Finale

Well, it looks like this is my final post of this Technology class. Time has flown by and it is time to end yer another semester and another set of classes. I can definitely say this semester had been an adventure, especially all my encounters in this class. I can admit with no shame I belong in the stone age with no technology so this class has been a struggle to say the least. My parents are both technology-challenged so I have never had any motivation to explore the wonderful programs and softwares computers have to offer. I have had my frustrations but I certainly think
I am leaving this class better prepared than I imagined.

I have experienced wikis, blogs, digital diagrams, digital storyboards, flipcharts and learned the ethics of copyright for the first time. I can truly say I did not have much prior knowledge coming into this course. I would have to say that my facorite project of all was most likely the digital diagram. It was simple to put together and was something I could definitiely see myself using in my classroom. Some of the projects I found very intersting, but overly complicated to prepare for my classroom (such as the flipchart). Nonethesless I am glad I learned the program because it just might become handy in the future.

I think one of the most important things of all I learned was how to create a website. I can now say I am the proud owner of my own site! With the world arouns us constantly oriented toward anything technological, I might as well join the gang and have a website as a ready resource for my students. I want to keep it updated and constantly be adding new resource sites for my students to check out.

Well, my time in this class has now come to a close, but I can say with confidence that my time spent with technology is not over! I look forward to incorporating much of my learning within my classroom and am excited to see what other technology-baed programs are out there that I have yet to explore!

Digital Story-I-Movie

Hello Everyone! This week I'm going to share with you my experience with digital story through the program IMovie. This project appealed to me because it seemed as if it took a very technologically skilled person to create digital story, and I was excited at the chance to learn and be on there same level. I had trouble choosing a topic because naturally I wanted to pick something fun and entertaining rather than educational. After changing my mind at least 10 times about the topic, I decided on using the theme "American Holidays." One part of being a History major for me is learning the culture and historical aspects found all around the world, but my favorite part of Histiory is learning about America. So you can say I am very patriotic. I picked this topic simply to employ some patriotism to younger students and give them awareness of a variety of different holidays found in the great United States of America. Students are introduced to months in Kindergarten so I think it would be okay to introduce holidays in Kindergarten as well or maybe even First grade and talk a little bit about what they mean and why they are holidays.

The process towards creating a digital story was actually easier than I thought it would be (or perhaps I am actually getting better at using technology). Regardless, I enjoyed the process once I was able to practice moving pictures around, locate movie features, and sift through music choices. I believe that this can be made into a simple process and an engaging tool to place in the classroom. I can see myself introducing a topic with a brief 3-4 minute movie. I think it is a new way to grab students attention and leaves traditional and sometimes boring activities behind. I felt very technologically advanced doing this project and can see myself putting more movies together in the future.

Diagrams, Maps, and Webs

Hello! So, I think Inspiration 9 was a great program to use. First of all, it was easy and fast. This is the type of program that I need in my classroom! It did not contain a million features for me to figure out and learn the secretes to. It had the basics and also had a few settings such as colors, patterns, fonts, sizes if we wanted to spice it up a bit. I think it is a great tool because it can be an activity that only takes thirty minutes to prepare and is an effective way of summarizing information into main points. I thought it was only challenging when I was deciding on the topic and how to pick the most important information for the organizer. Once I understand the Tennessee standards and what is taught in each grade, I am sure I would find this activity even easier. Overall, I really liked this project and can see myself investing in this program for my own computer.

IWB

Hello everyone! Today I want to share with you my experiences with Interactive whiteboards and the flip chart I created. I started off being frustrated at this project due to the fact that there was so many new things I had not yet been introduced to. The technique to download the program confused me to no end! However, everything worked out and I was able to play around with my creation for a long time and tweak it.

I enjoyed creating a flip chart and making it interactive because it becomes evident as to why students would like it. The traditional way to learn Science is by reading from a textbook and answering the questions from the end of the chapter. My flip chart shows that there is more to Science and a topic such as the Solar System can come to life in a technological way. Hands on activities are ideal for Science lessons, but this is a good way to review and assess if students have learned because it becomes very obvious as to whether they are able to fill in the blanks or sort planets in the correct order.

I did face a few challenged in creating the flip chart. I found it extremely time consuming and it made me worry that I would not have that kind of time during the school year in my classroom. I understand it would become easier with time and practice, yet it does take some thought and extra time to make it just right. I also found it challenging to incorporate gadgets within the pages. They were often complicated to move around and set just right for the intended effect. Overall, I did enjoy the assignment, but I am not too sure how often I would use it in my classroom.

Smartboards & ActivInspire

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to address interactive whiteboard and the program ActivInspire. These interactive whiteboards, or Smartboards or Promethean Boards are such a fun resource for the classroom. They leave traditional pencil and paper activites of the past behind and allow students to physically engage in a way they never could before. They involve the students in learning by allowing them to use different senses such as touching and hearing. I believe they allow teachers to save time by printing less and wasting less materials that can be found on the interactive whiteboard.
The program we have just recently been introduced to, ActivInspire, is such a fantastic tool to bring to the classroom. It allows teachers to bring real world experiences into the classroom, enhancing learning. This would definitely appeal to my kinesthetic learners who constantly feel the need to physically do the activity.

As a teacher, I have so many options of how to present information with ActivInspire. I feel like I will be producing well-rounded students who will hvae the capacity to work colloboratively and solve all kinds of different types of problems and scenarios based on their interactive learning. Overall, I really like the idea of using this helpful program, and can even see myself really enjoying putting the material together in a way that would meet the needs of a wide range of students.

Digital Images

Hello everyone! This past week we explired the wonderful world of digital images. I knew the basics about digital imaging, but never realized how indepth it went! So, I feel like I have really been exposed to a variety of concepts centering around digital imaging. I've have learned the importance of copyright and how to make sure certain images are fair to use while others are prohibited. I have always heard of different image types such as jpegs, gifs, tiffs, and pngs but never truly understood the sizes and differences between them. I enjoyed the group assignment to walk around Bailey Education Complex looking for photos. It was an engaging project, and also allowed me to work with people I didn't know as well. Our theme was "opposites" so we looked for opposites in all forms. We then were able to upload the pictures to google and create a presentation for our websites. It was useful to know how I could incorporate a presentation simply onto my own class website. I think it is useful to know the art of resizing and changing the resolution of photos, as well as understanding the laws behind images in general. This could be something fun and creative to use in my classroom.

Digital Imaging- Opposites