Blog #8

An interesting web-based tool in which I might use while teaching would definitely be the world famous www.YouTube.com. I believe that YouTube offers an endless amount of varied videos on any topic you may think of. I know YouTube is a great place to waste time watching funny uploaded videos, but there are also many videos in which are very educational and I believe that as a teacher, if I incorporated videos for further learning for my students, it would be a great visual for developing their skills and knowledge for my class. I also think that mostly every young person knows about YouTube so it would be a great way to connect with my students by using a web-based source in which they are already very familiar with.

Using Microsoft Excel as a teacher in a seminar would be a great program to use. I could use it to demonstrate data from my class. I could use it as statistics showing how well or how bad students may be doing in my class. I could show the average grades in which students receive for my class to get students and teachers and idea of the level of difficultly in which my teaching style is. I could also show graphs in Excel which would make my findings a bit more easy to understand. If the grade level in which I was teaching was high school, I believe using Excel would be a great way for students to develop their statistics and number skills by showing them the mean, median, and average of their own grades. This will also give them an opportunity to see exactly how well they performed in my class for future reference.

A good example of a Microsoft Excel case that had been used creatively in a school setting would simply be how we used it in class. We were assigned to use Microsoft Excel in oder to final class averages. This assignment developed my skills and knowledge with Excel and it definitely made me feel a lot more comfortable with using the software. I feel a lot more confident with using the Excel program now than I ever have before. 

Blog #10

When reviewing my other classmate's blogs, I have come to find out that they mostly all share a different topic in which was most interesting to them. If I had to pick one topic from a classmate's blog, it would be how well our final projects went. Every group went up in front of the class and did their presentations and everyone seemed to knock it out of the park! Everyone's presentations were structured and well delivered, their PowerPoints were well put together, and they WikiSpaces were designed very creatively. Each group ran very smoothly and we ended up getting out of class within the first hour! I believe everyone deserves a good grade for the final project because of how well they all went!

Like I explained in my paragraph above, I feel that everyone contributed and put work into their final projects to make them a success. I have learned from this project how to create a WikiSpace which definitely may come useful to me in my near educational career. Also throughout this course, I have learned much more than I intended to coming into this semester. My computer skills have developed tremendously with all the different programs we worked with. Even though I had seen and worked with most of the programs before, this course has heightened my knowledge on how to perform and use the individual software at a mush higher level. For example, I was never very good with Excel, but I believe this course had made me much more comfortable with using it.

The next technology related skill in which I would like to learn is making podcasts. I know we went over making podcasts very briefly as an extra credit assignment, but I think it would be very interesting to go through a step-by-step on how to create one. I have heard many podcasts before from my favorite bands and I believe it's a great way to expand and communicate in any way possible. Especially in our technology-driven world we live in today.

Blog #9

I think that Wikipedia is an amazing learning resource. It has pretty much any information you are looking for. It has educated so many people on topics they might have been unaware of. It is definitely one of the go-to websites for most of the people I know when looking up information. It is also very easy to look up. When searching something on google, Wikipedia almost always comes up in the top 5 searches. I know many teachers don't believe that it is a credited resources for school, but if I were a teacher I'd recommend using this specific website for any type of scholastic and leisure research.

If I was teaching music at a K-12 level, I would definitely use WebQuest. I believe that WebQuest if a great way for teacher and student interaction. It helps the students to understand further of the material covered in class. If I was the teacher, I would create my website and upload it every day with information in which I had gone over from class that day. I would post slides, side notes, short quizzes, and further links to help students grasp the subject matter in a fun and easy way. I would also post future lesson plans so if the student would like to get a head start in the class, they would be able to. WebQuest allows the students to be updated with knowledge from class and it also gives them a deeper understanding of what they are being taught. 

When I was searching through WebQuest, I started to see many different websites and postings from all different teachers. It gave the me idea and example that WebQuest would be perfect for any teacher to get ideas for their future lesson plans and for their own websites from other teachers. I think that a teacher can develop their creativity by seeing what other teachers are doing with their sites and how they are teaching their students. Overall, it will make the teacher better! 

For my group, I believe that it has been running very smoothly. I only have one other group member, but we seemed to get a lot of work done on the first day. We created our Wikispace basically all in one class period and it turned out great! Today, I submitted our Wiki assignment and am confident in turning in and presenting our final project on Thursday. I can definitely say that there are no complaints with my group whatsoever.

Blog #7

I actually had a lot of fun working with the PowerPoint 2 assignment. I learned much more than I already knew about this program prior to tackling it. I can now see how easy creating PowerPoints for teachers is. I have learned how to use the navigation tools to make it easier for the student to navigate around the slides. I did my PowerPoint in a quiz form. If the student got a question correct, they could click the next button. However, if they got it wrong, I would also put the back button to navigate them back to the previous slide to answer the question again.

Some peripherals in which I would use in my classroom would be printers and scanners. I would use printers because many times students may need to print out an assignment for class. As the teacher, I may need to print handouts for students during class. Also, I know sometimes students' printers don't work at home or they might not have on so having on in class may make it easier on them. Having scanners would be beneficial for copying things such as homework, assignments, syllabi, or project overviews for students. Also I believe that disk drives may be good for classrooms in order for students to transport their homework files to the teachers.

Skills in which I have acquired in the past week would definitely be the skills expressed in the PowerPoint 2 assignment. Before this assignment I was pretty familiar with PowerPoint, but this tasks developed my skills even further. I believe that in my future of my educational career, using navigational tools in PowerPoint will really help when performing projects in which I will have to use this program. Also, anytime in which I will have to create a practice test or quiz for class, using the navigation tools and buttons on PowerPoint will definitely be useful.

Blog Post #5

Our society is growing rapidly technology-wise. Now, most schools, if not all have use computers in their classrooms and teach new skills to younger and younger students. Web-based resources are extremely important for students. Using Word as a web-based resource is absolutely beneficial and crucial for a student to use when typing papers or even spreadsheets. Students using email to contact teachers is a great way to email assignments and to get caught up with the class. I also think that a web-based resource that is very beneficial for students are online classes. It really helps students who are busy and don't have time to attend class so they can sign up for online classes and do the work and get credit on their own time.

I believe that teachers monitoring their students using technology such as computers at a high school level should be encouraged. For a high school student, I could understand how having a computer in class can be a huge distraction. I believe that at this academic level, the teachers should monitor the students and teach them to use their time in class for classwork. However, I believe at the college level that their should be less monitoring. Computers could still be distracting for a college student, but at this particular level of academics, the student is entirely more responsible for paying attention in class to get them disciplined and prepared for their life after college.

New skills in which I have learned in the past week that will be beneficial for me in my future educational career is the web hunt and the inspiration idea mapping. Obtaining the web hunt skills will allow me to search topics a lot quicker and easier for when I am researching information for any class project or assignment. The idea mapping will also definitely help me in future classes because it will help me to put my ideas to my computer screen so I will have them right in front of me. This way I will be able to focus on other aspects of the particular assignment in order to complete it much more efficiently. 

Blog Post #3

When creating my lesson plan, I would definitely use technology to teach to my class. The type of technology I would use would be computers. I feel as though computers are the most efficient form of learning and communication. I would want to teach music to high school students. It doesn't matter what grade level anywhere from 9-12. I feel as though the students would know more about computers at this level and would be more willing to learn something they actually want to learn. For my music class, I would use databases, presentation software, notation software, and also the MIDI to teach. All these programs are easy to teach with the technology of computers. It would allow all of my students to use hands on learning with trying different programs on the computer.

A website in which I may use while teaching my class would be a music theory site that I found. http://www.musictheory.net/. After reviewing this site, I have realized that it has many beneficial tools with learning to appreciate music, learning the theories behind songs and instruments, and also it has exercises on how to train one's ear to further oneself musically. This site is very easy to navigate through. It is simple in text and very straight forward. I think this site would be a great tool for giving assignments and homework to my class. Also, it would be a great reference for studying for the students. 

I personally don't feel as though copyright laws are that harmful towards teachers. I have taken many courses in which the teachers would show certain videos and clips in the classroom. If the teachers were distributing the videos to the students then I believe it would be an issue. However, if I was a teacher, before I showed any videos, I would definitely double check and review the exact copyright laws. I also would only be showing the videos in class. I wouldn't distribute any videos to my students. There are also many websites in which allow certain distribution. I would just be careful with the material I was teaching to my students even though I don't think it would ever be that big of a problem.

Blog Post #2

I have been using Microsoft Word as a student ever since I could remember. Anytime I've had an essay or a paper to write, it has been on MS Word. I am very used to using it. I pretty much grew up knowing the basics to using MS Word. I also like the newer versions to MS Word because it is easier to navigate around. Also, teachers that I have had used MS Word all the time. They use it to make and print out assignments, test, quizzes, etc... They also use it to teach computer skills in computer classes like this one.

In chapter 9, the book starts off with introducing the basics of navigating around MS Word. It examines each different and easier ways to get things done when creating MS Word documents. It then goes into more in depth usages to enhance one's skills with MS Word. I especially like the part when chapter 9 explains how to create the newsletters. It was very helpful when performing and completeing the Word Assignment 3. I never knew how to use most of those functions when creating a newsletter. The examples of the newsletters look like they would be difficult to do, but with these intructions on chapter 9, it makes it a lot easier.

I have learned a few new skills so far that will help me with my educational career. I have learned how to contruct more of a professional and overall better looking paper fo any class assignment I wil have ahead of me. I have learned how to use columns easier for any projects I will have to do. Also, the shading in the columns makes the paper look very nice and this tool will be helpful for me in any classes in which I might have to create a paper on word for project. Even if I have to make up a test for any future classes, I will have the skills to do so. Also, adding hyperlinks and emails were very helpful for when I will have to put my email on a paper or whenever I email a teach I can insert a hyperlink with no problem at all.