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!