Blog 8

Within our final project for Intro to Technology I believe that we can adopt WebQuest into our overall plans for our grade level and subject area. An aspect of WebQuests that I believe would positively enhance the classroom environment is the video-conferencing capabilities that it offers. For our final project we are responsible for incorporating skills that we have learned throughout this semester, and apply it to the current curriculum for the 8Th grade English Class that we have been assigned to. We have chosen to use the story “The Gift of The Magi” written by O. Henry, so it would be ideal to try to incorporate WebQuest within this story. I believe that video-conferencing would be a good idea because it will allow the students to use different learning styles in order to firmly grasp the information. And I also believe that the students would be excited to use new technology and this will make it easier for them to stay interested in the classroom and with the material. The WebQuests that I found was http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestwebquest.html, I chose this one because it was very organized, user friendly, and appropriate for all grade levels. Within the past week our Intro to Technology class learned how to use the Microsoft program Excel. Excel is a program which consists of spreadsheets. I believe that this program will be very beneficial to me in my educational career because it allows you to organize information, create charts and graphs, and also perform functions, which can cut your work time in half.

Post 7

An interesting web-based tool or resource that I would use while teaching would be the nutrition daily intake journal from mypyramid.org. This tool allows individuals to keep a log of all of the meals, drinks, or snacks that they consume on a daily basis, and it tracks the calories for them. It also gives them a visual on what exactly they are putting inside of their bodies and provides optional choices for them which are healthier, and lower in calories. It also provides insight, and shows them which category of the food pyramid that the yare not having enough of in their diet.
Programs such as Microsoft Excel are extremely important, and useful within the teaching environment. Excel can be used by the teacher for simple things such as calling role, recording grades, and also educational activities. If I was a teacher and wanted to implement the daily food journal, I would create an Excel Sheet which list all of the students in the class and records what they ate within a week, as well as recording the calories that they have consumed. Excel would make this very easy because it already has an organized sheet set up where I would just have to fill in the data, and the equation functions, will allow me or the students to appropriately add everything up while saving time as well. This exercise would be good for middle school students 8th grade and above because they will l=have the necessary skills to operate the basics of Excel. The subject matter would be Mathematics and Science.

Post 6

Critiquing my Power Point 1 assignment, using the guidelines given in text I believe that I did an over-all good job. The chapters presented guidelines that would improve the overall look, flow, and presentation of an educational topic. Some of the guidelines dealt with choosing colors for the background or text that weren’t too bright, because the contrast may make it difficult to read. It also spoke on using the same background for the entire power point because it created a sense of professionalism and uniformity. Another point that was made in the text was to not place too much information on a slide; instead you should just input main concepts or ideas. Within the classroom setting I would use webcams in order to enhance participation within the curriculum. Power Point presentations allow you to input/upload videos into the presentation. I would record the students explaining or doing a report on a given subject and input their video clip in the Power Point, and show it for the class. The skills we learned in the past week were very beneficial to all of the students despite differences within majors. Power Point is a great visual and audio tool that can be used on a multitude of different levels, for business presentations, or within the educational environment.

Blog 5

For the visual critique I chose to use http://www.emory.edu/home/index.html. This website serves as the homepage for the Emory University. Chapter 6 of the book, outlined that a well designed website should be navigated easily, user friendly, and informative. It should stay away from being too complicated. Some pointers discussed were to avoid using bright colors, bold text colors, or using more than one text type. Keeping it simple and straightforward gives the website a clean professional look, and it is appealing to the eye. Emory University’s homepage is very informative, simple, and user friendly. It definitely uses a majority of the rules outlined in chapter 6.

Within the Classroom environment I believe that using presentation software positively adds to the educational enhancement of the given material. I believe that the most effective way for children to learn information is by visual and audio techniques. This allows more opportunities for success for the students, and it also strengthens/develops organizational skills. In my personal experience I’ve discovered that an effective way of learning new material is by teaching it to somebody else. If you can clearly explain a subject to another person it reinforces the material, and it will be easily memorized. Although I believe that there are many advantages to using presentation software within the classroom, there are disadvantages as well. In order for students to use these programs they have to be independent learners. Some students may not have the will power to sit quietly and complete the given task; they may view presentation programs as a tool to get off task. Technology in itself is a major disadvantage, because there is always room for technical difficulties, or errors.

In order to support student learning I would use Microsoft Power Point. This program allows the instructor to use a multitude of resources, in order to educate students. Using the visual components such as clip art, inputting videos, adding audio dialogue are all things that I would incorporate within the lesson plan. For example, if we were learning about past presidents, I would include a visual picture of the president, an audio caption of some of their accomplishments, as well as a video if possible of them while they were president. All of these learning strategies will aid them in grasping the concepts.

Post 4

n my classroom I will be sure to incorporate many concepts, such as developing outlines, story boards and idea maps. Learning and applying these tools will help my students make sense of ideas and stay organized. By creating an outline of the material learned, students will be able to fully comprehend the objectives and have clear notes to refer to. Story boards also enhance learning and help with confusion. All of these concepts can easily be made on Microsoft Word and I can teach them how by showing steps on a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation. A can also show them how to incorporate videos and pictures to visually help their learning.

I would definitely encourage my students to develop outlines, idea maps, and story boarding skills. Not only will it help them understand their material and stay organized but they are tools that they can use all their life to make things more clear and comprehensible. All three are great ways to make students see relationships and connections among the information. Also, students can make outlines, idea maps and story boards for any subject material to make their information more organized.

Learning how to mail merge is a very beneficial skill that I have learned in the past week that I will be sure to use in my future career. I had no idea that you could do that on Microsoft Word but it makes sending information to parents and/or teachers SO much easier! Also, recently learning what a legit website is compared to a website with false information is a great skill to know and apply to being a teacher. Now I will be able to direct my students in the right direction and teach them too how to determine between good and bad websites. I am excited that I have learned so much thus far that I can use towards my career and am looking forward to learning even more skills!

Post 3

For my lesson plan I would like to students to go to mypyramidtracker.gov, and review the information outlined dealing with eating healthy. I would like each student to keep a journal and record everything that they eat for the next week. At the end of the week I would like them to input the data into the pyramid. This will allow each student to visually see which areas of the food pyramid that they are eating, and if they are eating healthy. This will be for college freshman students, being that most students gain about 15 pounds during their first year away from home.
For this age group I don’t have any concerns with the internet use for the students. All students in college are adults, and they are mature enough to complete the assignment without rearing off and doing other things. The only thing which may distract their attention might be checking their email, facebook, or updating their twitter during class time.
The web based tool, would be the nutrition/diet tracker which can be found on http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov/

Post 2

I attended Horace Mann Middle School, and was fortunate enough to be apart of their computer magnet program. This was the time that I was formerly introduced to Microsoft Word. During these years I learned how to use the basic functions of Microsoft Word, and by the eight grade I had become very familiar and comfortable with using the software. Teachers over the course of my educational tenure have used Microsoft Word, to display notes during class. They have also used this software to display information online such as guidelines for test, quizzes, or assignments. I haven’t really seen any teachers or students for that matter use word in a creative setting. The most creative thing that elementary teachers have done would be to have a lot of clip art pictures on a page and allow kids to match it up with the correct name. This is just creative because it provides a visual with the words so the children can learn it.
So far in this course the skills that have been provided have served somewhat as a review for me. I have learned all of these things before however it reinforced old concepts that I have become vague. Within the remaining semesters of my educational career all of the skills learned for Microsoft Word will aid me, in assignments that deal with writing research papers, or outlines.

Post 1

Computers and new technologies are important parts of the educational experience because it allows academic programs to transition with the growing trend. Nowadays, whether you look at educational levels from elementary all the way to post graduate careers, technology has become an epidemic. For example, my younger cousin is in the fifth grade, and she had a mini project, where she had to use the internet to research information about President Obama. It seems that teachers or schools have already integrated technology and computers into their curriculum. The advancement of technology has allowed researching, networking, and daily task to become a lot more accessible and in many cases easier. Another example on why new technologies are important in our education experience is because it prepares you for the newest/latest things in regards to automobiles, cell phones, pda’s, laptops, etc. Just about every market has incorporated new technologies within their products, and it will allow you to transition smoothly to the advancements. I definitely agree with some of the issues raised in Chapter 1 however I disagree with some points as well. In Chapter 1 it discussed that over that as technology continues to advance that teachers will begin to teach basic computer skills less. I believe that technology has been implemented in our society, and individuals will always need to learn the basics on how to operate a computer so teachers will always have to keep it apart of their curriculum.

Within this course I think that we will use computers and the advancement of technology in order for us to learn basic computer concepts and programs. These programs can be Microsoft word, excel, access, and maybe power point. However I think that this course will go more in detail and might explore other programs because CGS2100, and CGS206 explore and teach the basics. I have gained experience over the years regarding basic computer concepts, learning how to type, and how to perform basic intermediate networking skills. I have not gained any knowledge on building and maintaining websites, so this is something that I hope will be explored within this course.

Currently my future career deals with providing service or assistance to families and children. My major is Sociology and Family Child Sciences, and I have recently applied for a job as a community liaison as a program assistant through the University of Florida. This job combines both the research and business with working with the surrounding counties of Tallahassee and working with the community. This is a job that I would love to do because you can give back to the community and see the fruits of your labor.

Chris Forde: Learning Style Assignment

Prior to being enrolled in this course I have had several experiences dealing with technology. During my adolescent years I attended a computer magnet program while in middle school. At this school we learned how to type, use Microsoft programs, and the basics functions of computers. Moving along and transitioning to high school I attended a Technical School, where my focus was in Computer Networking through the CISCO Network Administrator Program. During these years my experience with computers grew. I was introduced with different concepts and devices such as Lan's, Wan's, Switches, etc. The overall goal was to learn how to build, breakdown, and facilitate an operational network for a small class room, or a company. Now in my college years my experience with technology deals with common things such as email, blackboard, and facebook.

During this semester, within this course I hope to learn or fine tune a lot of the previous things that I have learned. I would also like to learn new things which I am sure will be introduced through the semester as the course becomes more detailed. It is somewhat too early to completely list everything that I would like to gain from this course, however a better understanding, or a broader outlook on the technological advances that we have offered at our finger tips in this day and time will be what I am trying to gain fr0m the course.

After completing the Learning Styles assignment it supported my prior thoughts about how I classified my learning style. It showed that I am an active learner meaning that I like to be involved in group discussions, or study material with others in study groups. It also showed that I am a visual learner. I have an easier time remembering things if it I am shown material through charts, graphs, etc. I as lo can retain information easier if its talked about out loud, and can work through problems as long as it talked out. All in all this assignment was helpful although it just provided additional backing to what I already knew.