My Final Thoughts..

Looking back on this course, I think that I learned way more than I expected I would in the beginning. I believe that this course has shown me some amazing ways of intergrating technology into the classroom. I think, with my generation, there was always some sort of technological equipment in the classroom but it was never something we would do on the computers. This class has shown me so many possiblities for using technology in the classroom such as using the Turnitin website and the concept mapping. I can see myself using all of the different assignments in an actual class room. I think that using the online tests we created would be excellent because they were easy and quick to create and would help the student be able to get used to taking test in a technology enviroment and if that was combined with the concept map like we had in class that would be a great interactive technology experience for students. I have learned how to use many different new websites such as Rubrix and Googlesites. I have learned different ways of creating presentations through Windows Movie Maker and through Google Presentations that I think will offer students more interesting new ways of learning that the plain old Microsoft Powerpoint. One of my favorite parts of this class was learning to use all of the different programs Google has to offer. I think all of them will be very beneficial to me in the future. The strong points I have discovered in myself through this class is that I have a very good understanding of the internet and how it works. I rarely had to ask for help and was always able to figure things out on my own. I found myself weak in finding the right words to describe many of the sites and concepts we were asked to. The reason I think I am not so good at making descriptions is because I have never really had to read something and describe it before. I have always been used to writing my own work compared to describing others. I think that I will be able to make myself stronger and find the right way to write descriptions through practice. I did not find that I had any "technology" weak points because I am a frequent technology user. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and found all the assignments we did to be really helpful for my future.

Technology that Assists?

In this assignment, we got a first hand look at some of the technology that comes along with computers that can help assist someone who has a handicap. We got to hear the noise that the computer makes for the hearing impaired to let them know that something is happening on the computer that they need to know about. We also got the see the different ways you could make the screen bigger or change the color contrast for someone who may have problems viewing the small writing on a computer screen. As we completed each of these tasks, we saved a screen shot of what the computer was doing at the time and made a powerpoint presentation out of each of these. We also got to create two seperate slides that we could use in the classroom if we had students who suffered from these impairments. I really enjoyed this assignment because I had no idea that my computer was capable of performing these tasks. This assignment met NETS goals 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity and 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility because this definitely inspired my creativity when trying to think about how I would create a presentation for a student that had a disability. You definitely have to think outside of the box for this. If you would like to see what my presentation looked like, you can do that here.

I'm Turning It In.

For this assignment, we got to test a plagiarism site used by many teachers. This was a very cool project because we could see how this site matches information turned in by students to sites on the Internet that they would've copied from. We had two parts to this project, we were to answer questions about how electronics can be geared more towards males than females. First, we were to take information completely from on the Internet, then turn it in to Turnitin.com and make a 100 percent plagiarized paper. After we completed that, we were to answer the questions in our own words and then submit the paper to website again to show that it was our own work which would produce a zero percent plagiarized paper. I had no troubles whatsoever with this assignment and found it very enjoyable to complete. I think I could definitely use this in the future if I were to have my students complete a writing assignment to test their honesty in their own work. I think this assignment met NETS goals 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning and 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility because it was a way of working with teachnology to learn by creating the paper and turning it in to website itself as well as testing one's responsibility and honesty by testing a person's work on the site. If you would like to see my questions that I completed myself you can do so here.

My Very Own Website!

For this assignment we were to make our own teaching websites. I found this to be a very exciting task because I had never made a website of any format before.  To create the website, we used Google Sites which made the set up very easy. We had to create a certain number of web pages, titles, and banners while making the site itself phsyically appealing. I found that this was a very informative project and it is something that I could use a lot once I become a teacher. One of the parts of the project that I found myself having trouble with was creating the tables for organization on one of the pages. I found that the software only allowed you to do so much and that the way of organizing the information in the tables was limited. Overall, I really enjoyed this project. I think that this assignment met the NETS Goals 2: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments because the children would have been able to interact with the teacher and the class on the website. They would’ve been allowed to go through and look at future assignments as well as see websites that the teacher finds helpful for them. I think it also met NETS goals 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility and 5: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership because the assignment allowed us to test how we would present ourselves for our class. If you would like to view my website you can here.

Grouping for Google

For this assignment, we were assigned to groups and these were our designated Google Groups. We were to come up with names for our group and create discussions on technology topics for the classroom and create a short story together on Google Docs. Our group decided to be called the Eagle Know Nots and that we would create a story about a reputation of a group of girls that had our group name. The story was quite entertaining and with it, we learned a lot about Google Docs and how it works. After we were finished with this part of the assignment were to created a presentation of about 4 or 5 slides on the Google version of PowerPoint. I found this part to be easiest because the set up was very similar to Microsoft Office PowerPoint. I did not find myself to have any weaknesses on this assignment because I found it very simple. This assignment was supposed to meet NETS Goals 1, 2, 4, and 5. I think this project definitely met NETS Goal 1, Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity because everyone in our group had to find some creativity to create our story together.  NETS Goal 2 Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments was met as well because we created presentations on line that could be used to in our classroom that would definitely enhance the learning experience through technology. NETS Goal 4, Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility was met because we were very responsible in the way we answered our questions with each other online, giving our professional opinion and responding to other opinions in a responsible way. NETS Goal 5, Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership was met because we had to take on leadership in giving our input while in our groups and working together as future teachers. If you would like to read our story you can do that here and if you would like to view my presentation I made in Google version of PowerPoint, you can do that here.

Using Web Tools

In this assignment, we were to use online web tools to create a rubric, a quiz, and a track of files for our potential students to look at. The quiz and rubric were based off an assignment we would make from our previous concept maps. Since my concept map was on great white sharks, I composed a quiz on that species and also created a rubric for my imaginary students oral presentations as well. For this presentation, I had a hard time finding reliable sites to create for my track. I kept running into problems there but once I found a couple of good teaching sites I found it easier to navigate. I also had a little trouble with creating my rubric on Rubistar.com. The problem I found there, is that I seemed to having a hard time finding the wording for what I was going to be grading my potential students on. I found the more I worked with the actual program that it gave good examples to help me find how I should word my columns. This assignment was supposed to meet NETS Goals 2, Model Digital-Age Work and Learning Design and NETS Goal 3, Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. I think it did meet NET Goal 2 because it did involve having the students using digital ways of learning through the Tracks assignment as well as having the online rubric reference. This assignment definitely met NETS Goal 3 because the assessment that I created was online based. You can find my rubric here and my quiz here. If you would like to look at my tracks you can find them here.

Lights, Camera, Action!

For this assignment, we used Windows Movie Maker to form a video on our choice of topic. For my video, I decided to make a biography about myself and show a little bit about my life. We were to use all aspects of Windows Movie Maker such as adding music and video transitions, as well as using the editing process to give our videos the extra spark they needed. I did not have many difficulties with this project because I make YouTube videos all the time for my own personal channel and I often use Windows Movie Maker as my editing software of choice. In this assignment, we also learned about copyright infringement because we were allowed to use music from other sources and than copyright free ones. We learned about the time limits on songs and pictures and how to give credit to the owner of material we were using. This project met NET Goal 2, Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments because making a movie would be a great way for a class to learn about a new topic and would probably hold their interest more than just having a presentation orally. It also met NET Goal 3, Model Digital-Age Work and Learning because using a computer program to make a movie shows a digital way of learning.