Final Thoughts

Overall, I found this class to be VERY helpful in expanding my knowledge about technology and all the different programs that are out there. Before taking this class, I had no clue how to use updated technology like I do today. I honestly can see myself utilizing most of the programs and websites in my classroom when I begin to teach. Although all these tools are very useful and helpful, I found some of the projects and presentations to be quite time consuming. They were all very user-friendly, but the time it takes to create some of them was almost too much for me. I honestly did enjoy learning more about technology though because I know how it is making its way into classrooms more and more in today's society. I definitely feel that when I go out and start looking for a teaching job, I will have an upper hand in the technology department because of how much I have learned from this class. It taught me so much that I know I will need to know one day and it allowed me to find many new and alternative ways to teach. Although I probably will not get a chance to take another technology class due to my busy schedule, I am thankful for all that I have taken away from this class. If it were not for this class I probably would never know how to do half of what I accomplished nor would I have even bothered trying. So, all in all, I am very pleased with the amount of information and knowledge that I gained from TPTE 486! 

Let's learn about the 4 Seasons!

Our most recent assignment in class was to make a digital story and above you will get to see the one I made! Going into this assignment, I felt very anxious because I knew it was going to take a lot of preparation and just take a lot of time in general. Thankfully, I was able to get it done in a total of 3 class periods. For my digital story, I chose to do the 4 seasons, so probably what took the longest was finding all the pictures I wanted to use from google images and finding facts that I wanted to use. Actually making the video was not time consuming at all thanks to Imovie, which is an AWESOME program I really recommend you use if you have a MAC computer. It allows you to make movies in no time and it is SO user friendly! I would definitely use this program again if I ever have to make a video for something in my classroom. When you watch my story on the 4 seasons, it might seem very elementary, but that is exactly what I was going for. I did not want to put in too much information because in reality, if I were to show a video like this to students in the 3rd grade, I would want straight to the point facts just like I have instead of an overload of information. 

I hope you enjoy watching my digital story. I worked pretty hard on it :)

EXCELing my way into the future of becoming a teacher!

Just recently, I learned for the first time how to create a spreadsheet on Excel, which I have never done before. Learning to use Excel and making a spreadsheet was somewhat frustrating but very beneficial in the end. Before I made my final spreadsheet that was going to be turned in for a grade, I was able to do a practice spreadsheet, which I think really helped me. If I had just gone into making the spreadsheet without some sort of practice, I do not think I would have known what to do and my spreadsheet would have come out wrong. The most confusing part of the spreadsheet for me was figuring out the "IF" functions and making sure that the answers said "Good" and not "Uh-Oh."As you can see in my spreadsheet below, I got all my statements to successfully say "Good" and each statement received 10 points. Once my "Right?" column was set to "Good" for all the statements, it was easy to designate 10 points to each statement/question because each one was right. 

Another issue I had at first with Excel was when I was trying to protect the sheet so students couldn't change the content, but still keeping sections like "name" and "date" open/unlocked for students to work in. After playing around with it for a while, I figured it out and made it to where the students could only contribute to the "name","date" and answer section. In my spreadsheet below, I have taken a screenshot of everything that I did, however in a real sheet for a student, the answers would not be shown and the "Expected"column would be hidden because if it wasn't, students would be able to see the answers. I think the most important part of the spreadsheet is protecting it and locking/unlocking it where it is necessary. The reason for this is because I would not want my students going in and trying to change the sheet or the content of the sheet and by protecting it, students are unable to do this. Overall, I see how beneficial Excel spreadsheets are and how beneficial they will be as I begin teaching!

INspiration is INspiring!

Last week in class, I successfully learned how to the learning tool Inspiration, which is a way to make maps, outlines,webs, diagrams and presentations online. This is SUCH a fun and awesome learning tool to use in the classroom!

 Above, you will see the web that I created for my TPTE class. The topic I chose for my inspiration web was parts of speech and I targeted three parts of speech-verbs, adjective and nouns. I am really happy that I chose this topic because it was easy to put into the web and it was not too overwhelming. I feel like with these webs you really need to keep the information you place in them as limited as possible because it can get overwhelming to look at if you have too much information. I feel that some subjects that have a lot of information,such as science or social studies, are sometimes not the best to use in these diagrams because too much information in these webs makes the web hard on the eyes and hard to follow along with, or at least that is what I think. I think my diagram definitely has the right amount of information for an elementary school student because of how easy my diagram is to read. However, for a middle school or high school teacher using Inspiration, they would probably want and would probably have to add more information in their diagrams or webs so that it is interesting and educational enough for a middle schooler or high schooler. I really enjoyed using Inspiration and I plan to definitely use it when I being teaching!

Scavenger Hunter using Digital Cameras...

About a week ago in class, we were instructed to get into groups because we would be going on a scavenger hunt with our digital cameras. Initially, I really did not know what we would be doing, I just knew that it probably involved leaving the classroom to go find different things. Based off of our licensure area, we were placed into group of two or three and we were given a sheet that instructed us of our activity and what we were supposed to find. I was in a group of three and our assignment was titled "Shape-up elementary" we were instructed to go outside of the classroom (during class time), to find things around campus that were of different shapes. (i.e.-we had to find something that was round, a triangle, a rectangle, etc) After we had all of our digital photos (a total of 12 for our group), we were instructed to put them on the computer and to resize all of them so that they were at 72 dpi. We were also instructed to crop the pictures where necessary and to make sure that the pictures were clear and to make sure they were saved as jpg, gif or png files. I was surprised at how much I knew already from what we have learned in class to be able to change my photos around and save them in different ways.
      It was comforting and relieving to finally know exactly how to convert a picture based off what I have already learned from this class. It was nice and useful to be able to transfer my knowledge from one assignment to another. After this, we each put the pictures on a flash drive and were instructed to each independently make a powerpoint with all the shapes, and then to put this powerpoint into google presentations. Above, you will see my powerpoint that I put into google presentations and then embedded into my blog. I am very pleased with how my presentation came out and I feel as though I really followed all of the directions to get this assignment done. It was definitely a helpful assignment that gave me more practice with digital cameras, image resizing and saving images. Practice makes perfect, and in since we just did a digital images project before this, I feel that this scavenger hunt was just more of the practice we needed with digital images!

Smilebox!

Personalize a photo collage

A few days ago in class, I learned all about the fabulous Web 2.0 tool, Smilebox! Before the presentation of Smilebox in class, I had NEVER heard of it before. It is such a fun tool that is addicting to play around with.In a nut shell, Smilebox is a way to create amazing, online scrapbooks, slideshows, invitations to events,and collages for any occasion! Another great thing about Smilebox is that it allows you to share your presentation through many different ways, such as Blogger (which is exactly what I did with my Smilebox collage!), Facebook, email, burning to a DVD and so much more! I was pretty basic with my Smilebox presentation that I created above. I did just a basic collage with pictures that I have saved on my computer. The few frustrations I had with Smilebox are that 1.)Although it lets you upload pictures from facebook, it only let you choose from a select few in your facebook, which was very frustrating because I wanted to use more pictures and 2.)When I uploaded some of my pictures into my Smilebox presentation/collage, it cut off the heads of me and whoever I was with in the pictures and when I tried to zoom the picture out, it still cut our heads off and I could not figure out at all how to fix it, (which you will see if you watch my presentation.) Other than those 2 things, Smilebox was a great way to make my pictures come to life in a such a creative way!

Digital images in Different ways..

          In these past few days, I have learned more about digital images than ever before. I had to create a digital image collection by using 5 different methods: one image being taken by a digital camera, one scanned picture, one that was copied from a CD/DVD clipart photo collection, one that was downloaded from the web and one that was taken as a screen shot. Before I did this project I only knew how to do two, which were taking one with a camera and taking a screen shot. With instruction, I quickly learned how to do the other three. I was a little anxious before I figured out how to do them because I had never done it before. It all worked out though because I got my 5 images through the 5 different methods. After the 5 pictures were obtained, we were instructed to put them into Picasa web albums, which is a site through google. This as well was very new to me because I had never heard of it before. Picasa allowed me to store my 5 pictures into an album (which is below by the way!) This method of storing my photos through Picasa was very useful and efficient! I really enjoyed uploading the photos because it was SO easy! Usually I always seem to have trouble with this kind of stuff but it was so self explanatory and easy that I was able to figure it out 100% on my own, which I was very proud of if I do say so myself.

        One frustration that I had with this assignment was the resizing of the pictures. Our direction instructed us to keep the pictures at 72 dpi and the photos had to be saved as either "jpegs," "gifs" or "png" files, which before this project, I had NO idea what those letters even meant! I had briefly read about them in our book and we had talked about them in class a few times, but probably should have read over it a little more so I could better understand what the difference between them were. I ended up learning somewhat about what they all did through this assignment, but I definitely think I need to read more about them in the book so I have a full understanding. Learning about digital images was quite an experience and learning about the different ways in which they can be saved was also an experience in itself. I am happy I got more educated with digital images because I definitely see myself needing to use them in the classroom one day. All the 5 ways in which I found these photos definitely seem like ways that I will need to obtain pictures in the classroom and my new knowledge on how to save these photos will definitely help me when I start teaching!

By clicking on the picture below, you will be able to see my very own Picasa web album that I created with my 5 photos! (I chose a flower/nature theme for all my pictures if you couldn't already tell)