Friday, April 29, 2011

Week Four

Alright, so the weeks have been flying by this quarter, whoa golly! So many things going on it's difficult to keep it all straight. In fact, I may be writing these blogs a week ahead, but when I try to figure out which weeks we did what and what weeks those things were due and all that...my brain starts to hurt. So I'm just going to keep going on as if I have been doing this correctly the whole time.

Anywho, this week we learned how to use Google Picasa, both as a movie maker and as a photo editor. As a photo editor it is pretty lacking (I'll stick to Photoshop), but as a movie maker it is pretty good. It's simple and intuitive, so it is a valuable, FREE resource to use in the classroom (and it doesn't require hours of tutorials to learn to use it properly, like FinalCut does). I think I will introduce this to my students in the classroom, as I hope to, if resources are available, have students create short films as projects demonstrating their comprehension of literature (combining two of the things I'm most passionate/dorky about: film and literature! woo!).

So here we go, on to week five...

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Group Four Chapter Response

Question One:

I like the idea of students using blogs  to respond to teacher questions because it creates an online journal that can be accessed both in the classroom and at home.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Week Three

My oh my what a whirlwind this class has been! We've covered so many different applications and such so far that already it is getting jumbled in my brain. This week, however, we focused mostly on creating a Webquest lesson for teachers and students to use. This is an interactive, inquiry-based lesson format that allows students to use information from all over the web. It is an interesting concept and I look forward to learning more about it.

Additionally, one thing that we covered in class this week that I think can be particularly useful in the future is polleverywhere.com. We did a quick demonstration in class and although it was not the topic of the lesson, I was kind of captivated by it and think it can be particularly useful in my own future classroom.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Week Two

This week we covered a veritable Google Suite of info. Primarily, we learned about Google Survey and Google Documents. We covered how to create and send out a Google Survey, then how to convert the results to a .pdf file using PDF Creator.

This is an interesting process and I have been thinking about how I could implement its use into my future classroom. I think using this as an anonymous feedback forum for students will help them feel comfortable expressing their true feelings about a particular assignment or the class as a whole. I look forward to learning more technology applications I can use in the class!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Week One

Week one of this class has moved at something of a breakneck pace. We have covered a number of topics already, none more important I would say than hyperlinking. So far I have used hyperlinking something like...50 times? It's week one, c'mon!

This week introduced me to a few different multimedia tools that can be integrated into the classroom. These are all primarily web tools, with the exception of PowerPoint; WikiSpaces, Blogspot and GoogleSites.

Of the three, I think WikiSpaces will prove to be the most useful. Here we have been introduced to how to create and manage our own wiki, which will be invaluable in the future. I have already been thinking of the number of ways I can use this in my future classroom as a review resource available to my students.

We also covered using Blogspot. This is something I am not unfamiliar with, so it wasn't new ground or anything, but it did introduce to me the notion of using blogs as a tool in the classroom. I have started thinking of ways to integrate student blogs into different assignments I might give out once I begin teaching.

GoogleSites is something that before Day One in this class, I didn't know existed (although, to be fair, Google does just about everything so I wasn't surprised, either). Similar to the use of WikiSpaces, I can see using GoogleSites as a means of conecting the classroom and creating a resource for students looking to review content or connect with fellow students/myself.

These are all useful resources that I hope to integrate into my own classroom in the future.