WebQuest adventures

This week I watched a video about a dinosaur WebQuest and read Chapter 7, which was about the internet and the World Wide Web. Most of the chapter was about finding resources on the internet but one thing I found interesting was the part about teachers making their own websites. I think sometimes teachers do not think about how useful this could be for students. Imagine if unorganized students who do not write down homework down in their planners could go online and find out what was assigned for homework. And not only students, but it would be very useful for parents to know what students are doing in school via the website. As far as the video on WebQuest goes I think that it’s a tool I can see myself using in my future classroom. I see it as an interactive activity. I love that my students can go on there and can get hands on experience with things (for example: the human body) that they would not be able to be hands on with in real life.

Practice makes perfect

This week I learned A LOT. I worked on the practice ATC as well as my productivity tools. I read about academic software in chapter 6 and watched a video about GIS. I took the ATC last year but it was good to get a refresher on some of the skills. For example, I always forget how to make those bar graphs in Excel. I’m nervous that when I take the ATC it’s going to take me longer than 50 minutes since I’m not used to working with MACS. The productivity tools were neat because I could actually see myself using all 3 of the ideas I came up with. One of the ideas I actually stole from MY 10^th grade English teacher. I’ll admit though that I wasn’t crazy about Inspiration, it seemed like too much trouble just to make a concept web. GIS seemed like a great tool, but wouldn’t go to much use in my future English classroom. One piece of software I did like that was in the reading was Oregon Trail. I played that in elementary school and got a lot out of it.

Class Server

This week I watched a video on Class Servers. I thought that it was a GREAT idea for teachers. It seemed like it could benefit the teacher and the student. The teacher saves time and the student gets an individualized lesson. Another thing I learned about this week was administrative software. The part I found most interesting was electronic spreadsheets. It is a great example of a way math teachers can use technology in their lessons. One piece of software that I use a lot is presentation software: AKA I make a lot of PowerPoint presentations. I love using it as an alternative to writing a report or making a poster. As a future High School English teacher I know I will ask my students to make a PowerPoint at some time so it is good that I am getting a lot of practice with it now. I would love to have a chance to get some hands on experience with Class Server as well.

Trio Share

This week I was part of the trio share project for “digital technology in the classroom.” Some of the technology I had heard about (scanners, cameras, microphones, and we had a SmartBoard in high school), but some things were foreign to me before reading this chapter. For example, I have never used a pen input device before. In the lab I learned some new things about Excel, many of which I felt I would never realistically use. For example, auto entries and keyboard moves for scrolling down. There’s no way I would go to the trouble of learning that when I could just use my mouse to scroll down or re-type the same word twice. However, it is certain that I will use Excel in my future classroom, maybe to take a class average or keep grades. I will also use all kinds of digital technology (hopefully, if I’m a good teacher) and I’m glad I’m becoming familiar with it now so I can have years of practice.

The student will be able to...

This week I learned about creating a lesson plan and using Microsoft Word. I learned how to write an objective for a lesson plan in high school in Teachers Academy, but I liked learning the set formula of Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree. I think it will be easier to remember it now. I find writing a lesson plan to be an intricate and intimidating process and was happy to learn some tricks and see some examples to make it easier for me. I even managed to learn something new about Microsoft Word, a program I have been using almost every day of my life for the past two years. I have never been asked to create a header or footer before but now that I know how I am going to use it on my English papers and try to impress my professor. In my future classroom I will obviously be writing tons of lesson plans and using Word to write them, so this week was really important.

A new twist on an old concept

This week I learned all about creating a PowerPoint slide show. I had used PowerPoint many times in the past but there were still a few new concepts I had never used. For example, in the lab I learned how to rotate a picture and add shadows to pictures. I’m not sure when any of this information will be useful to me but I learned something new at any rate. While I was making my “All About Me” slide show, I found myself having a lot of fun with it. I actually made it a week earlier than I needed to just because I enjoy playing around with pictures and colors and words. Because of my interest, it made it easier to learn about. I think PowerPoint is a great tool that I could use in my future classroom. I could make a slide show for my students to read notes off of or my students could use it to present projects in class. Grading a student’s PowerPoint would be a great way to evaluate them as opposed to evaluating their test scores.

How the other half lives

This week I learned the basics of both a PC and a Mac, such as creating or saving a folder. I’m a PC user so I was already familiar with most of those concepts but I am a brand new Mac user. A new thing I learned about a Mac is that when you open a file it doesn’t just pop open like on a PC, it saves it to the desktop, (which is annoying). One feature that I’ve never been comfortable using even on a PC was using the keyboard for shortcuts. It was always just easier to go “file, quit” than to memorize a bunch of keys. The knowledge I learned this week will be helpful in my future classroom obviously because without knowing the basics I wouldn’t be able to utilize all the resources a computer has to offer. And even though I don’t love Macs, you never know what kind of computers will be given to you for your classroom so I need to know how to use both.