Week 9 Reflectoin

This week was maybe the most important week in terms of keeping in touch with parents and community members all alike. This week we learned how to effectively use Microsoft's Publisher. That is very important because as an effective teacher we need to be able to keep parents informed and involved. The more involved a student's parents are the more likely they are to succeed.
The newsletter also helps to build an online community of learners. The newsletter does not necessarily need to be in hard copy form. It could also be online so that anyone can access it at anytime, further helping to improve the learning experience.

Week 8 Reflection

This week's lesson was a lot of fun to complete. We learned how to make podcasts. Podcasts always seemed much more difficult to make before this week's lesson. Learning how to make them can really help us as teachers. Podcasts can be fun ways for students to engage in course material on their own time. Podcasts can also be made into something much more fun than your typical lecture. Adding sound effects and music can help stimulate a learner's mind and get them better engaged with the material.
This week's lesson definitely touches on the building of an online community standard. Sending out posdcasts to students helps them stay connected with what they're learning. The more ways they hear information the more likely it is that they will retain it.

Week 7 Reflection

Week 7 brought to us some very useful tools. Rubric making websites and tools within Microsoft's Word will be very helpful for us as future teachers. They always seemed difficult to make before this week's lesson. We also added more tools to our Google site that will be helpful. The tools we added will help us create worksheets and differentiate our instruction for students that learn at different levels and paces.
This week brought to us one of the most important standards teachers need to be able to meet. That is successful assessment. If a teacher is to be successful in the classroom they must also make sure their students are succeeding.

Week 6 Reflection

Week 6 brought us to using Voicethread and Windows live movie maker. Both are very useful tools in education. They are both also easy to use since their interfaces are extremely user friendly. Voicethread was the most fun and useful lesson this week. Having a lesson available online for all students to access would be very helpful.
This lesson being posted online and staying online helps to create an online learning community. An educational standard that we needed to and succeeded in meeting. This program could also help to spur student's creativity and collaboration. Two more important standards our students need to be able to meet.

Week 5 Reflections

Week 5 we made picasa videos and edited some of these photos. We also wrote reviews of academic websites. All very useful skills for teachers. I think the video made in picasa would be the most useful in the future. Students like watching videos a lot more than reading. Videos can help make boring information more easily digested.
With this project, all 6 ISTE standards for students could in some way be met. This is the first week that I have felt that way. This might point to this week's lesson being the most valuable thus far.

Week 4 Reflections

This week we only had one project. That was to create a webquest. A webquest is an easy website to set up that creates a learning experience that uses both the internet and in class participation. I think this can be very useful since almost all schools will have internet access when I enter the classroom as an educator. Webquests will provide fun lessons that will help keep the students involved in learning without dreading all the upcoming lessons.
Webquests use both community communications and critical thinking and problem solving. Both of those are ISTE standards that students must know in order to become a successful student in the 21st century.

Week 3 Reflection

This week's lessons were very productive. A lot was learned that can be used for group collaboration in a timely manner. Diigo is a very easy to use tool that helps users share web pages with personal notes in a timely manner. Making Google surveys was also a helpful tool we learned this week. Google surveys can help us gather useful information from a large group and have the information automatically streamlined into organized results.
This week's assignments also met a lot of standards that we as teachers can use. It met that standards- Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity, Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments and Model Digital-Age Work and Learning.
The Google surveys will be very helpful when trying to collect opinions from the class because the answers also come in as anonymous. Diigo is also a useful tool if the class is supposed to do group research project and they want to work together and share information easily.