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.

Week 2

This week we learned a lot about how to work within Microsoft Office. We learned how to make interactive Power Point quizzes and presentations. These interactive Power Points were done using internal hyperlinks to other pages in the same presentation. Using this method we can also make Power Point work as a free Jeopardy. We also worded with Excel spread sheets and how to use the program to do math for us and how to take that information and make it organized and easy to look at. This was done by putting the information into easy to look at graphs. Lastly, we learned how to create Wiki Pages that are strikingly similar to pages we made on the Google Sites.
Knowing how to use this information is very helpful in multiple aspects of the classroom. The Excel will help make grading an easier task. A task that is many times seen as boring and tedious. The skills we acquired with the power point will help us create more interactive and attractive quizzes for students to learn. Finally, the Wiki Pages will be beneficial because it can help connect students out of class and connect parents to lesson plans so that they too can help their students succeed.
The ISTE standards met for this week's lessons were designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments and model digital-age work and learning. This will also help to meet the ISTE student standard of helping to facilitate communication and collaboration. Both of these can be accomplished through the Wiki Pages and the interactive Power Point.

Week 1 Reflections

This week in class we dealt with both Googlesites and Microsoft Word. On our Google site we learned to make our own site. On this site we know now how to make other pages and hyperlinks in proper format. We also learned how to make hyperlinks on Microsoft word and edit text to fit around pictures.
The ISTE standards met this week were the first two standards. Facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity can be done through these Google sites. Being able to design them however one sees fit helps foster creativity while the students are still learning. The second point hit on by this week's projects is to create digital age learning and assessment. The sites and word documents don't assess as much as other technologies learned will but they definitely create digital age learning tools. Entire lesson plans can be put online now for both students and parents to see. A very helpful tool for a teacher.
As mentioned above, I plan on putting my weekly lesson plans and schedules on my Google site. This will help students that can't make it to class because of missing school. It also informs parents what their student is doing which can help a teacher tremendously. If a parent knows what their child should be doing they can put pressure on them to get it done, taking a load off the teacher. It can also be helpful for students looking to get ahead because they know they will be missing a certain day of school because of extra curricular activities or even a vacation. Technology makes the job for many teachers easier.