Blog #15

Everything that I learned in this class was valuable to me. I came into this class having very minimal technology skills and now I feel like I know a little bit of every kind of technology that I would use in a classroom setting. Many of the skills that I learned throughout the semester I used in other classes. I made very nice and clear power points for several presentations that I had in other classes. Also, I used the graphing aspect of Excel to create many graphs, which I used in association with many other classes. I also used the video editing lessons to create a video for a presentation in another class. Overall, I got great grades on any assignment in which I utilized my technology skills learned in this course. Another positive was using MACs, I previously had no experience with using a MAC computer and now that I do have that experience, I actually want a MAC as my personal computer.
I will use all of the skills that I learned in this class in my own classroom in the future. There wasn’t one lesson where I felt like the material wasn’t relevant to my future as a teacher! Therefore, there wasn’t anything that didn’t have value to me :)
The only place where I could see a need for improvement was in the actual assignments themselves. I was confused on many occasions as to the requirements and procedures of the assignments. I realize that there are a lot of assignments but a different approach to the presentation of assignments would have been very helpful to me. A suggestion on that note might be to always provide an attachment with each assignment outlining the exact steps that need to be taken. I know that on most assignments you did that but there were several times in which the attachment outline differed from the WebCT assignment outline and that was really confusing. Another thing was that you went really fast when explaining the processes of the technology. Maybe going through those same explanations twice would be helpful, the first time to take notes and the second time to actually do the processes with you.

Blog #13 / #14

I had a terrible time with the video making process, mainly because my iMovie software and/or the computer that I was working on didn’t work properly. To make matters worse, I was really pressed for time in editing my movie because there weren’t enough fire wires for everyone in the class, so my group had to wait two additional classes until we could upload our video. Furthermore, once we attained a fire wire, it took almost the whole class period to upload the video onto three computers. I am not going to go into details about what specifically went wrong with the technology but I will say that the technology problems seriously affected the quality of my finished video. I was not at all proud of my work and I had to show it in front of the entire class, which was humiliating for me.
I would guess that the problems that I encountered during my movie making process are probably typical to the experiences that my own students can have. Many schools do not have enough technology for every student to “have their own” of everything, and so I will need to be creative in planning projects involving limited technology access. Also, I will need to pre-check that the technology that my class odes use is working properly so that students are not limited in their creations by faulty software. Another thing that is common in classrooms is students being embarrassed to present in front of the whole class. Personally I think that this is an outdated method, which is more likely to create insecurities within students rather than aide them. A way that I can ensure that students remain comfortable in my classroom when presenting their work is to offer the option of more than just one way to present. Students that are really proud of their work and enjoy being in front of an audience can volunteer to do so and students that are maybe a little more shy and/or insecure with their work can choose a different option where students will view their work and provide positive feedback, thereby fostering confidence.
The ISTE article demonstrates the direction that education is going, technology is becoming more and more important for students both in and outside of the classroom. I think that video projects are an excellent way for students to have a fun, hands on learning experience. Furthermore, this type of technology might help students, who are surrounded by technology in their everyday lives, to better relate to the material that they are learning.