SmartBoard

I figured out that I love the smartboard. In class on monday, we went over the different things the smartboard can do. I think that it is amazing. I knew that it could do alot of things, but after class monday, my eyes were opened to a whole new world of possibilities. There are just so many different activities that can be done for each subject. My favorite part of the smartboard was the different things you could do with the states. I feel that it is very important for students to have a sense of where the states are in the United States. The activity where you had to fill in the location of the state and its name, was a great activity for students to figure where the states are according to where they live. Another activity I liked was the periodic table of elements. The game that they had with the timer was fun. I feel that kids will really like that game because it is like you are racing against time and it forces the students to learn the elements. I just hope that when I get into a classroom, it will have a smartboard so I can make the lesson more interesting.

Copyright???

In class today we learned about copyright. I never knew anything about copyright, I just thought it had to do with pictures and movies. I never thought that copyright had such strict rules. I thought that it only had to do with coping and using different pictures and movies. Boy was I wrong!!! Now as I think back on my elementary years, I realize that there were alot of things that were done with movies that were not suppose to be done, well I don't feel that they had permission. I remember always watching movies the day before a break, and I know they had nothing to do with the curriculum. I must have watched Christmas with the Kranks like five or six times. I remember the one thing that I did realize was wrong was in sixth grade. We went to Philly for a field trip, and one of the students bought a bootleg off the streets of Star Wars. My sixth grade teacher let us watch it in class. Now I know that was not right haha.
I feel that people don't go against the rules of copyrighting things, its more about the fact that that they don't know about the things they can and can't do. I know that there are many things that people don't know because I feel that they are not stressed enough.

Power Point

This week we had to do a powerpoint presentation. I loved doing this project beacuse it made me become familiar with powerpoint. I thought I knew how to use it, but in reality I was still a little confused. I had trouble with getting fraction bars into my presentation and then I couldn't figure out how to get the information to come in at different times. It took me awhile but I did figure it out.
The presentations we had so far were so good. I loved the idea that they used it as a review for a test. They also used it as a game where they could click on the word and figure out if it was right or wrong. That was a great idea because they are able to be interactive in the lesson. Many times teachers can bore you with a powerpoint lesson. I know that I had many teachers in high school that would just read directly off the slides and they were very monotonic so the class lasted for ever.
If I was to do it again I would make my powerpoint more interactive. I would have the students more involved. I felt that my powerpoint was not up to the level it should have been. I caught myself getting into the habits of my old teachers and reading off the slides. Now that I saw some of the other powerpoint presentations I am going to go back and figure out how they played the games and the reviews. Also I learned that I have to talk slower, and go through the information more slowly. Just because I understand it doesn't mean that everybody else does.

Video.......PSA

I loved this week of class. I loved filming our PSA and editing it. I thought it was going to be really complicated because I never worked with editing any type of video, but windows movie maker was so easy. We did our PSA on obesity and I had so much fun doing it. Its funny because now when I am watching a commercial I try to figure out when they brought new clips in. I say to myself ok they edited it there and added music there. I never thouhgt I would be the person that was interested in making and editing video, but I am fascinated by it. Now I kind of wish we had another project to do with editing video.
I can't wait to get into a class room and have the students do something like this. I think they will love it. They might think of it as a challenge, but then they will realize that its fun and interesting. This was a great week of classe.

Computers..........

Ok so I went home for spring break and I was talking to my cousins about school. My little cousin was telling me about how she loves to beat this litle boy on the computer by playing a math game. She was telling me that she had to enter a password to compete against the other boy, but he wouldn't let anybody tell her the password because she was the only one that could come close to beating him.I thought that was so cute. Then I went on to ask her if the computers were in the back of the room, but she gave me this smart alaic "no". She told me they all had laptops at their desks. I was in utter shock. Then she came came back to say that they had to share them sometimes. I was like OMG. When I was in grade school I had computers, but they were so old and there was only one or two in a classroom. I guess its a new generation. I have to get up with the reality of technology in classrooms lol. The other fact that I was shocked at was that she is only in 3rd grade, so I could only imagine the technological tools they have in the high school! I feel like that if I had more training in elementary school, I would be more prepared for this technology boom lol.

Websites

I loved that we had to make a website for class but I had a hard time finding a site that was easy for me to use. I first tried weebly and that was so bad.Then I tried bravenet and that was even worse. They both had templates for websites but I couldn't figure out how to use them or even change anything in them. I was like thank God when I found freewebs. That site was so easy and fun to use. When I was making my website for class, I just wanted to make a website about so many things. They had such great templates to choose from that were so cute. When making this website I felt like I actually knew what I was doing on the computer and doesn't happen very often haha. I feel like I am getting better at this whole technology thing.
In class today I loved the clickers. When we were using them, all I could think about was that I wanted to use them in one of my lessons for a methods class. I feel that not a lot of students used them before and it would be a great way to assess the students before a test. I could even make it into a game for the students. I feel that they would love it because it is something new and they don't have to be afraid to answer in class anymore because nobody knows who answered what. I am just so excited to use them in the classroom.

Excel

I was always afraid of Excel. I would go open and then shut it really fast. It just looked so complicated to me. Last semester I had to take a Physics lab and we had to use Excel. We were in lab groups, so there was always someone that knew how to use it so I was safe. In high school I never had a computer class so therefore never knew how to use it. One would think that I would have to use it in Chemistry, but nope never used it there either. When I was a senior in high school I took Physics. In the begining of the year I thought I would need to use the computer in someway or another, but it was the first year teaching physics for my teacher so there was no way she would have ventured onto the computer for experiments. I feel that if I was taught Excel or if I had the courage to struggle through it, it would have been very benefical to me in college.
Being introduced to Excel was great. Once someone walked me through it it wasn't that bad. I just wish I learned it earlier, so I didn't feel like I was missing something in my classes. I would have never thought to use Excel for anything other then charts or graphs, until we did those Excel worksheets. I am a person that loves numbers and I live by them. Everything in my life deals with numbers. I know that might be a little weird but I am a math major what do you expect haha. The magic square was a great application of Excel. I will use that in my class room, I know it. There are just so many different things you can do in Excel and I am happy that I am not afraid!!!