final thoughts

This class has been very helpful. I thought that every assignment was helpful and interesting. the technology that i already knew like PowerPoint and excel was reinforced, I had forgotten how to do some of the things that could be done in those programs. learning smart software and website making will be very helpful in the years to come. I was proud when i did a project in smart software that my teachers at Muhlenberg did not know how to do. they were amazed at what we did and wished that they could learn it. it took all i had not to blush.
diigo was complicated and i do not know if i will be using it much in the future, but you never know. I swore that I would never use myspace or facebook but now im hooked and live on it. the lesson plan format that we created has been a savior this semester and im sure it will be in the future. it is convenient to use and fast. It is much better than spending 3/4 of my time just trying to format something that will be impossible to change in the future.
this class is one of the best and most useful classes i have taken at Albright, Penn State even. Thank you for all of your help!

smart boards

Learning smart software was fun for me. it is a great tool to have on hand. the interactiveness of it allows students and teachers to work together to acheive a task. i made a smart board presentation on active transport for my methods 2 class last Monday night and the teachers complimented me on my activities and they said that they did not know how to do.
I enjoy making presentations on the software. It is a little more difficult at first but as with powerpoint it comes easier. I do enjoy all of the things that can be done with the tools.

Storyboarding the project was a collaboration between the two of Julie and I. I came up with the general idea and she ran with it. she had a great idea to use actual texting text in the video. We both decided it would be a great idea to run over my friend from out of town. she also enjoyed it. She would have been happier to lay on the ground dead, if it hadn't been raining all day prior to shooting.

lights, camera, ACTION!!!!!

Video is a powerful tool to use in a classroom situation. when i was in high school i was fortunate enough to use have the opportunity to use mac video editing software. Our high school purchased a few macs and we used them in advanced English. We made movies about books we read, our final project was also a video. In science the use of video is a little more difficult. it would take a lot of thought to plan out a video assignment.
One idea could be that students could do a video documentary on a part of the environment (stream, forest, etc.) another idea is that a student could do an educational show, like Bill Nye the science guy or a mythbusters.
The teacher could also use video as a means to prepare students for lab. in dissection, the teacher could videotape the lab being performed and then the students would have a step-by-step visual instructions that could be played on a smart board. Different steps could be replayed if necessary. the teacher could also do a video field trip. A place that the students could not travel to. If the teacher made it to the desert or Alaska, they could make a video about it for class.

net gen skills

In order to be a successful with the net geners we will first need to keep up on the technology. we need to be able to understand the students and their needs. that is the only way to build a lesson around what they are capable of. It would also be wise to allow the students teach the teacher about new technology. they understand it better than we do. that opportunity would give them a sense of pride. we need to be open minded, if we can do that the possibilities would be endless and we would be able to reach our students easier, and with less frustration.

rss readers

RSS readers are helpful to teachers and students because it is a common place where they can put up papers and assignments where they can be retrieved easily from any location. RSS readers are also helpful because they allow parents to interact with the teachers and their students. parents can see what websites their children are going to in class. students can then access these sites from home or vacation. they are available to the student whenever they need them.

I chose Diigo as my bookmarking page, i like how it is set up, it is easy to follow and to navigate in.



Excel is an asset to the classroom because it is an application that can be used in the classroom. in high schools excel can be used to help students formulate a monthly budget with incoming earnings and outgoing expenses. It can be used to graph a students test scores. a printout can be obtained and shown to a parent who's child was struggling or is not starting to struggle. Parents like to see something they understand. it would be easier to see that the scores are progressively increasing if it were in a bar graph. excel can be used to track textbooks. teachers can link what text book was handed out to what student. when they need to track a text book they can look it up by student or by number just by running a filter. in chemistry and biology you can have students make tables in excel. they are easier to create in excel than in word. they could then import them into word. the teacher can individually track each students test answers and point value. then they can have word figure out the total score and then the percentage. Math teachers could teach students how to solve trigonometry equations using excel. to show them another tool to help them with their homework. the student then can create a picture using word art and put borders on it and print them out as a side project. it can be a picture pertaining to the subject matter.

google apps

I think google docs is a great tool. It would have been useful to have when i was in high school. it would have been a centralized place to go and retrieve worksheets. I lost worksheets so often in high school. it would also have been a place where parents could have gone to check and see if their children have homework because you can group the docs in many different ways. You can edit papers, conduct surveys. It would be a good idea to keep emergency lessons on here for a substitute teacher in case of an emergency.
Google calendar is also a good tool. you could post homework due dates and test dates on it. the teacher could also have a separate one for themselves where they could keep important dates and meetings in. Parents can also use it to make sure their child is studying for a test that is coming up, or is working on a project that is due soon.
I found two lesson plans on google docs, the first one being titled Collaborative Lab Experiments. it is a lab that shows the rate of photosynthesis in plants in different environments. the students do the lab separately then come together to explain the results. http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddv49vkt_14dv8hdtf6 The second lesson plan is entitled History of Life on Earth the students create calendars to try to decide what will happen in the next calendar year. they then share their calendars with the teacher.http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/lesson_plans.html

language

The language that is used today is complicated to people who are not of the net gen. Last weekend I tried to explain to my mother that I had to Post a Blog in this class. A two minute explanation of this class turned into a ten minute lesson on blogging and the purpose of it. I had heard the term many times before and knew what it was so it was not foreign to me. To the generation that came before mine, the language we speak today is confusing. My mother said that I might as well have been speaking greek. Flickr, podcasts, you tube is completely new to most of them. My mother was amazed when i pulled up the music video for one of her favorite songs on You tube. all I could do was laugh in amazement as she began to look up everything she could think of on you tube.
I to not think that the tech language we use today is a bad thing, it is just the evolution of the english language to fit the evolution of our world. It is easier to say I looked it up on wikipedia than to say I looked it up on a free online encylopedia that anyone can edit. it just saves so much time.
When it comes to R/W programs I knew what some of them were but i never that they were considered R/W programs. Social bookmarking is still new to me it is something that I am interested in learning. having a place to go that you can create and edit something, and then change on a whim. I have never used google docs, but it looks interesting enough to learn.

week 2

The digital natives and Net Gen articles were very informative. The articles reflected accurately on how my friends and I are different learners than our parents. While I'm doing my homework i have myspace up and my cell phone next to the keyboard. My mom can not read the newspaper with the television on in the next room. She finds it distracting. I find that it is true what they say about the Net Gen's, we are more concerned about the speed at which we can get tasks accomplished then with the accuracy. The generation that I grew up in is completely wired. I would have a panic attack if I left my phone at home. I've already been late to work because i had to turn around for my phone. While in high school and college I always had the television on while I was studying or doing homework, it helped me concentrate, without it my mind wanders and i cannot accomplish anything. It is important to integrate technology into the classroom, we cannot expect children to forget that their phone is in their pocket and that it is an outlet from the boring class. The only thing that worries me are the generations to come. Am i going to be teaching biology via podcast so my students can sit in front of me for an hour with their ipod touch and watch me teach on a 3 inch screen instead of in person. Will the next generation need to attend school at all or will they switch to online only schooling. What happens to the social skills that students learn in an academic environment.

first blog

This is my first time ever blogging. this class is fun.