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.