Photostory

I'm not sure what I have to write about this week. I hate doing these. I strongly suggest to have these due before class not on Sundays. I never remember to reflect on homework I probably haven't done yet. The timing is super annoying, but the actual purpose and content of them is not. I see a value in doing these it has just got to be more flexible. If Sunday's worked for me great but you won't get near as thoughtful reflections if we haven't even done the assignment. All we'll be able to reflect upon is your presentation in class about what we will be doing and why that's important and so what, then what. This is just a little FYI.

Anyways I guess I need to comment again on Photostory. It is a pain. There are so many better programs out there to do this with. I didn't enjoy it very much. I like my material and working it into a script but all the details of creating a movie are just tedious.

For my students I see these types of videos all the time and they are very beneficial in conveying things because of the type of media that it is. I love the actual use of these I just feel like they would become over occupied with the technical things like I did. It's hard to be a perfectionist doing this assignment.

In the future I'll probably find videos on the internet or in some library that deal with the subject I'm teaching rather than mess with this system again. I will use this method of media technology though probably at some point. I'll just probably use a much more effective program and process.

Wow I'm not in the best of moods right now. I apologize ahead of time.

Week 6 Reflection

This week we covered making websites on google. We learned how to create a website and make it however we want. We also learned how to edit the navigation bar while inserting links to our other websites. In addition, we created text boxes and entered information. Pretty much we learned how to use and manipulate the website. Really cool.

Using google sites is very important. As a teacher I want a website that my students can go to. Students are becoming so digitalized! Everything must be available on the internet and I have to provide that somehow. Now I feel like I know how. I can use google sites and create anything I need to help my students better succeed.

For my future classroom. This means for me that I need to put a lot more hours into figuring out the whole internet thing. There are just so many possibilities it is easy to get overwhelmed. My students need an efficient website with all the information on it they will need. They will expect probably a lot more than I know how to do. But that's OK I will figure it out. My goal is to have a digital classroom in many aspects because I value the ease, the efficiency, and the accessibility of it. It is great to have a head start on getting a class website started.

We also got a briefing on our next assignment digital story telling. It should be pretty fun! I'm excited to learn how to do something similar to the examples that we say in class about anorexia. Very cool.

Week 4 Reflection (accidentally posted to other blog)

I accidently published this on my other blog account that I had previous to this account that I tried to merge with this but I didn't know how, and I accidently posted on the other one. So here this is.This week in class we are working with Google docs. I have found google to be a great tool for me! I already use google for my business website and for my homework so that I can share it with classmates.

Google has given us the capability to do everything on the web and share it with whomever we want. It really is an amazing FREE tool. That's its best quality. It is free for everyone to use and it offers a form of word document so that you can type papers as a group. It has the ability to do presentations through slide shows and power point again as a group. Google also allows you to make websites and publish them freely for free. It's a real tool to have as a teacher and a student. They are changing the world with this technology.

For my future class room I will teach my students to use this technology because it is amazing and they can use it for all their classes. They can do reports, presentations, and create website with the touch of a mouse and with other classmates. For me it means turning my classroom into a virtual one. My students will always know what their grade is. They will always turn in their homework and get feedback quickly. They will be more knowledgeable about using google and all of it's options.

Video:

This video is very interesting but I'm not sure what the intention of it is. I don't get the phrase we are teaching the machine but then we are the machine. We are the web. I get that. We are the ones creating it and controlling it. So the video was interesting I guess I just don't really understand what it was trying to get across. I do agree though with the things it said we need to really think about when dealing with this much power. We need to think about copyrights, privacy, family, and ourselves. For me in my future I see this as something I am aware of but don't know how much control I have. My students have the possibility of cheating by copying internet stuff and programs are coming out to try to stop that but it's hard to stop everything and protect our children from getting caught in the web. Measures need to be taken to make what's on the web regulated and controlled a bit.

Week 5 Reflection

I accidently published this on my other blog account that I had previous to this account that I tried to merge with this but I didn't know how, and I accidently posted on the other one. So here this is.

This week we learned how publish our google docs and create google websites. Using google docs is very easy way to suddenly have a type of webpage. Google sites gets a titch more complicated because it has a lot more capabilities. This is really like creating a real personal website. It is easy to use and easy for viewers to use. I love all the things and options it offers.

I think learning these about these things is extremely important. As teachers we need to know of these great tools out there to make our lives better and easier. I can see through this that teachers, students, and parents can now always be on the same page. If anyone has a question they can go the website and find the answer. The ability to use websites and other technology by google is really enhancing the capabilities of the classroom and extending it to home.

In my future class I will have a personal website for my students to check out and use. On it I will include a lot of things like homework schedule, assignment descriptions, and my personal information so that my students can get to know me. I would also use it to give my students access to different websites I assign them to visit and provide links to pioneer, UEN, and to interactive games. Great tool for the classroom and for the benefit of my students. Learning about this will also help me with my business and other things I want to do in life on the computer. I love it.

Maximizing Google

I did this last week but didn't really comment on it. Google is advancing the options and capabilities of its search bar. It now can do math, find addresses, and fix spelling errors. It is already a handy tool but they are making it really powerful. This is interesting because they are dominating the market with all of their new advancements and no one can keep up. But now that I've learned about SIRS and other search engines that don't take you to websites so that you can be a consumer they take you to educational websites. I feel a little bitter that they are doing so well. For my classroom this is a scary thing. My students can just type their math questions into the browser and suddenly the answer. I fear that more students are going to rely on getting answers that way than actually struggling to figure things out which will keep their knowledge at the surface 'remember' level. For me this means that instead of homework out of the book I will have to do memory test in the classroom and really challenge them by doing activities and not lecturing. More work for me but that is how I should be teaching anyway, but I'd like to think they are developing their math skills outside of class as well and that homework is helpful not just busy work. What do we do?

Reflection Week 3

This week we're learning about more tools on UEN that we can use as teachers, students, and in our personal lives. We explored Pioneer, Ebsco host, and other amazing things that UEN offers. Pioneer library is a search engine that provides quality results of peer reviewed articles, websites, and information. Ebsco host is a way to get full articles to read or to have our students use for reports. Some other amazing things were the games, interactive programs, and just the accessibility of so many other options.

As teachers we need more safe options to show to our students. They can be exposed to too many temptations if they are just searching the world wide web. Using safe search engines that only provide quality material for educational use makes me feel as a teacher that I am keeping my students safe and away from harmful things for their impressionable minds. Another, 'so what' aspect of what we learned was the great purpose of Ebsco host. This option available to us is great for me to have access to for reports, professional development, for information about a subject I might be teaching in my class, and for use by my students. Having free access to full articles is rare and a great find and I'm happy to now know where to seek quality information.

"So what?" I plan to use these programs when the need is there. I really see myself using the interactive features that are provided and the games created to teach and not just entertain. My classroom now has some more options! I would love for my students to go home and play a game as homework instead of having to use their book and some paper. They would be glad about that too. I really feel like the things we learned and discovered this week will be implemented in my classroom.

Week 2 Reflection

UEN is a great tool for us to use as we start our teaching careers. It lets us communicate with our students and their parents with ease. I can keep any information the student needs on the website, any resources, and all their assignments. I'm excited to use it. I'm currently using google for most of these things but I'd like to have another system to compare it to.

Learning how to use a new system is great. I plan to explore all the features and figure out exactly what it can help me do! I especially like the poll feature. That will be useful to ask questions on maybe my performance so that I may develop or for pop quiz question after a reading or a lab for my students. Advancing any behind the scenes operations as a teacher will increase my happiness of the job and make this under paid job more practical. Technology will make being a teacher much better!

In the future I will have a website similar to the one I'll be creating on UEN this week. I definitely see the benefit of having this technology for my students. They will be able to soon do everything electronically... well maybe not for math, but other subjects for sure. This will be a great tool for my classroom to help us all communicate better, more clearly, and for everyone to be on the same page.

(after using UEN, I dislike the repetitiveness of this assignment. I'm very confused. In class it was clarified that we just need the Home and About Me page but the assignment says we need 4 others pages. The time commitment for this assignment is WAY too much. UEN also logs me out every hour or so and that's really annoying.)

Movie:

That was stupid. I don't know what that was supposed to show. I'm a math teacher obviously and I don't think that is 'new math.' I don't think teachers are sacrificing right answers for incorrect ones. In longer mathematical problems you can focus more on the process but the calculations are just as important. If you know the process that's something different then knowing how to do math. You've just memorized something but you have to be able to do the actual 'math'. I don't know I didn't like the movie. For my future students I don't think this effects them unless a teacher really is dumb enough to allow students not to get the right answers. You'd just be showing them how to fail and make that a habit to not care. Math doesn't do you any good unless you get things right.

Week 1 Reflection

This week I learned about all the opportunities I have to grow as a teacher by reading and watching all the resources provided. We read about students' perspectives on their education, new advancements in classroom technology and incorporating it, and about the new generation of tech savvy students. My eyes were opened to my responsibility to become more aware of the possibilities to advance my teaching methods and the tools for my students.

As a teacher in training I am always looking for ways to become better before I have the challenge of being in a school when I'm busy and it could be easy to rely on the knowledge I already have instead of research new methods. But I see how learning about media and technology is going to impact my classroom positively and for all the other content areas as well. This is also improving my quality of life for me personally by learning new techniques and tools to not waste time, be efficient, and effective in my studies, my business, and my career.

This new knowledge is definitely going to impact my future students. Instead of using a projector with a list of data for them to interpret we can easily use tools to gather data. I was thinking that for an assignment we could use pH testing strips sent home with every student, which they then measure the pH of something, and they all record their data on a groupdoc on google. That way the next day I can have an instant print out or easily work with the data they provided for graphing examples and relating science to math skills. They will feel ownership for the lesson and for the discovery. I love lessons where the students have to participate in some way. Math is hard for students to feel connected to so this way they will. Using other electronic detectors we could measure the speed of cars and learn about functions and their derivatives. We could even have the students draw designs using correct measurements and angles and maybe have the woods class create them. There are a zillion other options easily flowing through my mind right now about how to physically demonstrate the content of math courses at any level. To accomplish the things I've talked about I would need to work with other departments to collaborate and share tools and we can easily accomplish better communication through technology. Learning of the new possibilities for advanced classrooms gives me the opportunity to launch students through my course and for them to participate in a better way of education.

Movie Reflection:
Wow, kids really want every amenity of life at their finger tips. I don't know if I so much agree with this aspect. The world imagine they are talking about is filled with people with headphones in messing around just purely entertaining themselves at all times. Most places that used to be considered places to congregate are now solo escapes like Starbucks some people still converse but mostly people remain in their own bubble without interaction. School lunch and breaks are becoming this way, home time "family time", and the gym. I see people texting all day to old relationships... how does someone create a new relationship or just acquaintances. You don't say hi to someone anymore you pretend to fidget with your phone or ipod. But it also very understandable. I'd like the options to edit papers, do homework online without a book, or deal with things for my business at the click of a button anywhere that I am. So I understand the desire but what are the consequences for our society? Again in my classroom I do plan to incorporate technology that doesn't take away from the community of learners.