Final reflection

Coming into this class I was bit, bored, I should say because I have taking so many computer classes that were just boring and dull. I am glad to say that I have learned some new things in this class and they are things that I will use in my future classroom. My favorite things that I have learned in class are all of the web tools, google groups and the assistive technology project. The AT project is a big thing for me being a special education major, because the odds are I will use all of the devices we covered in the power point. My favorite web tool would have to be the word cloud and the online story book. I have seen several teachers use the word cloud for motivational posters or for word review after stories. The storybook to me was just very cute and I think it would be neat to do and exchange with other classes in the nation or globally. Kind of like pen pals, but story pals instead. 

            My strong points deal with things in word, power point, movies, and any other basic Microsoft functions. I have made plenty of rubrics and I have used turnitin.com before this class in high school and in college. My weaker points deal with anything that requires a lot of linking or clicking back and forth between pages. I tend to get lost, confused, or skip steps that make big deal. I also tend to over think assignments or want to add to much detail and it ends up causing mine to be different or not work the right way.

            Microsoft is a lifestyle in college and in high school so I have always been exposed to it and had to learn to use it at a young age in computer classes. My weaknesses are mainly there because the lack of using complex programs or software. My outlook is, if I can do it on word then let’s uses word, compared to using something else. 

            I would say I need to keep up with all of the new things out there to use in the classroom and how they work and what students they would benefit the best. Is there a newsletter or a club? Haha!  Something that is a weakness, mainly because lack of exposure and use, is using all of the new types of smart boards in the classrooms. We haven’t been taught how to use them and none of our teachers in the classes here use them. I have had one chance to play with one in a math class out in the field, but that is it. I wish we could have taken the time to use  them in this class or something to that nature.  I plan on integrating technology into the classroom by use of power points and using the web tools we learned how to use. I will especially being using all of the AT items in the special education classroom. And if my class has a smart board I will learn how to use it one way or another, because that is a great interactive tool to use in the classroom.

AT project

I really enjoyed doing the Assistive Technology project mainly because that is what I will be doing a lot with this area due to being a special education teacher.  I knew about some of the features that we experimented with but I have no idea how to do screen shots or the split screen and magnify option.  I find it amazing that computers already come equipped with these adaptations and that they are so easy to use. This makes it so much easier on the teacher when selecting tools to use with their students and it is amazing that it is free so that schools do not have to invest extra funds they do not have. It is also a great tool for parents to use at home with their child and it provides the child with tools to use, that do not take very much effort to use and they do not have to have assistance or be taught or have a teacher with them at all times while using.

There are multiple standards that can be applied to this area of technology and teaching. A few of the standards that can be applied are the following:

·         Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity – promote and support student learning, engage students in exploration, and can be used for students to reflect upon their learning.

·         Model digital age work and learning- teachers are required to have knowledge of skills and work that represents the digital world. Provides methods to collaborate with students and teachers.

·         Engage in professional growth and leadership- gives the teachers multiple ways to communicate in the community with creative methods of learning, provides evaluative methods and it makes learning in the classroom highly effective. 
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       This is the link to my AT slideshow 
       https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6YntfIp5iZeMWtINnhqZ3pLcU0
 

website

https://sites.google.com/site/thepanadaclass/

I actually enjoyed this assignment for one main reason...we didn't have to type code!!! I made a site in high school and we had to go through and type all of the code out and it was a PAIN! I really enjoyed having the chance to customize our site and basically make it our own. This would be a great way to communicate in your class about events or even big units such as mine based on china. I like all of the sites we were provided with to customize our page and how easy it was to use the creations off of the sites.

This would be great for a class and would be great for students to create and keep up to date. A class site is a great way to post student work or allow students to post their views and share their thoughts. It is also a great way to share with parents what is being taught in the class and the parents can keep up with what the students have due. This is a great way to keep parents involved in their child's education and can be a good way to hold conversations in the home

The NET standards that can be applied to this topic are


1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. (Gives students the chance to learn and create websites and promote a sense of ownership of what they have created) 

2. Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. 

3. Model Digital Age Work and Learning 

google groups project

I honestly, do not like group projects, because in high school I was always the one stuck doing the work or my group was the one who always had points taken off because others did not do their part of the project. I do think using Google groups is a good way to manage group projects in a class, if everyone had computer and internet access and it would be a great way to monitor progress of groups and the work they are doing. It is a little bit confusing to manage if you do not know your way around and can be hard to get back to sometimes once you leave the site. The story document part of the assignment was the hardest to get to and from, for me. I couldnt remember how to get to and from so it was always alot of back tracking to get to it. I liked the idea of creating a power point and being able to share it with the group, that is a create way to do a think pair share strategy in class.


I think this would be a great tool to use in college classes to help students keep up with work and to review if they are absent that day in class. It is also a great way for teachers to monitor what work students do in group projects and make sure everywhere shares the load, compared to one single student doing all of the work.


The way this ties to the standards is in the area of Model Digital Age Work and Learning and it also relates with using Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments.

google power point 

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NyKgtxtKRHNLL0F0qfG41PKc_91m7pkjPZPD3vu78jY/edit#slide=id.p

My video

This wasnt my first video to make using the Windows movie maker. I had to make a video for ENG 333 and I made a PSA related to zombies and what to do when they invade. It was alot of fun to make up and it was interesting learning how to make a video. I would have to say the difference it is that we were actually taught how to make a video in IT 365 compared to just being shown in ENG 333. I feel that this project would work better for an older group of students for them to make their own and it is a great way to make videos for lessons. Youtube is a great resource, but sometimes the videos they have just arent very good or classroom appropriate. So a teacher can make their own video using the content they are covering and also making it appropriate for their students grade level.

The only thing I had problems with was meeting the length and making my captions and transitions are fit together. The captions sometimes would linger over to the next slide because of transitions so I had to play with it and figure out how to make them end. All in all I really had no other problems making this video. To me, it is kind of like a fancy power point presentation because all my video is just pictures. I would be interested in how to make a video using actual recorded footage. Does it work the same way? How does the sound work out?

The NET standards that can be applied to this topic are


1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. (Gives students the chance to learn and create presentations on their own. Also allows for the teacher to create learning experiences on a level for their students)


2. Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. (using a variety of media types to form a video.)

3. Model Digital Age Work and Learning (Gives students the chance to communicate their points of view through the use of a movie.)

here is my movie

Web tools

I really enjoyed this assignment. It is amazing how I've been through five years of college, in an education program and I have never heard of any of these sites till now. I have used the rubric generator, but it was not the one we were assigned, in my opinion with rubric generators if you have used one you have used them all.

I really liked the word cloud creation. That would be a great way for students to list things they expect out of the class or goals and then to post them in the class to always be reminded. It is also a fun activity that they can do with their vocabulary words, beside the dual writing them over and over ritual. This ties in with: Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments ( making it personal for the student) and also with Model digital age work and learning (innovative technology)

The story bird was neat to me, because teachers often want students to create their own stories and some may not have artistic talent or access to word programs, but if they are using school computers this is a free EASY way for them to create their own story. The only trouble I had was locating pictures that I wanted to use, but I have a feeling if I played with it a bit more I would get the hang of it. This is just like the word cloud it provides a personal experience for the student, encourages creativity ( Facilitate and Inspire student learning and creativity)

Trackstar..where have you been my whole life! This site is amazing. It is a little "Tech Savvy" but the layout is very basic, you just have to take the time to do it. I think it would be neat if maybe we could be provided with a class list of everyone's trackstar so that as future teachers we have this great tool to reference.

Please click on the links to go to the selected material

Rubric https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6YntfIp5iZeZVo4WFp0c1ZkTXM
Word Cloud https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6YntfIp5iZeQWY0dEtLb0c5LUE
Story http://storybird.com/books/zazzys-veggies/
Trackstar http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/ts/viewTrackMembersFrames.do?org.apache.struts.taglib.html.TOKEN=0d546b428c80afd46780f217b117b997&number=444449&password=

Turnitin/Plagiarism

First off let me say, being a college kid I have heard the plagiarism spill enough times that I can say it in my sleep. Moral of the story...DO NOT COPY AND PASTE.

I have used turnitin before this class, we used it in high school and I use it for another class here at USM. For teachers to be able to use turnitin and use it easily they must be familiar with this type of technology/website. I liked the idea of us doing a "copy and paste paper" to see how it looks on turnitin.com and how the report reads. I have never seen a turnitin report before, so that was interesting to see how to labels everything and links it to the source.

Every student at one time or another has plagiarized something. It is hard to avoid sometimes for two reasons. One, it is difficult to reword some facts and figures and two, siting sources is such a format pain that some students become frustrated over the fact every time they do source that it is always wrong. I fall into the second group. Siting, well any type of grammatical formatting, is my weakness. As a teacher told me in community college, "we are going to get past all these run on sentences even if it kills us both" But! Thanks to the wonders of Microsoft word, siting is a breeze now, still never fails i get something wrong.

All of this ties in with teachers promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility to their students in the classroom. Because, if we as teachers do not teach the difference between right and wrong (original work or stolen work) students will lack the ethics of how to use technology appropriately.


To view my paper about plagiarism please click the link below

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6YntfIp5iZeMTB1Nzh1QTJUdGs

Concept Maps

This wasn't my first time to use Inspiration or to create concept maps online. I had exposure to Inspiration through  SPED class I took  online that required us to create so many concept maps based on chapter topics. I will admit it was the first time i actually used almost all of the tools on inspiration and I found it really neat that you can add notes to each topic or sub topic. I also liked how we learned that you can write on the arrows and add some what directions to what is being learned.

Concept maps are a create way to introduce a topic and discover what your students already know and then it is an excellent way to review at the end of a class or lesson to see what you students have learned and maybe what they are struggling with. Students can easily create concept maps to use as a study tool or to peer teach with during group projects.

Using inspiration allows teachers to integrate technology into the class based on a simple task such as concept mapping, which students already know how to do. This provide chances for students who  may have poor motor skills or lack artistic talent to express what they know in a manner they are comfortable with. It also allows students, how might not have access to technology at home, to gain experience using a new software and to expand there knowledge on certain topics being taught in the class.

I know this blog is late, but i completely forgot we were suppose to be even blogging about the class and just looked at the calendar and it dawned on me...hopefully this is what we are suppose to do.

Intros

Hey my name is Melinda Hudson and I am a fifth year senior...the end is in sight!! I will be student teaching in the spring. I am a Dual Major (El. Ed and SPED) and I have loved every second of it. I am originally from Starkville and the first chance I got to get away from that "other college town" I took it! I'm a BIG football fan. I love my Golden Eagles but I am a Bama girl by heart RTR!! I am in the class because it is required but I also want to learn about using smart boards in the class and any other technology to use in the SPED class. I have done many blogs before so this is nothing new to me. 

I am a nerd...I love Doctor Who, anything science fiction, and well of course anything Disney! I can play 7 different instruments and I always have music on in some shape form or fashion. 

 

Purpose of a blog-folio is to effectively be able to reflect and use technology at the same time and also be able to share with your peers.