Blog #8

For the PowerPoint 2 assignment I created a nonlinear powerpoint about the gods and goddesses of classical mythology. From the homepage you can go to either 'Gods' or 'Goddesses' and from there you can learn about each individual god with a link to their own page. I tried to incorporate images and sounds to keep the pages interesting and I kept the layout and information simple.

As far as non-computer audio-visual technologies in my classroom, I have a very strong background in music and I definitely plan on incorporating into my classroom. My Senior year English teacher used to play us songs that she felt were a kind of anthem to the individual characters of stories we were reading and she then challenged us to find our own song for them. I plan on using similar techniques in my classroom.

I was already very familiar with PowerPoint before coming into this class, however these recent projects have shown me new ways to use it. Now that I know how to set up a non-linear PowerPoint I think this is going to be a great tool to set up games and such as a fun way to help my students learn my material.

Blog #7

The biggest advantages of using presentation software in the K-12 classroom are being able to incorporate a visual structure for students to remember or incorporating multimedia aspects like sounds or video to make a lesson more interesting. Another advantage is it's easy to save something like a powerpoint presentation to use in later years or to email to students who were absent from class. Disadvantages of presentation software are one, if done incorrectly the presentation might just become a distraction rather then an effective teaching tool and two, if the software does not work for some reason and you base your whole lesson off of it you are stuck with nothing to teach.

I could use PowerPoint to outline material or lessons I'm doing in my classroom and present visual aids for my students to relate easier to the lesson. I believe using PowerPoint slides to summarize ideas and emphasize particular points of my lessons will enhance the students understanding of the material.

Ever since my math teacher my Junior year in high school got a SMART Board in her classroom I've been really interested in it. I think it's a great teaching device. It's easy for teachers to incorporate the internet and multimedia information into the classroom and it's a good way to keep kids interest.

Blog #6

I think Web 2.0 technologies can be extremely useful in K-12 education. It may not be as useful in the youngest grades, but as long as the student can use a computer even the younger kids can benefit from the games and activities on some Web 2.0 sites. For the older grades like middle or high school I think Web 2.0 technologies would be a great tool to incorporate in the classroom and I plan on using them myself when I'm a teacher. Tools like Wikis can be used by teachers to create lesson plans or share information with the students, or you can even let students use these kind of sites for group projects or such like we did.

I think if used correctly Wikipedia can be a beneficial learning resource. We all know the problem with Wikipedia is it's credibility, however it also contains information on just about anything you could possibly imagine. So my view is that Wikipedia is a good starting point for research but once you find material on there you have to be able to back it up with something else.

Learning how to develop a wikispace was probably one of the more interesting projects we've done this semester. I think it's a great resource for teachers to both acquire information and ideas from other wikis and portray information and lessons to their students. I could see myself using something like this in my classroom.

Blog #5

I think that the Internet is a great support for student research. It is a very easy way for students to get an abundance of information to use in research papers, projects, etc. The problem with the internet as a research tool is one, not everything on the internet is credible so you have to be careful and two, students start to use it as a replacement for real work and use things like SparkNotes instead of actually reading an assigned book.

Web-based resources help support students in countless ways. Not only can the students use information to include in their school work but there are plenty of resources out now that actually help teach the students. For example countless websites and videos are devoted to teaching students how to do math. This is extremely helpful because if a student doesn't understand an idea in class they can come home and research the type of problem and learn it with the help of the internet.

As a potential high school teacher I am extremely concerned about supervising students using technology. As beneficial as I believe the internet to be it's also very easy for these resources to be abused, particularly with high school students who are very familiar with the technology. I know multiple students in my high school that made a point of trying to get away with doing everything on the school computers they weren't supposed to whether it was gaming sites, social networking, hacking, etc.

Blog #4

I think concept maps and flow charts would be extremely useful in my English classroom. I could easily use something like this to make a simplified story line, character maps, etc. I could just as easily use the same idea to have my students make their own so they better understand key parts or characters in a story. I would probably use a program like Imagination for lessons like this.

I think it's a no brainer that being able to develop an outline, idea map, or storyboard is an important tool in a high school English class. Not only do the students need to be able to use such tools to understand the material we are reading, but being able to develop and outline or idea map is crucial to writing even the most basic essays. These skills will undoubtedly be highly encouraged in my classroom.

I've been using the Google search engines for years so I was already pretty familiar with it. I think in the last week I've learned mostly how to refine a search and make a search more accurate by things like excluding words. A search engine is one of the most basic technology tools and I'm sure I will refer back to it plenty of times over the rest of my schooling and teaching career.

Blog #3

I might use a technology program like Imagination in my high school English classes. With this web mapping tool I could make a lesson plan revolving around students using the program to map out the story line of a novel or maybe a character map. If I didn't have access to the Imagination program I could easily use a program like MS Word or Powerpoint for a similar lesson.

I'm evaluating a site called BrainPOP. The main page of the site is a little overwhelming at first with all the movement and the colors, but the setup is fairly simple which is nice. As you click the links to the specific subjects the layouts are structured nicely, the colors are simpler, and the font and pictures used work well on the page. A downside to the page is it doesn't make it's intended audience clear. The format of the website made me originally think it was for younger students however the actual content of the website seems to be for upper level students.

I've had a decent amount of experience with copyright and fair use through my education. I had to make bibliographies for any of the papers or projects that I did throughout school. I've also become acquainted with copyright rules through band. I helped my band director order and copy music for our classes I learned all about the rules of distributing copyrighted music and so forth. As a teacher I'm sure I will be using multimedia material such as movies, music, etc. so I'm sure I will come into contact with copyright laws myself. And as an English teacher my students are obviously going to be citing sources for papers I assign so I will be teaching them the copyright and fair use guidelines for using sources appropriately.

Blog #11

I honestly didn't use twitter much this semester. I checked the class twitter a couple times earlier in the semester but other than that I've only been on twitter to set up my account. I haven't even posted a single tweet of my own.

I don't plan on using twitter outside of this classroom. I think it is the least appealing of any of the social networking sites I've used. I don't care to post every single thought or action of my day, nor do I care to follow anybody else's.

I've heard of teachers using twitter in their classrooms, and I can see it as a educational tool to an extent. It's a social networking site after all, which means it's a good source of communication. Teacher's could use a class twitter like ours to post updates about assignments, etc. or students could use it to contact each other about projects or homework. However, I personally do not plan on implementing twitter in my classroom, I think there are plenty of more effective teaching tools.