Blog #10

I always knew the basic concepts of the most Microsoft programs. I knew how to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel because of my previous computer classes in elementary and high school. This class provided me with a recap on my techniques in these programs that I haven’t used in a long time. A program that I have never learned about before is the Inspiration program. This program helps you make concept maps and outlines of the concept maps. I thought this program was very unique and different because I did not know that there were computer programs that allowed you to make concept maps of that sort, which would have helped as a student. I also learned how to use Paint. I figured I knew how to use this program, but this class taught me more in depth techniques about how to make a picture using Paint.

I hope our project will be helpful to Ms. Kirkendoll. We created a storybook for The Circuit with information about the author, as well as a short quiz so the students can take after they finish reading the story. I hope the students will enjoy the story more because of our storybook. This project gave us an insight into knowing what it will be like in trying to teach information to students. We had to decide how to teach this story and by doing so I think this opened our perspectives as a teacher. This will also help me see if this is what I enjoy doing. I came to realize that it takes a lot of time and effort to make a god lesson.

All the programs that I used can be very helpful when I am a teacher later on. Microsoft Word can help with the daily tasks of a teacher. I could use it to make handouts, quizzes, tests, or basically anything because Word contains all the basic concepts you need for a computer program. In Microsoft PowerPoint, I can use it to make lecture PowerPoint slides which I find very helpful as a student. Microsoft Excel can aid me when I am trying to make a grade book or do any other calculations through a program. Inspiration and Paint will help me map out particular techniques. Inspiration will allow me to make a concept map and Paint will allow me to draw pictures. These are all useful programs to have once you become a teacher.

I found it interesting that most of my classmates had the same opinion as me. We all tend to learn the same new thing each week and to basically have the same topic for the blog. I think this is unique because we are all learning at the same level. The class allows us to express ourselves through the blog topics, but I found out that the majority of my classmates did indeed have the same ideas as I did.

Blog #9

I think the project is a different way to think of what we have learned this whole semester. This allows us to think of how we would like to present the information as a teacher and show it to the classroom. We are doing a storybook with information about the author at the end of the story and a quiz at the end. Ms. Kirkendoll wanted a review for the story, The Circuit, so that is what we decided to do. We got to use the techniques we learned from PowerPoint to formulate the storybook. We also are using our techniques that we learned in Word for the quiz.

This week I did part of the storybook. I formulated some of the PowerPoint for the story, The Circuit. I also went to meet with the teacher Ms. Kirkendoll. She gave us suggestions on how to help her teacher this story. She explained how she wanted a more of a review for instead of a crossword puzzle, we decided it would be better if the students were quizzed, which she agreed on.

I learned how to be more interactive with Wiki. I never completely understood what a Wiki was but having an assignment due as a Wiki made me understand how to use it more. So I used the Wiki to communicate with my other group members.

Blog #8

WebQuest can be easily adopted into any 6th grade classroom. To show the students about a project you can make a WebQuest giving them the details of the project. I make WebQuest explaining to the students how to write a paper based on the story The Circuit. WebQuest will be very detailed and explain how to write the paper on their selected topic about the story that they will be assigned in class. The WebQuest will have the introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion, and credits. The 6th graders will be easily be able to know and understand how to do this project. Once they have read the story, they will be able to go onto the WebQuest site and understand how to do the assignment.

I found a good WebQuest example where the students find out information about the First Thanksgiving. Once they researched this information, they are supposed to write a short play on the First Thanksgiving. I like this WebQuest which was addressed to 2nd graders because it makes a fun activity for them to complete. The WebQuest clearly states the introduction, task, process, evaluation, and the conclusion for the project. Other than that it uses bright colors to make the page look attractive. I think the students and teachers would both enjoy this WebQuest.

Even though I have used Excel, I found it incredibly helpful to learn how to use it again. Since I do not use Excel very often, I forgot how to do many things on Excel. So the recap on those techniques really helped me. Excel will be very useful in my career because it can help when needing a grade book. It can easily produce the averages and the other mathematical formulas that you might need to figure out my students grades. Excel makes it easier for these things to happen.

Blog #7

I found a website which provides with helpful tools for teachers. The tool I liked the best on this website was the template to make newsletters. I think this is helpful because I feel like the parent should be involved in the classroom. So with these templates will allow me to quickly type of the newsletters for the parents. This will help when I am informing in what is going on in the classroom and will also make it easier for myself as a teacher to write the newsletter with such a busy schedule.

http://www.education-world.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#miscellaneous

I think I will use Excel for my grade book. Excel is an easy way to organize my grades ad figure out the averages of the different students. It will help me organize the ways that I input the grades into the computer. I think using Excel as a grade book will help any subject and any grade level and will help myself be organized in the grading instead of manually writing all the grades into a paperback grade book. I think Excel could also be helpful in a 6th grade and higher grades science classes. When the students finish their lab results, they type up all their results into a spreadsheet. Once formed into a table, they then can have a pie, bar, or line chart showing their results. This will make their results page in their lab report easier to read and more organized.

Blog #6

My PowerPoint 1 Assignment is very basic and contains all the basic traits of a PowerPoint Presentation. The background is a solid color pink and font coloring is a lighter blue and I kept the format the same throughout all the slides because I thought it is easier in a presentation when all the slides have a general background format. I added some animations in the first and last slides. The animation gives the presentation of slides a more fun and unique aspect to the presentation. I also tried to use images that draw attention and help the viewer better understand the information that is on each slide.

Computer peripherals such as a printer can help when printing out assignments or printing out a test. They can help the teacher pass out all the assignments easily to the different students. Teachers can use textbooks also to base their curriculum on, but as well you the internet from the computer to find more examples on the material, which can allow the students to have a wider base of information on the subject. The computer programs can always be used hand in hand with the other supplies in the classroom to help the students learn better.

I have learned all these skills from PowerPoint before, so the skills were just a review for me. I think PowerPoint is a very useful tool when presenting information to the classroom. As a student I enjoy when the teacher uses PowerPoint as a tool in the classroom to present notes and I also plan on using PowerPoint when I am a teacher because I find it helpful in the classroom. PowerPoint allows for the information to be viewed easily so if you miss the information the teacher said, you have the PowerPoint to follow along from the information.

Blog #5

I decided to critique the FSU website, which is an overall good website in objectivity, design and accuracy. This website deals with all the aspects of FSU and it can be clearly seen throughout the site. The style of the website is set up nicely because each page is clearly labeled, the text is adjusted correctly, and it does not have too many page styles, fonts, or colors. It is fairly easy to navigate throughout the site because it is organized nicely and there are many lists with links to help you go to other pages of the website. Even though it is a very large website, its design is good because it clearly shows you were to go throughout these different topics of the website.

I think presentation software has more advantages than disadvantages for K- 12 students. I think this type of software is good for especially visual learners because it allows them to see the information that is being taught. Whether the students is looking at PowerPoint presentation or video, it will allow them to understand the information more when it is visually shown to rather than a teacher lecturing to the classroom. It can also be more fun for students to have projects using presentation software because they have a chance to graphically show the information in their project. A disadvantage might be that it is hard to use presentation software for younger students, who need more hands on learning rather than looking visually at the information. But in some instances videos might help younger students when learning as well as older students.

PowerPoint can be very helpful when students are learning in the classroom. When using a PowerPoint presentation, the student will be able to understand the information presented better. The can visually see the information written out on the slides as well as graphics that support the information that is written. In PowerPoint, you can also insert videos which will also help with the visual aspect of learning. This type of presentation allows the student to interactively understand the information that is taught.

Blog #4

The concepts presented in Chapter 7 seem helpful to teachers because it allows their students to begin to brainstorm about assignments in an organized way. I might ask my students to complete an outline for an essay. This outline will help them organize and arrange their thoughts in a list form, so they will have some kind of direction when they are writing their essays. When my students write their essays they can also use an idea map where they web out on different aspects of the topic. This allows them to link different ideas into the main topic of the essay. For that same essay, my students can complete a storyboard from their essay topic. The storyboard will allow them to design pages with graphics on the computer to help visualize what their essay is going to be about. All these different concepts can be completed on the computer through MS Word or Inspiration. By using these concepts, the students will be more prepared and organized when they decide to write their actual essay.

I think creating an outline, an idea map, and a story board is a great idea for some assignments in the classroom. Some assignments like writing an essay requires the organization and structure that those concepts provide, but for some simple quick assignments those concepts are not necessary. When structure is needed these concepts help the students arrange their ideas and thoughts before they begin their papers. I think that this is vital for first time writers because they are not sure how to structure their essays and these concepts will help them with these techniques. But the more the students progress the less should they need to use all of the concepts.

Even though I have been using Google for a very long time I did attain some new skills to help me when I am searching the internet. I learned that Google could be used as a calculator which I never knew before and it is very helpful. I didn’t know that you could exclude words in results by adding a minus sign before the word that you want excluded. This is very helpful when you are looking for one specific thing and do not want other results to show up in the search. I also learned that Google has an advance search which will help me when I want to even be more specific than the normal search.