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!!!