Cindy Barnhill, James, Misty, and Jeff of course

I would be nowhere without my great Instructional Technology friends! They have helped me so much and distracted me at times, but we have come so far together! I will never forget the good times of making WebQuests with James and Misty, eating bagels with with Cindy and helping her through her melt downs. Don't get me wrong, I've had some melt downs myself. My favorite example would have to be the day we started working on our websites and I couldn't get anything to work. Of course, where would I be without the amazing Jeff. I have completely deleted everything we were working on more times than I can count! But he always helped me through it. I have no idea how I could have made it though this class without them!

Earth Day

This post really has nothing to do with technology or our class really, but today is Earth Day! Technology sort of connects because we have learned to rely on technology to minimize waste. For example, when companies send out bills they can now do it electronically to save paper and money. Just think about all of the bills that KUB sends out every month. If everyone would trade in their paper bills for electronic ones how many trees can we save? The impact would be huge! So, as much as I hate technology it really does help us in many ways and in our world today we probably could not live without it.

Websites. . . ahhhh!!!!

Making a website is kind of a nightmare! It was really hard for me and I think it was because I was just totally unfamiliar with with internet stuff. But when I finished I was totally proud of myself because I really felt like I learned something! I fell much more knowledgeable about how servers work and how to run Dreamweaver. I have decided through this project that websites really could be useful in the classroom, especially for parents. If you have a website, parents could go to it and learn about your class and all of the things you've done. It could also really help students to keep up with work if they get behind because it would be something they could easily check at home. So overall YAY for WEBSITES!

Powerpoint is the best!

Today we made simple presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint and then one with Open Office Impress and it was pretty clear that Open Office sucked! I actually had never made a PowerPoint before so it wasn't that I was used to it, I think it was actually better! Open Office did all these weirdo things like having to type stuff before you actually started and it didn't format it for you and you had to do it all yourself, which is kind of lazy, but whatever maybe I'm lazy. So anyway, I kind of liked doing the PowerPoint because it showed me what all the hype was about. I don't know how I've never had to make a one before, but somehow I'm missed that part of school I guess. Overall, what I really learned today it Open Office Impress is not that great.

Digital Pictures

I'm really enjoying the digital pictures and video portion of the class. Taking and posting pictures is not something that I do a lot or am that familiar with. Often I feel like everyone knows more than I do in this area and I glad to be working with it more. I also feel like there are are a lot of ways that I could use this is my classroom. Maybe I could assign a project where the students have to make a sideshow of pictures that represent something we are reading in class or even making a video project. Overall, I'm finding this interesting and useful!

Google Docs

Today we worked on doing a project with Google Docs and I really liked it! I think it is a great program and have actually started using it in my everyday life. One downfall is that if you accidentally delete everything you can't really get if back, which sucks kind of. But overall it's a great program and I'm glad I got to learn how to use it!

Febuary 2, 2009

Today we learned about Wikis. I'm actually really enjoying learning about different internet resources and I actually feel like I'm getting better at using them! The only thing is that I probably will never use them in my classroom. I could be wrong and maybe by the end of the semester I will change my mind, but as of now that is how I feel. I could have something to do with the fact that I'm not totally comfortable with it and it takes me a long time to create things. Hopefully, as this class continues I will be able to do things faster and with more confidence.

Blogging In The Classroom

I really have mixed feelings on whether blogs in the classroom are a good idea or not. Obviously, they help students to practice their writing and can express their opinions in a online place, but one of the downfalls I foresee is that the students won't really care about it. At UT many teachers have utilized the discussion board application on Blackboard, where students can make entries and comment on each others and basically have a online discussion. Sounds like a great idea, right? But in my experience it is a waste of time. Blogs and other online discussion tools are only useful if they are taken seriously, like other graded assignments. It's hard to get kids to take online posts seriously because they simply cannot be graded like other writing assignments because they are informal by nature. So, the only thing a teacher can really grade on is whether the students have done it or not and most if not all students will probably just type out a couple of lines that they didn't put any thought to. Therefore it wastes the students time and the teachers by having to grade them.

Getting Started

Hello! Blogging is awesome!

Getting Started

Hello! Blogging is awesome!