Post #10

I found it interesting that Marissa plans on using YouTube in her classroom. I can't argue that there aren't informational videos on the web page but I also know that there are a lot of poor intentioned videos as well. I would trust that she would never let her students surf YouTube on their own, especially since the site is blocked on most school networks. I do think YouTube would be an excellent way to improve presentations and class discussions, however, so long as the students are monitored.

I have no idea what they're called but I would like to learn how to use those drawing pads you can plug into your computer. Not only am I completely fascinated by this, I think it would be great to use in the classroom. With this pad, the students could collaboratively created diagrams and charts by taking turns using the drawing pad. This way, all students are actively participating and learning as they have fun.

To achieve my future educational technology goals in the future, I will consistently integrate new teaching tools with old ones. For example, if my students are participating in a digital project, we will be reading real books with paper pages they can turn. Alternatively, if we are reading a book via the internet or other computer based program, we will use colored pencils or crayons and construction paper for our activities. This way, students will remain capable in both technological and traditional ways of learning.

Post #9

I have somewhat stumbled upon the web-based resource that I will write about here; I googled the subject on accident when my computer auto-corrected a typo. Luckily, this website was the first on the list. It is the PBS teachers site. Not only is this website completely equipped with information in each subject, but for each K-12 grade level as well. Within the websites archives, information can be found in several formats; audio, video, off-line activity, etc...

Personally, I would be using this site for middle school language arts. That being said, I spent a good thirty minutes browsing the site's 6-8 Reading and Language Arts archive (http://www.pbs.org/teachers/classroom/6-8/reading/resources/). There, I found amazing teaching tools. For example, the very first link is to a teachers guide to The Diary of Anne Frank which, as I'm sure we're all aware, is required reading at this grade level. IN addition, on the following pages, I found countless poetry readings from many popular poets along with activities and handouts for students. This site has an infinite amount of resources and I look forward to using it in the future.

I mostly see myself using Excel while grading as a teacher. Unfortunately, in middle school language arts, there are few assignments that will have specific numeric grades, as would a math class. However, I will use Excel to record student participation and attendance along with their overall letter grades which will be assigned numbers. For example, A's will be 90-100, B's will be 80-90, etc... Using this program to keep tract of students grades is much more trustworthy and I look forward to using it in my classroom as well as the above mentioned resource.

Post #8

I was at first quite annoyed with the PowerPoint assignments, and as you can see, I decided not to complete them. This is based strictly on the fact that I learned how to do most everything presented to me in class recently when I was about twelve years old; I didn't feel that it was worth the time to complete. However, I did learn some interesting "tricks" this week in class.

I feel that the ability to link slides to one another, as in he second assignment, will be monumentally useful. As an eighth grade language arts student (which is what I am planning to teach), I always found that games were the easiest way to learn. Jeopardy is the prime example; teaching students to know the question rather than the answer teaches them to better analyze knowledge. I also found that using PowerPoint as a way to show one of Aesop's fables to the class is quite a good idea. It will be difficult, no doubt, to teach students excerpts from Shakespeare but, it will be much easier set to pictures on a presentation.

Post #7

I feel that the biggest advantages of using presentation software in the k-12 classroom are convenience, aesthetics, and versatility, among others. It is much more conventient, for example, to download a Power Point and present it to a class than to spend time structuring a lecture and printing out diagrams/hand outs. It's also a lot more entertaining for the student to watch a presentation or participate in a game via a presentation than to sit and take notes for forty five minutes at a time. Mostly, I believe the versatility of presentation software is its biggest advantage; put at Power Point on a flash drive and you can use it virtually anywhere that has a computer. I only see one disadvantage: impersonality. Presentations shown on big pull-down screens may be more visually pleasing but they lack the explicit interaction between teacher and student that comes along with old fashioned lectures.

Post #6

While I feel that Web 2.0 technologies have a promising future, I do not feel it has a place in education; both K-12 and above. Personally, I would use them at home to browse news sources and celebrity gossip. I would not, however, depend on them for lecture material. I don't believe that they are a genuine, academic source, no matter what the content. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, however, for now, I am sticking to a no-Web 2.0 zone for my classroom.

I would be flat-out lying if I told you I've never spent a couple hours (or more) poking around Wikipedia or that it was the first source I clicked on after Googling something. It is highly entertaining and, for the most part, informational. Notice I said informational, not educational or factual, simply because it is not. I ran an experiment once on Wikipedia: I located a somewhat popular subject and tacked on two sentences to the "History" section. I had no reference for that information and basically made it up right there on the spot. I checked the site periodically for a few days and I still check it every now and again. It is still there, completely false and nonsensical. I've seen first hand the way facts can be manipulated on Wikipedia and as a result, it will not ever be used in my classroom.

Over the past week I have created a teacher website using TeacherWeb.com. I didn't pay for the entire subscription so I am limited to the free 30-day trial but I have really enjoyed using the web as a means to connect to my students and their families. I found that I could easily update parents through the main page announcements, keep children aware of my weekly schedule, and keep upcoming events on the calendar. I will most definitely be using this website, or one like it, to create a web page for my classes in the future. Not only will my students be technologically advanced in the future, so will their parents. I find that having a website is the single best way to keep an open line of communication between all three parties, students, teachers, and parents.