Educational Philosophy and Voki

Today in class we made a Voki account and created our own avatar. We also made our own educational philosophy and made our avatar say what we had wrote.


This is my educational philosophy.

Making a self grading quiz

Today we made a self grading quiz in google forms. Here is a link to mine. This is a great tool to use in a classroom. It's really easy to make and easy to use.

Webquest

We had an assignment make a webquest using google sitesI decided to make my webquest about geography, I titled it Trip Around the World. This is my webquest please feel free to check it out.

Making a google form

In class today we are being taught how to make a google form. This is a great tool that can be used for many things. You can use it to make a survey, test, or other types of forms you may need. In my professional life I could use this as a get to know you tool at the beginning of a new class. You are able to use many different question types to choose from. There are a few to view the form, you can view it in edit form, as a spreadsheet, or as the answers that the taker has given. When delivering the survey, there are also a few ways to do it. You can email the link, embed it in a webpage or blog, or email the sheet. Click here to view my sample google form. After people have taken your survery you can view their answers by clicking on the form button. You can also view a live form of your survey as people are putting the answers in. You can also see a summary of the answers. This is the spreadsheet of the answers I received.

Free Online Presentation Tools

Today we learned about new tools that can be used to make our lives easier. We were taught about Issuu and  Prezi. Issuu is a great tool that you can use to view PDF files. You can view the files and scan through them very quickly and easy. Prezzi is an online tool to create presentations. This is a lot cooler than powerpoint. It has so many different features, plus it is stored right online and always handy. You can zoom in and out and move things around. I really enjoyed this one and will probably use it in the future. We created an account for this one so we can use it any time we want. While learning about it we created a sample prezi. This is my sample.

Sample on Prezi

Intel tools

Today we are going to talk about Intel online tools that are free. This can be a great use for teachers and their classroom. We also signed up for an account to use this as a teacher. This site has many great features.

Webquests

After looking at all five of the webquests I believe the best one is The World of Shakespeare. It has all the important parts of a webquest. It also has websites directly on it where the students can go directly there to get the information they need. Waves and Sound comes next. It has a lot of information and many questions would not need to be asked. It also gives websites to go to. Become an Anit-Earthquake designer is somewhere in the middle for me. It has a lot of information but the directions would be kind of confusingn.  Saving the Gorillas isn't a good one in my opinion. It has websites for students but it doesn't say how work should be broken up, and it's just not that good. The worst one in my opinion is Foreign Country Presentation. It is kind of wildly put together and doesn't give specific countries that should be looked at and doesn't provide sites for the students to go to.

Jeopardy Games

Jeopardy games can be used as a pre-test to see what kids know, or as a wrap up of something by using it aa review. Here is a link for an online template. It is very easy to use and doesn't take long to make. You are also able to edit the template, just make sure you remember your password! With this template however, it is only text based. You cannot add animation or videos. This game can also be made in powerpoint. This is a little more confusing, but works really well. In powerpoint you can make animations and use pictures. You can also make video questions by inserting a video or sound, which is really cool. These things seperate the web based template from powerpoint. You can do a lot more with powerpoint and make the game more interesting for the children. This can be used over and over for many different ideas. It is a great tool to know about and be able to use for your classroom. This jeopardy template is a great idea to use in place of flash cards or worksheets. This would also be great to use as a review for a test at home instead of a boring study guide that children may or may not look over. With it being a game children will be more likely to want to play it and they can learn as they are going through the game.

The NETS Standard that apply to this is:
2A: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
 I chose this standard because I am creating a learning experience that incorpates digital tools that promote students in learning. This is adapted from a boring worksheet or flash cards that work the same way. This is a more creative way of learning and it's a lot more fun.

What I learned over the past few days :)

We have been learning some new things from powerpoint this week. The one thing that I was really impressed with was making a motion path of an object. I thought this was really cool. No one has ever told me about this before so I was really interested and found this very useful. In a class you could use this with many things like math or even a reading lesson. Another thing I learned was how to make a trigger button with grouping. With this you can make a button that can make all text you want to appear or disappear at the same time. This is really useful in a classs because you can have the children write what they think the answers are, then reveal to them what they actually are so they can check their answers. Here is a link to the video about what I learned.



The NETS that work for this are:
2A: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
I chose this because this would be a greta tool to use for teaching a new subject or a review of an older one.

Power Point Presentation

Summary of Readings
The first reading was about how briefings were done on Afghanistan. The powerpoint that was shown was so confusing and full of words. One guy even said "When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war." These briefings are long and almost painful. They sit in a room forever and come out with vague ideas in this important time of war. These presentations seem to last forever, but after they leave it doesn't seem as if they have anymore information. Some say that powerpoint makes them stupid and have banned it.

The second and third readings are about presentation tips. These are great ideas on how to make your power point presentable and easy to comprehend. Some of the most important things I got from this was: know what your going to talk about ahead of time, don't overload slides with text or data, stay focused keep "like" stuff together, use clear simple visuals, and most important make sure your text is big enough and easy to read. You also shouldn't distract your audiance with animation and sounds, keep it simple if you do use transitions. When presenting look dress accordingly, speak with enthusiasm, and don't read your slides!

After going through this information and understanding it, we were given the task of making our own power point presentation. The presentation was to be made so we can reuse it if the time becomes available (during student teaching or other classes). I chose to do my power point on photosynthesis. This presentation can now be used for an elementary science class. After showing the presentation, I would do activites with the students to show their understanding of it. I would also teach more about it since this is a simple overview. We then were instructed to create and account and upload our presentations to slideshare.
This is the link to my presentation online.
Here is my presentation.


The NETS that go along with this assignment are:
2A: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to  promote
        student learning and creativity.
I chose this one because by making the power point I am designing a presention by using digital tools that
         promotes student learning
3A: demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies
       and situations.
This one applies because I took knowledge that students would be learning and transfered it to a new way of
        presenting it.

Class online!!!

Wow!! Today was really interesting. We didn't have to go to class but we did attend it and do a project online. For todays assignment the entire class edited a google doc at the same time, which was kind of cool. This is a way to get information without copying and pasting everything.We then took the information that was entered into the document and map it into a map. To do this we used the program batchgeo. This program allowed to information to be copied and pasted into it then it did everything else. All of the addresses that the class entered were marked on a map. You could then save the map and name it. It was then emailed to the address you provided and sent information like the embed code and where it was located online. My map is located at http://www.batchgeo.com/map/62b108445ecf1aaeffa853268ae49156
Here is my completed map.




By using these tools it can make me a "21st century educator". Things like this were only dreams many years ago, and are now being used everyday. This would be a great thing to integrate into my teaching. A huge thing that I can think of that would be helpful, especially where I come from, is for snow days. Missing a lot of school is not good for the children. By integrating technology, an assignment can be worked on from home, assuming the have internet connection. I can also be available to help and they won't have to complete it on their own.
The NETS that go along with this assignment are
1D: model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.
   I chose this one because we were learning with our colleagues in an environment not normally entered. We did everything virtually today.

Resume

We didn't have class today but the assignment was to make or upload our resume and publish it to the web. Here is my resume.
The NETS that applies to this assignment is
3A: demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies
       and situations.
I chose this standard because it is taking our knowledge of making a paper resume and being able to publish it to the web.

What am I doing today???

Today we learned how to make a calender in google. The skills we learned while working with this was how to make the calender, how to add an event, how to edit the event and how to share it with others.You can also add other calenders so you can have different ones for different things. You could have a personal calender then one that can be shared with the parents of the students in your class. Here is the calender that I did in class today.

National Oraganizations

One of the national associations I chose to look at was the National Education Association. The annual meeting was held June 26,2010- July 6,2010. This meeting was held in New Orleans. The other association I looked at was the NAEYC the next conference will be held in Anaheim ,CA November 3-6.

The NETS that go along with are
5c:
evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning.

Excel Spreadsheets

We worked with Excel again today. However, this time we were taught differnt funtions that can be performed while using it. One thing we learned was how to use the minimum and maximum funtion which can come in handy when doing grades, which is what we were simulating. We also composed our own formula to average the score with weight on specific things. The grades and project were 25% and the test was 50%, by using the formula we came up with it was easier to calculate it. We also learned about the IF function today. We used this to convert the number grade to a letter grade. It can be found in the help menu of excel, this is a great feature. We were also taught about the handle tool. This is a great function that allows you not to have to type the equation multiple times, you just grab the handle and drag. This then puts the same equation in all the boxes highlighted. I then formated the sheet by adding color and a border to the table.This is my finished spreadsheet.
The NETS that go along with this project are:
1b: engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and   resources.
      I chose this standard because when I become a teacher and I'm working in the real world, I will be using    these digital tools in my classroom.

1c: promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.
      I also chose this standard because after completing the project we blogged about it. This promoted reflecxtion of what we completed.

3d: model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.
      I chose this one because the digital tool we used helped us analyze and evaluate research.

Performance Based Assessment

In class today we completed a performance based assessment. This was to see what we have learned throughout last week while we were using excel. I remembered everything so hopefully it was right. I have used excel before but this was a great refresher, and I learned some things I was not taught before. With excel you can do mulitple things that would normally take forever without it such as averages and counting. Also things like the ttest help a lot when trying to summerize information that has been collected. I also learned something very important. When I uploaded my document to googledocs, some of the functions did not work. My chart also didn't show up. Here is the link to my excel spreadsheet I completed in class.

The NETS standards that apply to this activity are:
1B: engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.

2A: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

3A: demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.

Action Research Project

For the past week we have been working with Exel and Word creating an imaginary action research project. I haven't worked with Exel since my freshman year so it was a great review for me, I had forgot a lot of things that were important to operating it. We were refreshed on how to use formulas and other actions within the program to make it easier for us. We also created a document in word using APA format. This was a little confusing for me because I have only used it one time, I usually use MLA.In the document we put the research results and also placed the charts and table that went along with the results. Overall, this project has been pretty simple for me.

Making a movie

Wow! I actually understood what we did today. We created a movie by finding a powerpoint of something we would teach. I chose to "teach" math. I chose a video that shows how to do shortcuts in addition. I downloaded the presentation then turned it into a movie and uploaded it to youtube. Here is the video from youtube. Here is also a link to it.

Draw Storage Review

Today in class we created a graphic that shows where we create and store digital artifacts. I chose to use paint as my design tool. The two types of storage, virtual and physical, are both good in their own ways. However, I believe virtual is more convient due to the fact you can access your stuff from any computer as long as you have internet connection. With the physical storage, you have a chance of losing it or it failing to work. I believe you should use both types so you can be sure if it isn't in place it will be in the other.

This is the graphic i made.Here is also a link to my graphic online.

The ISTE NETS that go along with this assignment are

1C promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.

3A: demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.

Jing Video

This is supposed to be with the "how to" video...I couldn't make it work.

Embeding a youtube video

We chose a video from youtube and embeded it in our blog click if you want to watch the video. Click here if you want to go to the video.

Making a "how to" video

Today we captured a video using the jing tool. We could "teach" people how to do anything by using a computer and the video capture option. I chose to teach people how to find a picture on google, copy and paste it, then resize it once in microsoft word. I was not able to get the URL for my video. I will try to upload it later.

Later I tried uploading the video and could not locate it in my history.

Creating Picasso Head

I created a self portrait. This was actually really fun. We used a tool called picassohead which allowed us to create a self portrait very easily. Color can be added to the portrait and you can also sign it after your done. Here is my self portait I created.

I was also able to send it to "internet land" here is the link to my portrait.

The NETS that relate to this project are

2a: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity

 3c: communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.

Jing

In class today we are working with jing. We chose an image,captured it, and added writing to it. There are a lot of different tools offered by jing to make life easier, however for me, it was a little confusing at first. Here is my image I captured.

 You can also send your images through the internet. Here is a link to the same image.

Snipping Tool

Today we learned about a new tool called the snipping tool, which is built in on all vista computers. It is actually very simple to use.  Here is a picture I snipped in class today.

The ISTE NETS that corrisponds with this activity would be 1b: engage students in exploring real worl issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.

I chose this standard because I used a new digital tool I have never even heard about before. I now have the snipping tool as a future resource.

After taking the personality test...

After I completed the personality test I got the result of being a guardian. This was second on my list I had made before taking the test. I believe that this test is really good and accurately placed me. By knowing this result I can use the knowledge learned about my personality in everyday situations. I know that if in a situation I have the ability and should use it to get it under control and help things run smoothly. I also realize that it's great for me to work in groups because I can help them run more smoothly, and have a set schedule so things get done on time. I already do these things but it just helps by putting the things I do into perspective and that there's a group for it. It's nice to know that the survey was close to what I had originally thought was my personality.

Personality Tests

I have taken a few personality tests before and found out that I was calm and needed to have things done right. I also found I am good at working with people and like to help others. By looking at this personality evaluator I found that in order from most like me to least like me I am, The Idealist, The Guardian, The Artisan, and The Rational. I believe I am most like the idealist because I love working with people no matter what and I like helping them achieve something, which is why I want to be a teacher. I also feel as if I am a kind person and can be very hard on myself if I do something I know is wrong. I'm also dependable and hardworking and always need to have a schedule, in this way I am like the guardian. Artisans strive to be the best they can in all types of arts. They also want results to what they are working on the fastest way possible, that is why I feel I am not like the artisan. It says that rationals will analyze things to figure out how they work in order to make them work better. I am definitely not like this, I don't want to know how technology works just that it does when I need it to. These people are often viewed as cold and distant and that is not like me at all.  Basically, I am a people person who likes dealing with humans and making them better, than with arts and statistics.
Here is the link for the 4 different types of temperments.

First Blog

This is my first blog post.
It was very interesting creating this I always have trouble with technology, but after a few minutes it finally worked for me. I am a junior at Fairmont State University majoring in elementary education. I'm looking forward to learning some new things in this class.