Introduction Video
The introduction video was something very easy and
to the point. It required us to quickly talk about ourselves and what our
interests might be in a short video to be posted on our blogs. I didn't really
learn anything from this assignment due to the speech class I have taken prior
to this class. One good thing about doing a video however is you can retake the
video as much as you would like until you have gotten it down. That was my
issue for this project. I messed up about three or four times before I finally
had my words sorted out in a way that I was truly happy with it. The key to
working through this is to not get overwhelmed with impromptu work but to just
take a deep breath to sort your thoughts and try again. After I did that, I did
my video smoothly. This project would be great to have my students do during
that first week of school. It would allow the students to have some fun with
technology and also give them the ability to introduce themselves to the class
in a way that is a lot less intimidating. The NET-T standard that this project
connects to is “promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility”
because before the project, I will instruct the students about digital etiquette
and what information should be said and what shouldn't be said. This would
increase the students’ knowledge of digital citizenship and responsibility and
would also give them the change to demonstrate it.
Concept Map
The concept map was a very interesting project for
me. I already knew how to create a concept map but I have never used the
computer to create one. This project really did teach me how to utilize my
resources with technology to create something that is really interesting to look
at. Through this project, I created a concept map that I never would have
dreamed of making on plain paper. I also loved how we were able to put links on
the concept map so when I am teaching I can just click on the word and the
video or webpage I wanted to show the class is right there. Now because this
was my first time doing a concept map on the computer, it did come with its
difficulties. For starters, I didn’t know how to do the description of each
topic and had to ask a neighbor to help me. It also took me awhile to figure
out how to create the hyperlinks and add pictures to my concept map, but with a
little bit of time and effort, I figured out how to correctly work everything
either by self-exploration or through the help of another student. This is
something I will most definitely use in my classroom. The way this project was
set up, I could even slowly add onto it while we are doing a focus unit that
way I could get the students involved. After the lesson is complete, I could
even get students to create their own concept map from the material that we
were going over. Concept Maps like this one would really keep students
attention in what I am teaching and would make teaching that topic a lot more
organized and fun. The NET-T standard that this project connects to is “facilitate
and inspire students learning and creativity” because with a concept map done
through the computer, it really puts what the student needs to be learning very
clearly in front of them. This can help them organize their thoughts when it
comes to the content and through modeling your creativity on a concept map, it
would inspire your students to really think about how they would design their
own concept map and would let them be creative.
Website
This was both a fun and aggravating assignment. I
learned a lot from this particular assignment. It really showed me how to set
up a website that was both appealing to the eye and flowed very well from page
to page. It also showed me that I have free resources like Google sites to use
as a teacher, but this project was very difficult for me to work through
because we needed to do this strictly on our own time with our own knowledge.
As a class, we needed to figure out how to set up this website on our own. This
was very difficult for me to do and if it was not for the digital media classes
I took in high school I probably would not have figure out how to correctly set
up the website. There were many steps for how to complete it and many of the
steps were confusing. How I worked through this project was to use the site
help multiple times and by also asking other students who managed to figure out
how to do certain requirements for the project. Once all of the hardships were
worked out, it was fun to create a website that I will use as a future teacher.
I love being able to manage my own site that parents can come to, to get a
chance to learn some more about me, keep up with the class homework
assignments, but also see their children learning in my classroom. The NET-T
standard that this project connects to is “model digital age work and learning”
and “engaging in professional growth and leadership” because as a teacher
running a classroom website for parents, it will demonstrate how I want the
parents to be involved and want them to connect to their students schoolwork.
Managing a website will keep me professionally growing and also would
demonstrate leadership skills for it to run smoothly. The resources page would
also promote learning for the students through fun games and activities.
Movie
This project was just simply fun for me to do
because I have created many movies using windows live on my own computer.
Creating this movie just really let me have fun and express a little bit about
me and how I am. It was so much fun sifting through pictures and songs until I
just found the perfect combination, but even though I have made several videos
before, I have never made one with word slides throughout the video which
proved to be a challenge. I quickly found out that I needed to put transitions and
picture movement before I put in text slides because if not, the text will get
pushed into other slides making it very difficult to read. The fix was simple,
but aggravating. I just needed to redo all of the text slides until they fit
the movie accordingly. This is something I will most definitely use in my
future classroom and I can use it in multiple ways. One way I could utilize
this tool is to present the information that we would be learning in class and
show the class the video before we started the lesson. Another way I could use
this tool, is as a fun project for the students to do. I could really use this
as a writing project when they need to start learning how to write a narrative.
The NET-T standard that this project connects to is “design and develop digital
age learning experiences and assessment” because this project really allows a
student to explore a program that could really help their school studies and
their technological ability. If this project was used as a narrative writing
project, then the teacher could easily assess the student as they read the
narrative that would be presented.
Social, Legal, Ethical Issues (Turnitin)
This lesson provided me with great tools that I
could use in the future. Due to other classes, I have already used turnitin.com
so I already knew how to work it but I never really put much thought into what
it really is. Through this project I can see it as a valuable tool to use as a
teacher to both demonstrate how serious plagiarism is, but also to check the
students work. This assignment didn't really pose any difficultly for me. It
was very simply and strait forward work that would only be difficult if you
have never written a paper before or if you have never used turnitin.com
before. As mentioned above, I would most definitely use this as a teacher. When
it comes to plagiarism, it is a very serious topic that is becoming more and
more of a problem. Most of the time, students do not understand what plagiarism
really means. As a teacher, I could really utilize turnitin.com as a means of
showing my students what plagiarism is and how to cite. It would also allow me
as a teacher a tool to check a students work and show them what they did wrong
and how to fix it. The NET-T standard that this project connects to is “promote
and model digital citizenship and responsibility” for obvious reasons. Through
turnitin.com a student can learn and know what they are responsible for when it
comes to writing and plagiarism which will in turn help them grow in both digital
and worldly citizenship.
Web Tools
This project was very helpful for me as a future
teacher. I really loved getting useful resources like this one that I could really
use to help my future class and myself. The main thing I learned during this
project is that I do have resources out there that will not cost me a fortune
to use and I don’t need to create my own tests or word documents which will
take me longer to do. This project did come with challenges through because I
did not know how to run the website at first. It took me some time to first
figure out how to work the website then be able to access the work I just
created so that other people could see it. This really just took some time and exploring
to fix this problem and now I can see it as really valuable sources. As a
teacher, I would use these sources to really just benefit myself when it comes
to student quizzes, projects, and resources, but I could also use the test maker
tool to get students to create their own quizzes to use against each other. The
NET-T standard that this project connects to is “design and develop digital age
learning experiences and assessment” because I can use these sources as a means
of assessing student’s projects and their knowledge on the content of the
lesson through quizzes. I could also assess student’s content knowledge by
getting them to create their own quizzes and gives them learning experiences on
the computer.
Google Assignment
This project was not difficult for me to do at all.
In high school, many of the projects, both group and individual, was done on Google docs so I was very familiar about how to work Google docs and Google
presentation. The only thing that did trip me up a little bit was the Google
groups and that was just a quick explore the tool thing that was easily fixed.
Thanks to personal experience, I do know that the Google tools could really be
an easy way for students to connect and do group projects. However, as a
teacher I’m not sure how much I would really utilize this tool. I’m not a big
fan of group work outside of the classroom because you need to rely on other
people in order to have a good grade. I do know I could separate it to
individuals, but at that point, why have groups to begin with? This is
something that I have really been struggling with as a future teacher because
of my poor experiences with being in groups including the ones in this class. I
honestly do not thing they are beneficial outside of the classroom and only
causes unneeded stress on the student, but this would be a great tool if I do
choose to have group work. The NET-T standard that this project connects to is “promote
and model digital citizenship and responsibility” because it really requires
the students to work together and rely on each other to do their part of the
assignment. This builds their sense of citizenship and responsibility that is
needed not only for group projects or in the digital age but also in life.
Course Evaluation
My experiences in this class really have made me see
technology in a new way. Before this class started, I really disliked
technology. I hated using websites for homework assignments or using technology
in general for any project besides typing up a paper or doing research. This
class has really shown me how to embrace technology and how to effectively use
it in the classroom that will both benefit the students and me.
My strong point when it comes to technology is
knowing how to figure things out. This probably comes from me hating to read
the control instructions for video games. It never fails, every time I would
buy a new video game, I would immediately put it in and figure out the controls
on my own instead of looking up how to work it. This made it fun to really
explore and experiment for the first ten to twenty minutes of gameplay. This
way of thinking really moves over to other things in technology. Without my
drive to want to know how to do something or having the ability to explore and
experiment, I probably wouldn't have made it through this class. This quality
of mine could really help me as a teacher when it comes to new technology
programs.
My weak point when it comes to technology is just my
inexperience with using it. It is just really hard to work through something
that you are unfamiliar with. Everyone has that one thing that really doesn't make sense to them and my nemesis would be technology. Simply programs like the
ones we learned in this class I can effectively navigate and could really use in
the future because of the simplicity of it, however if something happened to
the computer there is no way I would be able to fix it or know how to really
get around the issue. I also wouldn't be able to work difficult programs
without the help of someone else.
The easiest way to fix my weak areas is to just take
more time to really get familiar with how to work all forms of technology. For
computers programs, this can be done by allowing someone to help me until I become
familiar with the program to where I can work on my own, or I can simply take
more computer classes that will teach me how to really embrace what I can do on
a computer. For other technology that I will be using as a teacher such as a
projector, I really just need to read up on or ask an experienced person how to
work the machine and also how to fix it if something were to go wrong in the
middle of class.
Thanks to this class I really plan on integrating a
lot more technology that I originally thought. For myself as a teacher, I would
really utilize the web tools to make my life as a teacher easier and Google
sites to really get the parents involved with their students. Parent
involvement, especially at the younger ages, is really critical to a child’s
learning. For the student, I can really utilize the projects like the movie
maker to really give students a chance to be creative in the classroom instead
of just sitting at their desks writing. I will also give them options like
allowing them to do power points, commercials, or other materials that can be
filmed or created to demonstrate their creativity and knowledge of the subject.
The most important thing I would do would be to create the introduction videos
that first week of school so that I as the teacher will know a little more
about them, and also provides that icebreaker for that student to really
socialize with their other classmates.
For the grades I want to teach, I would not use
e-Portfolios or Blogs in my classroom; however I do see the value in using
them. It would allow students to connect and all be a part of one group. For
the teacher, everything could be organized and easily accessed with the touch
of a button, but I honestly think this is for the higher level grades, middle
school and up. The grades that I want to be teaching (no higher than the fifth
grade) would not benefit them and would just provide another assignment or
complication to their already busy day. In my opinion, at that age, it’s not
really something they should be associating with. The first grade I could
really see this being beneficial in would be the sixth grade.
