My Extra Credit Podcast

Listen to this podcast to review the involvement of each country during World War II!

Blog 12

I really enjoyed reading my classmates' blog posts. My favorite subjects were probably the different web 2.0 technologies that we focused on because everyone came up with really cool tools that I could definitely use in my teaching career. Also, I enjoyed reading the positive comments left by others on my blog. The encouraging words gave me more inspiring ideas for my classroom!

Next, I would really like how to learn how to use SmartBoard technology and how to create programs for my classroom. I think one of my favorite things that we did during this class was creating the technology we wanted to use for our lessons. I believe that I would find learning how to create my own programs really helpful.

I feel that I can achieve my educational goals by using the different technologies we learned in this classroom. By continuing to use them and incorporating them into lessons, I will stay familiar with them and be more aware of new technologies and educational tools.

Blog 11

Prior to this semester, I already had a Twitter account. I use Twitter frequently as it helps me stay in touch with friends at other colleges and back home. Also, it allows me to keep current with the news -this is important to me since I don't have a tv in my dorm, so I don't really know what's going on in the real world. These other uses for Twitter are helpful and they really do demonstrate why the technology is so useful.

This semester I did not tweet that much as I have been so busy with school work and other activities. It is nice to receive the Twitters on my phone because I know that if I had to go to a website to check up on people, I would just go to Facebook instead -the convenience of receiving text messages from certain people is very nice.

I don't think that Twitter really has a place in the education setting as I feel it would be more of a distraction to the students than a helpful study tool. As far as teachers sending out reminders for when assignments are due and so forth, there are other websites such as Blackboard and the class websites that can deliver this information. I think that students would take advantage of Twitter technology at school and use it to possibly invite people to parties, make fun of classmates and do other things that have nothing to do with enhancing their learning.

My Podcast

Blog 10

There are so many web 2.0 tools to choose from!! I feel that many web 2.0 tools can be useful when teaching but it is important to keep the students' age group and subject area in mind. When teaching, I think that I might use a tool called Prezi. It is very helpful for creating presentations. Prezi can serve as a planning space for papers or projects or a poster board to present information to the class.

I might use Prezi when teaching a lesson to my students because I can have all of my information present and simply navigate to the areas I would like to focus on. For instance, I could give a step-by-step presentation on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for kindergarden students. Order and following directions are important lessons for this age group. Therefore, I could create a short presentation with arrows, text and pictures that would help me teach this lesson. Here's an example of something I created using Prezi:

I think that web 2.0 tools can be extremely helpful in teaching k-12. I also feel that they are useful in college and teaching students how to stay organized and manage their time. Although it's important to evaluate the appropriateness of a tool for students, I believe that there are many options out there, teachers can simply find what suits their lesson and learners best.

Blog 9

When studying for exams, I usually make notecards to help me review my notes. I plan to use this study technique in my classroom my using the online resources, the Flashcard Machine. Students and teachers can create notecards for free and use the program to study for tests.

I would use this website while teaching because I can create notecards and have my students review them in class -perhaps even make it a game. I know that some students may not review the best way with this technique so I plan to incorporate different study and review methods when appropriate. Another reason this source is helpful is because parents can help their child review shapes, colors and sight words that we will be learning in class. This positive reinforcement will promote student learning.

As a teacher, I'm not too sure about how I'll use Excel with my kindergarten students. However, I'll probably use similar problems to enter grades and to form report cards. Regardless, I found some of the Excel techniques to be interesting and if I end up teaching a different grade level, those skills may be helpful in recording class averages and grades for tests and homework assignments.

Blog 8

I feel that I didn’t have any grammar or spelling errors in my interactive story. Also, I tried to make sure that my audio was easy to hear and sounded good during the presentation. I used all readable text and made sure that the text was left justified so it would be easiest to read.

Further, I tried to make sure that my background did not interfere with the slide.

I also kept the navigation buttons consistent throughout the story in order to make it friendly and easy to navigate.

I feel that by using educational videos in combination with computer programs or resources that reinforce the same skills, my students will be able to learn effectively. For instance, by showing a video about how to identify shapes and then using a computer program or interactive powerpoint that also reinforces shape recognition, my students will have different ways to master the skill. Therefore, I will be able to reach the majority of my students as my teaching methods will apply to different learning types.

Some new skills I acquired last week and in working on the Powerpoint 2 Assignment were how to plan out an in-depth presentation such as the interactive story. I really tried to make it interesting a provide readers with choices that they would enjoy. One skill that will be beneficial to me both in furthering my education as well as teaching would be how familiar I got with my Mac in making this presentation. I didn’t really know how to use most of the tools and so this project forced me to figure out what everything did and how it all worked. This information is helpful because now I feel alot more confident with the program and I will be willing to use presentations in my classroom.