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)

Lesson Plans, Lesson Plans, Lesson Plans!

When I first started to create my lesson plan, I had somewhat of an idea as to what I was doing because I had done a lesson plan in one of my classes from the previous semester. However, the lesson plan for this class was required slightly different things. Initially, I was doing my lesson plan independently, but that did not last long. I expressed my frustrations at the end of the class one day to my friend Caroline (who is in the class as well) and she expressed her frustrations too. We decided that it would be best to just both stop where we are and start a lesson plan together in since we had the option of doing the lesson plan with a partner. This was a GREAT decision because we worked fabulously together! The stuff that I couldn't figure out she could and vice versa. We worked very nicely together and really fed our ideas off of one another. I really would not have gone back and done this by myself because of how well we worked together. Now, I know when I begin teaching, I will doing lesson plans by myself, but this experience with a partner really helped me learn the process of creating a lesson plan much better. It reduced a lot of the stress and anxiety I was experiencing from doing the lesson plan independently. Once we had our finished product with the worksheet and everything, I could really see how this could be used in an actual classroom. I think Caroline and I did a great job of really making the lesson seem realistic and making it transferrable to the actual classroom. This lesson plan was great practice for when I actually start my teaching and have to create real lesson plans for my class!

Frustrations with Prezi...

Before learning about Prezi, I never really knew what it entailed and what it had to offer. I did know that it was a form of presentation (like powerpoint) because of a teacher of mine in another class used it, but I never knew how to use it myself. After learning about it class, it didn't seem to difficult to construct a Prezi and I was curious about and interested in making my own Prezi. Dr. Obannon wanted each of us to create a Prezi based off a lesson plan that we had just created (my lesson plan was on the solar system) When I went to create my Prezi on the solar system, it was nothing like I thought. It was not as easy as I thought and I had so much trouble trying to navigate around Prezi to create a presentation. It was definitely not as easy as I thought it would be to make a Prezi and it actually built up a lot of frustration and anxiety as I was trying to figure it out. It seems like a great Web 2.0 tool, but I honestly can not figure it out for the life of me. After I talked with Dr. Obannon about my frustrations, she informed that I could make a powerpoint presentation with just a regular powerpoint (which I luckily knew how to do) and then I could upload this powerpoint into Prezi. I tried this, and I think it somewhat worked, but I'm still not sure. Below you will see a screen shot of what my Prezi looks like with the powerpoint uploaded into it. I really and truly want to learn how to use Prezi because it seems awesome and I think I would be able to utilize it in my own classroom one day! (once I learn how to use it)

Glogster

Glogster=A Teacher's New Best Friend.

Today, I got to teach the class with my wonderful partner Caroline about Glogster! I really think everyone enjoyed learning about it and how you can use it in the classroom. I know everyone enjoyed playing around on their very own glog as well because it is addicting to say the least. Glogster is a FABULOUS web 2.0 tool that every teacher much know about! Basically, any type of assignment or activity that you would have your students do on a poster can be done better as a Glog, aka an online poster. Although the ways to integrate Glogster into the classroom are endless, one of the best ways is to have to your students create an "All About Me" glog so that they can introduce themselves to the class. This is perfect for the shy student so they do not have to stand up in class to introduce themselves and have to deal with being nervous or tense. This is truly one of the many, many ways that you can use glogster in the classroom.
**Visit our wiki page for more information on glogster!**

Also, take a look at the glog in the blog above that Caroline (my partner) and I created to show during our presentation!

Google Docs

         At the beginning of this TPTE class, Dr. Obannon showed us how to use and share assignments through google documents also known as "google docs" for short. Although I have a gmail account, I never knew about google docs and what you could do with it. It is basically a place for you to upload documents such as homework assignments, powerpoints, etc and then these documents can be shared with other people. The only way you can share the documents though is by putting their gmail email account into a shared tab and then the document is successfully sent/shared with your receiver. Therefore, for the sharing of documents to happen you must have a gmail account (which is so easy to get by the way if you don't have one!) The reason I am discussing google docs in my blog is because google docs was a very useful tool in another one of my classes, and if it weren't for this TPTE class and Dr. Obannon teaching us about google docs I would have never known how useful it actually is.
       In an Educational Psychology class I am, I recently had to do a group project with one other girl on a specific topic that we were going to have to teach to the class. For our group project, we decided that we wanted to do a powerpoint because we felt that was the best way to teach our topic to the class. As we were discussing our schedules, we realized that we were both extremely busy with our schedules and really did not have that much time to meet up. We put our heads together, and decided that we could share a powerpoint over google docs and just add our part of the project to the powerpoint whenever we wanted. This was the best idea ever and believe it or not we did not have to meet up once. Through google docs and email, we successfully made a powerpoint that we were able to present in class together. The only negative thing about sharing a powerpoint over google docs is that you can not make the powerpoint colorful and exciting like you can with a regular powerpoint.
         After we were done with the powerpoint on google docs though, my partner just transferred the powerpoint back over to a regular powerpoint and then added some color and a background to it. Although we couldn't add the color and excitement on google docs, this was still such a useful and reliable way to do our project together.  I was also excited that I got to transfer my knowledge of google docs from my TPTE class over to my Educational Psychology class. I really recommend using google docs if you do not already-It could be a great way for your students (most likely older students) to share homework assignments, presentations, spreadsheets or pretty much any assignments with you!

Want a tour of google docs to learn more? Click here!

WOrDLe!

Today in class I learned how to successfully use the web 2.0 tool Wordle! I absolutely LOVE it! It is so much fun to play around with and I can definitely see myself using this as a teacher. It is perfect to make things more interesting such as introducing everyone to class by putting their name in a wordle or putting class rules into a wordle. Those were two of my favorite examples that were presented to us during the presentation of wordle. Everything about wordle is fun and original and you can play around with it as much as you want! For example, originally, the wordle I had created below was yellow and pink writing against a white background, which was hard to read with the yellow writing. Dr. Obannon brought this to my attention, so I changed my wordle up and did a black background. I did not want to get rid of the yellow writing because yellow has always been one of my favorite colors. There is only one flaw that I have found in wordle as I have been exploring it more and that is that you can not go back and edit you work. If you accidently delete your wordle or press the back button on the wordle that you have open-it will not save the words for you-it will just go straight back to where you have to "paste in a bunch of text" and then you have to do it all over again-this was a little frustrating because if I would ever forget this and press back, my whole wordle was gone and all the words I had were erased. Other than that, I think wordle is fabulous and awesome to just look at. I will definitely utilize this one day in my own classroom! 

**A wordle about me!**

Journeying into the World of WebQuests

       Before this TPTE class, I can honestly say that I had never even heard the word "webquest", and if I did come across it ever, I surly had no idea what it was. When we received the assignment on webquests, I was a little nervous about it because it wasn't like anything that I had ever done before. I was happy that we got put in groups and got to collaborate over the worksheet on WeQquests. It was helpful that we all split up in our different roles (efficiency expert, affiliator, altitudinist, and technophile) and all got to fist explore the the web quests independently with our roles. It was also quite helpful that the worksheet had a place for "strengths" and "weaknesses" so that our ideas were organized and thought out.
      My role during the assignment was the Altitudinist and its function was to find out if the WebQuests we were evaluating contributed to critical and higher-level thinking. As I was looking throughout all the WebQuests, the one that I found to be "higher level" at its best as the Underground Railroad WebQuest. Some of the strengths as the altitudinist that I found in the Underground Railroad was it's need for students to share their feelings after the assignment and they were also supposed to journal their personal feelings and then talk about them later. This WebQuest made the students think deeper into their thoughts.
         One of the weakest WebQuests that I evaluated as the altitudinist was the Ice Cream WebQuest. The main point of the WebQuest was to going through the steps of how to make ice cream and for the students to make their own flavor of ice cream. I initially thought that this WebQuest fell under the standards for elementary science, but it said that it fit under the language arts standards, which made no sense to me. When I was evaluating this WebQuest I felt as though there was no purpose or goal to it. It seemed like a WebQuest simply just for fun.
         All in all, this worksheet really helped me better understand WebQuests and allowed me to explore them and see how beneficial they really are. I had never even thought to use these as a teacher before, but now that I know about them, I will utilize where ever I can in my classroom. I was excited that we got to go explore the webquests some more independently and find one that we thought fit into a standard of our age level. In since I am doing elementary (and special ed/deaf ed), I searched for a webquest that fit in the 3-5 grade range. I also looked under the Social Studies standards in Tennessee so that I could see what students were working on now to help me find a WebQuest that actually meant something and wasn't just random. I ended up finding a fabulous WebQuest named Native Americans at the Museum. In since I found that students in the 3rd-5th grades were working on Indians/Native Americans, I chose this WebQuest and I am glad I did because I really enjoyed evaluating it! It is instructional and collaborative but still still fun and imaginative for students.
       The main task of the WebQuest is to explore the culture of one of the main groups of Native Americans and what makes it fun is that the students are asked to become "researchers" and make up an exhibit for a history museum (obviously not real) to teach people about how the Native Americans lives. I just really enjoyed the task and how the WebQuest was laid out. There was enough room for individuality and imagination, which I liked, but there was also a lot of collaboration going on throughout it, which was another plus as well!
      I am happy that I now know how to search WebQuests and find which ones are the best. I think they are fabulous tools and I think I will definitely use them as a teacher. It is a fun and different way for students to explore subjects instead of just doing a worksheet or just reading about a certain topic. I hope to use WebQuests again soon someday because they were very educational, interesting and fun to learn about!

Grab a glimpse of the WebQuest I evaluated!

The Reliability and Usability of Funbrain

       Today, I accomplished another first-I evaluated the educational, children's website, funbrain.com, for its reliability and usability on the internet. I have never done something like this before, but I can honestly say that this was quite helpful because I was able to distinguish if this is truly a website that I would consider using in my classroom when I am teacher one day. I have to say that I got a little stressed looking at the evaluation sheet because I did not know if I would be able to find all the answers and get them correct. I know I did my best to dissect the website and find what I needed, but there were still some areas of the evaluation sheet that I was unsure of my answers. However, not only was this evaluation helpful for funbrain but I can definitely see some of the questions it asked rolling over into my decision for the reliability and usability of other children's websites as well.

       This site is wonderful because it is easy for children to navigate and find what they want, yet still educating them every step of the way. It is also great for teachers because it builds on what they teach their students everyday. Another plus is that funbrain includes a link to standards for teachers to show that the games and activities on the site are addressing the standards. I think this site is especially great for elementary school students because it is still quite young with its graphics and is very elementary just in just the nature of the website. Because of the fact that I am a hoping to be a Deaf ed./Special ed teacher, I find this site helpful in that it is interactive and fun yet it still explicitly and systematically states what it wants the child to do. I can definitely see a site like funbrain keeping a student who has disabilities or ADHD (for example) very engaged. My only concern with a student who has a disability is that the words and text all over the sight might get in the way of what they are trying to find when they are navigating the site. With the proper assistance though, I think that a student who has a disability could function well on this site. 

      Funbrain balances education, fun and interest very evenly, which I don't see as an easy task to accomplish. I commend the creators of this site because it seems quite difficult to do. I think it is safe to say that I would 100% use this site in my classroom as a general elementary education teacher and I would also use it as a special educator, while still providing assistance to the student who has the disability. Also, for deaf children, they still learn the same math, reading and literary skills that other students learn so I don't see why they would not be able to navigate and use a site like funbrain. It can definitely make learning for them more interesting and it gives them a different opportunity to practice what they have learned. Sometimes lessons can get quite boring, such as many math lessons, so a website like funbrain can make a math lesson that seems quite boring actually fun.

If you would ever like to use this the site in your classroom or just for fun the link is: http://www.funbrain.com/ (I really recommend it!) 

My Very First Wiki!

          This week in TPTE 486, I successfully created my very first wiki! Before I made my wiki, I never even knew what exactly a wiki was. I have used wikipedia quite frequently, but I never knew you could create your very own wiki and collaborate with your classmates. The wiki took is actually quite interesting and I am glad that I am becoming more and more familiar with it. While we were making the wiki in class, I naturally had a million questions running through my head. "How do you log in to this?" "How do you upload a picture?""How did she just add those links to her wiki?"-These were just a few of the many questions that were racking my brain as I was creating my wiki.
         Part of my problem is (and it is not just in this class) that I get nervous when I look over at other students computers or look over at what they are doing and I see that they are on something different than me or are way ahead of me, and then I begin to ask my questions out loud without even trying it for myself. I feel as though I took a different approach to creating my wiki. This time I really tried to create the wiki independently by following the directions that Dr. Obannon was giving, while still asking basic questions here and there. This seemed to work because my wiki came out just fine, if I do say so myself! Although Dr. Obannon helped me choose an appropriate picture, I still successfully made my "all about me" wiki page all myself!
        I do have to admit that I did stay after class for quite some time with some other students and we all helped each other with questions we had. We were all stumped on posting links to our wiki page, but thankfully Dr. Obannon was there to assist us and explain to us step by step how to do it. I am happy that I stayed after class and asked the remaining questions I had because if I had gone home and tried to figure them out myself, I would have gotten stressed and at some point probably would have given up. It is very easy for me to get stressed early in the game because of my fear of  falling behind everyone. I have learned though that we all work at different paces, but it is comforting to know that all the students in the class can work together and answer each others questions. This makes me less nervous about using more technology because I know my classmates and Dr. Obannon are there to make it less confusing!

Intial feelings about becoming a blogger...

As I am sitting here writing my first blog EVER, I can honestly say that I never thought I would have to do one or would ever have use for one in my life. After learning about what the blog had to offer though, I realized that it is quite useful and actually quite interesting to have. Learning how to use this blog definitely contributes to me learning how to better use technology, which I am really excited about. I am somewhat nervous in learning how to use all this technology because I have never had to use this much technology in a class before. I think it is exciting and interesting how much more the teaching profession is migrating towards using all new kinds of  technology and I look forward to learning how to integrate technology into my own classroom in the future. I am thankful that I have this TPTE class to help me master all these new technology skills that I am going to be learning throughout the semester!