some websites got away from the course standards, but they were all creative and seemed like activities that students would enjoy. I feel like WebQuests will become a very beneficial part to my future classroom. They seem perfect for group work!

Website Evaluation

     I found the website evaluation to be very interesting and it brought things to my attention that I hadn't really paid attention to before. I found that making sure the information on the site was up to date and that it was valid was very important..  especially if I plan to use sites like these in my future classroom!  I looked through a few sites before choosing one for the assignment. I found that a lot of the information was hard to find on some sites and that they were not user friendly. I used PBS teacher to do the assignment and overall it was really great. They were very professional with their information, but very user friendly at the same time. The greatest thing about it was that all the materials they offer are free! It will be a great tool for teachers who are looking for different resources to use in their classroom.

Course Expectations

     Right now all of this is really new to me. I am not the most technologically advanced person but I am very excited to learn more about all of this. I'm not overwhelmed yet, but if it wasn't for my neighbors I would be fore sure! 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! Come join me on this journey through TPTE 486!