Blog Reflection...(E)

Overall, I have to say the experience of writing in this blog has been very educational. I enjoyed the experience and will try to keep up with this throughout my career. I have learned a lot from my peers and am really impressed with what they've had to say. The best part about these Blogs are that its what real people have to say...you are not just reading textbook information. It's the sense of real-world issues coming from your peers is what makes these blogs so useful. I will be a blogger for a long time!

PowerPoint: A Great Tool for the Classroom...(A)

As I searched databases for something significant to post...I came across an article on PowerPoint on the Education World website. The article, "PowerPoint--Creating Classroom Presentations" by Linda Starr briefly covers the gist of the software program such as what its uses are and how one can obtain the program. The article also describe the many uses of the program and why PowerPoint is just a perfect tool for the classroom. Linda Starr rants and raves about this programs uses and the ease of using it; she highly recommends it to any age group.
I picked this article to post because right now we are working with the PowerPoint program in class. We are making an interactive quiz along with a story book all using the PowerPoint program. There really are so many interesting projects we could use this program for as teachers in the future. I enjoy this program and I would recommend it to people because it is fairly simple to learn to use and can create beautiful finished products. PowerPoint will definitely be used in my future classroom!

Grants for Technology in the Classroom...(D)

As I was reading the "Building Blocks to Learning" Blog, I came across a posting that spoke about a school receiving a grant to make digital yearbooks. I think that is a great idea...digital yearbooks can be the new wave of the future! I believe the post said that the grant was for the students to buy camera equipment and software to make the video yearbook. It is pivotal for schools to be doing new and inventive projects like this; it is the only way we can start developing the children's computer skills more effectively. I think more schools should be provided with grants such as the one that was given to this High School... I think the students would really create some impressive work.

The whole eBook experience...(B)

I have never heard of eBooks before until I took this Computer class. They are a great tool for teachers and generally just a fun thing to pass the time with. An assignment Dr. Baylen gave had us future teachers reading five eBooks that were posted by the Lee County Library website. We had to analyze every aspect of these five eBooks. Whether it be animation, content, or illustration... we analyzed it on a very specific fill-in-the-blank computer document. It was very time consuming.
I really enjoyed the whole experience. Even though the assignment was very tedious and specific; it was still fun to read children's books again. I love the animation and the moral behind some of the stories that we were assigned to. I didn't encounter any problems with this assignment other than the fact that it was just very time-consuming since we had to watch the five to ten minute story and then fill out a very long document. I learned something new from this assignment and that is that I have to check out the Lee County Library website more often...they have some great things on there!

Lesson Plans and Technology..(D)

As I was reading the blog, " Tech for Tykes" I came across a pretty interesting posting. In this posting, the writer wrote about using PowerPoint as part of her lesson plan to create a fun interactive lesson for students. I think this is a great idea. Anytime a teacher can make a really great interactive lesson using technology is fantastic! I believe PowerPoint is a great tool and should be used more often. This posting was great because the writer wrote how she used the program to create a great conceptual lesson for first graders and I believe we can all learn a lot from this post. We really do need to start using more technological tools in our lessons because our world is becoming more technologically advanced and us teachers need to start changing for the times.

Interactive Quiz...(B)

An assignment to make an eBook has turned my life upside down. Along with making the eBook, which in itself is difficult; we have to make an interactive quiz to go along with it. Well let me tell you...this has been quite the experience. I have had so much difficulty with this one project that it makes me just want to throw a rock at my computer. Although this eBook and its matching Interactive Quiz is a great idea, it is just extremely difficult to execute properly.
So our assignment was to make an eBook, which I found difficult as is. On top of making the eBook we had to add an interactive quiz to ask questions from what was learned from our story. Using PowerPoint is already hard enough to an computer-challenged person like myself but a Interactive quiz? This seemed almost impossible. Like anything, I took this as just another opportunity to learn as much as I could about the program and boy, did I. I feel like a PowerPoint genius after this project!
The thing I found most difficult about this assignment was hyperlinking each slide to the one it was supposed to correspond to. The way I went about fixing this problem was really trying to listen in class and just really mess around with the PowerPoint program. I've learned so many new actions from pretty much just playing around with the program. Although I have encountered much difficultly from this assignment, I am glad I know so much about the PowerPoint program and how to make an Interactive Quiz. These skills, I'm sure, will help me greatly in the future.

Reading to a child...(B)

Reading to a child is the best gift one can give. I have had the opportunity to read an eBook to a child. The experience was wonderful; but after all this was an assignment and I had to learn from the experience as well. I had learned a great deal from reading to Kayla, my manager from work's daughter. Kayla, enjoyed and learned from the eBook as did I. It is amazing the things technology has brought to the experience of reading a simple picture book. It is amazing that a book online could be so fun AND educational for a child...it makes our job as teachers so much easier!
For this assignment we had to read to eBooks to a child. I chose two ebooks that were targeted for Kayla's age group. After we read the books, our assignment was to analyze the experience and record our findings from the time we spent reading to the child. I must say that ebooks are a wonderful creation! Kayla seemed to learn so much from the short time I spent reading to her. Ebooks are extremely beneficial and I think should be used in the classroom more often.
I don't believe I encountered any problems from this assignment. The whole experience went very smoothly. I did find that the animation from the eBooks captivates the childs attention, therefore allowing them to take more in and retain the information more effectively. I've learned from this assignment that eBooks are a great tool for a teacher to use. I will definitely be using eBooks in my future classroom. I really did enjoy this assignment and it felt great sharing this experience with a child who actually gained some knowledge from the time we spent together as well. EBooks are a fantastic creation in the strides toward making education fun!