Kathy Schrock's Website

This weeks assignment was  great!  We were asked to go to Kathy Schrock's website and look around to see what tools we would find useful in our classroom.  On the website she has been nick named the "Gadget Queen" which definitely seems like an appropriate name for Kathy.

One  of my favorite links she shared was "Dumpr"  where a person can create unique projects with their pictures.  One of Kathy's ideas is for educators to have their students use this site in order to create an "about me" slide presentation.  What a fun suggestion!

I also liked the ability I have on her site to go into archived information to look at several years worth of ideas for how to better improve the students ability to learn.  One of the links took me to a side entitled "wordtalk" which is a software program that is a free plug-in that makes it possible for someone who has a difficult time understanding or reading text to hear the instructions when they are using "microsoft word".  It even has a talking dictionary incase there are misspelled words.

I am looking forward to the future when I will have more time in order to look around Kathy's website in more detail so that I can explore the many different tools she has to share when it comes to technology in the classroom.

Kathy Schrock's Website

This past week we were given an assignment to look up Kathy Schrock's website.  WOW!!!  I couldn't believe how much information is there.  I literally could have spent hours following links to all sorts of information available to educators and students.  This "Gadget Queen" as she is called has shared some incredible insights

Internet Safety and Evaluation

This week was extremely challenging for me with the 2 huge assignments we were given.  I don't think they were supposed to take as long as they did, but at least several other students felt the same way.  

Although these projects were very time consuming I gained a lot of knowledge I will use in the future.  Some of the things that were helpful were the ability to recognize an authentic website.  I learned what things to look for if they are or are not a valid site.  Things like;  Image quality, Tech support available, grammatical errors, author credibility, and if there are breadcrumbs at the top of the webpage to help me navigate back to where I began from the moment I opened up the site.  Another way is to pay attention to the URL.  Just by looking for things like .edu, or .gov and symbols such as "~" automatically throw up a red flag that this is a personal site.

Another thing I learned was how to help children be safe as they are chatting online.  I had never even heard about how people can bully children online.  It makes me sick to think that there are so many sexual predators online and how deceptive they are as they lure children in without them realizing it's happening. 

I am going to teach my children at home as well as at school how to recognize a good website as well as how to be safe while surfing the web.  What a great plus this will be in the classroom and at home. 

Internet Safety

UEN Reflection Paper

This weeks assignment has been a little bit more than I was expecting.  The UEN website is absolutely amazing, yet it is also very, very overwhelming.  It has literally a world of information available if you know where to look.    I have been working on this assignment for the past 5 hours or so and I am still not finished.   If I had nothing else to do I would love to spend 5 more hours looking at all of the resources that are available, but since I have several more hours of homework in other classes still to do, I've decided to take a break and wait until Tuesday to ask "Doc" how to finish these little items that have stumped me.

The Pioneer library is one of my favorite resources that I am definitely going  to use in my home with my own children until I am officially a teacher.  What a fabulous way for my students to find ideas for projects and get unlimited information to write research papers not to mention the incredible resource it will be for me as I am trying to create lesson plans that will be fun and interesting to the children. 

Within this website are unlimited amounts of ideas for interactive activities for every subject you can think of.  I believe that this one resource that helps you stay focused on the Core Curriculum while having a blast learning from educationally sound resources will absolutely change how I will teach.  I can hardly wait to share the information I have found with my kids.  It will be great practice so I don't forget how to maneuver around the UEN website.  I LOVE THIS!  

Still Going Strong

This week we have been learning some really cool stuff.  On Tuesday we learned how to make a google site.  It was fun playing with the layout of the page as well as adding images and creating my own project. 

I can imagine how effective this would be in the classroom when we have a student of the week.  It would be fun to highlight different aspects of that students life with pictures of his/her family or allowing them to show off some of their favorite things or 10 of their personal dreams.  Once it was created their parents, grandparents... could all have fun celebrating the students success no matter where in the world these loved ones live.

Another thing I learned by going in and talking to our instructor "Sandie" before class on Thursday was how to use the google calendar.  I was planning to purchase a  Franklin day planner, but now that I have learned how effective this tool can be I'm going to save the cash for something else.  With the calendar I can put in my cell phone number and request a text to be sent 15 min. before an activity reminding me to get it in gear!  No more being late to class because I was in the middle of studying for another class and lost track of the time.  LOL   Also, I have no reason to forget another birthday ever since I'll be reminded in plenty of time!  In my classroom I can completely organize my day, week and month.  If something needs to be rescheduled all I have to do is move it to another day with the click of the mouse.  It doesn't get any easier than that!

I'm looking forward to what we will be taught today about my UEN website.  More to come later...

I LOVE A GOOD CHALLENGE!

This week has been filled with new adventures for me.  I am overcoming many of my "fears" of working with computers and learning to relax and enjoy these assignments.  Already I feel empowered as I am learning to use programs like "Microsoft Word" and excel spreadsheets.  I was a little bit stressed when a 20 minute assignment turned into a 1 1/2 hour assignment because the software was so unfamiliar to me, but in the end I have decided that I am going to purchase "Word" for Macintosh users.  Our instructor "Doc" Waters is a Mac fan like me, but she has all the programs that make it possible to do anything a PC user can do.  I have come to realize that there are many things that I am currently unable to do.  For example, I love the way I can create documents at just the click of the mouse,  or create fun and informative spreadsheets.   

One of our projects this week was to create a spreadsheet using information from the summer Olympics and how many gold medals were won by each country.  What used to look so hard and impressive became something I can actually do myself!  I can't wait to go home and turn my personal budget into a spreadsheet and do a pie chart that will show me how I'm actually using my money each month and where I need to cut back in order to increase my savings.

  

Another one of our assignments was to create our "Dream Computer".  In reality that's all it  is... a dream, but let me tell you, my dream computer was loaded with everything from a 30" monitor to enough memory to  last a lifetime. We had to find all of the parts on the internet and put pictures of each item with ALL of the details including a picture pasted underneath the price of the item.   (This was the project that took me an hour and a half, but it made me feel better when a student said it took her 3 hours, and several others said it was a challenge for them as well). 

 I am determined to learn everything I can about computers and what they have to offer while getting my education so that in a few years I will have the latest information and technology available in my classroom.  From just the few assignments we were given this week I am excited about my future students will be able to produce.  I look forward to watching them create some amazing projects and feel a sense of accomplishment as they use their creativity to make something that will inspire others to do the same.

It's a good thing I love a good challenge because I can tell already that this semester is going to be full of them.  I can't wait to see what we will be learning next week!

Technology

During the past week as I have been signing up for new email accounts and registering on Facebook and Blogger, I am beginning to realize that there is a whole new world just waiting for me to discover.  Technology has always been very intimidating to me because I am afraid of it.  I'm not really sure what exactly scares me, but it does.  My best guess is that my fears stem from the fact that there is so much technology out there that it seems overwhelming and I don't even know where to begin.  Taking this class has already helped me to overcome some of those fears as I have found myself exploring and discovering many new things that have the potential of bringing education to a whole new level if applied in the classroom.   

Beginning with the amazing things I have already learned are available through my new gmail account I can see how beneficial just that one source can be in helping the students (and teachers) step outside of their sheltered little comfort zones and let their creativity begin to unfold.  It is my goal to learn everything I can while taking this course, not only to benefit myself, but to help ignite a burning desire to discover new things and create a bright new future filled with fun and exciting ways to share what's happening in each of our personal lives that will be a benefit for generations to come.

 Although I am just beginning to scratch the surface, already I can see that when it comes to technology, the possibilities are endless!