it's the final countdown! (cue air guitars)

so this is it, folks. the last blog post from me for this class. it's been quite a semester. we've learned a lot and i feel like my knowledge of computers, heck, my knowledge of macs has been expanded and improved.

on monday i finished my scratch game, woot! and i was pretty proud of it, if i do say so myself! it was a good project, a good way to end the semester. i emailed it in on tuesday, i believe, but sent it again today just in case.

one thing i learned from this project that i can use as a teacher is the concept of logical thinking. with the scratch game, everything had to be perfectly organized and sequenced for optimal functionality. as a teacher, i have to think about what will happen in my classroom as part of the flow of learning. my lesson plans will need to be organized and logical to allow a procedure of conversation and learning.

good class, good times. thanks for everything!

i'm thankful for...other people to invent computer games

i wasn't sure if we were supposed to publish a post this week or not, but i figured i might as well.

on monday i completed my scratch game. can you believe it? it's done! and it's not too shabby, if i do say so myself. however, it's also pretty...what's the word...pretty low-key as far as intellectual, developmental learning goes. i think a kindergartener would think it was pretty simple. there is no way that any child could learn as much from playing this game as i have learned from designing it. it was hardcore!

i like scratch. it's pretty user-friendly once you get the hang of it. i felt like i was directing a movie; everything had to be in place and everyone had to be told what to do at exactly the right time to do it so that the other sprite would get their cue and do their job as well. it was intense, but i like it. it was a great learning opportunity for me, as far as problem solving and frustration control goes.

i do not think that i would ever use this technology tool in my classroom, though. i don't think it would be productive for me to invest my time in learning scratch, because that would take so much time and then i would never be able to utilize it effectively for my students' benefit. but it was still a fun project and i'm glad i finished strong.

scratch week

so this week has been all about games. computer games, that is. educational computer games. i always thought that was an oxymoronical statement, but my mind is being opened up a little bit.

on monday we discussed our experience with playing "voices of spoon river." i liked the game; i thought it was a little confusing and i didn't solve any issues. but it was enjoyable. then we discussed about scratch. we decided on the objectives as a class and got to work designing our games. it was intense. i was really confused and maybe even a little frustrated, but i got through

on tuesday i went to the computer lab and played around with the design and figured out how to make my little guy move around properly. it was quite productive.

wednesday was a good work day. i got a lot accomplished and i know what i'm doing now and it's actually quite enjoyable. i like scratch. i don't think i will ever have the time as a teacher to design a new game every time i want to teach a concept, but it's good for me to learn. i'm learning more than my students ever would by playing my little game that took a lot of effort to create.

This week has been more of the same routine as of late: work on assignment on monday, get introduced to new assignment on wednesday.

on monday we finalized our UEN websites. it was much easier than i thought it was. i think that UEN is a very user-friendly website service, and out of all of the things i've learned in this class, this is probably the only thing i'm going to use.

on wednesday we started talking about scratch and games and the use and usefulness of games in the classroom. i'm going to be honest and say i was a little overwhelmed. i have no idea how to use these programs and i am so not creative and crafty when it comes to creating a game for people to use and enjoy. but i'm remaining cautiously optimistic that i'll have a good time playing the game this weekend and getting my brain thinking about how to design my own.

flash and websites

so, on monday i finished up my sweet awesome flash video. it was pretty intense and i'm proud of myself for completing it. it was fun, flash reminds me of autoCAD. however, i do not think that flash is something that i will take the time to learn how to become proficient at. i think there are better ways to deliver content to students than a homemade video, and mine would be shoddy at best. there are so many resources out there; people have made hundreds of thousands of videos, why reinvent the wheel? it was a fun project, though.

on wednesday we started talking about UEN and class websites. it was interesting, especially because the night before, on tuesday, we had a club activity where we had a student teacher, question and answer, panel type thing, and the teachers there answered lots of our questions about student teaching and talked a lot about using the UEN website, and the list serve, etc, to help gather resources and build your own file of curriculum. i think UEN is great, i'm excited to be a teacher and have my own login and start gathering stuff. it's a little overwhelming right now, but it's never too early to start collecting lesson plan ideas, etc. to use in my own classroom someday.

websites and flash!! bam!

i almost forgot what we had talked about on monday, and i just got back from the aggie bball exhibition game; we smoked them!

anyways, this week has contained a plethora of new information for my little brain.

on monday we learned about making websites in aggiemail. i liked it because we didn't have to know any code, we could just fill in the blanks with what we wanted. i wish we had had more time to learn more about it because websites are a great educational tool and i would love to be able to incorporate them into my classroom. it's great to be able to have a place for students to go to receive information right away.

oh my gosh! wednesday was so intense! we learned about flash and my brain almost exploded with awesomeness! i really like flash because it remindsd me of the days when i worked for my dad as a landscape architect and drafted with autoCAD. however, i think that flash is not something i would use in my classroom because it would take me FOREVER to learn how to design good quality videos, and i think my time would be better employed by developing quality lesson plans, rather than flashy vidoes.

Podcasts and googledocs

this week has been pretty intense, as always.

on monday we learned all about podcasts. i think podcasts are awesome! i found a great one that i could download to my ipod that could teach me German with one lesson a day. i am trying to think about how podcasts could be used in the classroom...and i'm coming up blank. i'm not as familiar with them as i would like. as a teacher, i can think of other things i would rather do with my time than create regular podcasts for me students to learn from. just because we have all of this wonderful technology, it doesn't mean that we must abandon all conventional methods of teaching, such as face to face classroom instruction, which i think works pretty well.

on wednesday we discussed and played with google docs. now that was fun. i really really like google docs and i think that this is one form of technology that is worth looking in to and utilizing in the classroom. students can work on projects and collaborate from distances, and i think it's great. i could have my students write papers or make a presentation, and the good thing about google docs is that the students don't have to always find times that they can all meet, and it's a great way to do group projects. i like google docs.

week...uh...when is christmas break again?

so anyways, this week we have just been continuing to work on our iMovie projects. i finished mine at 11:00 last night after choir practise. it was pretty intense. this is definitely the best part of class so far. i really like iMovie. like i've said in my previous two posts, iMovie is really user-friendly, and videos are a great classroom instruction tool. i don't know if i would want to take the time to make a video for every lesson in every class i ever teach for the rest of my life, but it could be fun once in a while. also, i would probably incorporate videos from other sources, such as youtube or studies and exercises that other teachers and researchers have already done.

but sometimes it's fun to shake things up and make your own video to get the specific point across that you want to convey to your students.

i make iMovie

here is my iMovie video. i loved this project, it was a lot easier than i expected. iMovie is very user-friendly and there are enough options to keep it interesting. the process was pretty stress-free, and i knew that it didn't have to be perfect. in fact, i'm pretty proud of myself as a first-time movie-maker. if i were to do this again, i would record my voice separately at the beginning as a voice-over, instead of saying it into the camera's mic, so that we could all be spared the fuzzy hum of background noise. in my classrooms, i think that videos will aid instruction immensely. i can use videos for demonstrations, examples, and role-playing. videos are great!

iMovie

this post is a little late, but i wanted to submit it just so that i don't get confused with the numbering...

anyways, this week we had a short tutorial on iMovie, filmed a movie, and starting editing it ourselves. i love iMovie! i think it is a great program and very user-friendly.

i think that learning how to use iMovie well will be very beneficial for me as a teacher. i'm a very visual person, and some concepts can only be grasped through watching demonstrations. the good thing about a video is that the teacher only has to show and explain it once, and then the students can watch it as many times as they need to if they don't understand. the bad thing about that, however, is that maybe some students can't learn well with a video, and if they didn't understand it the first time they watched the video, they may not understand it no matter how many times they watch the same thing over and over.

for that reason, i think teachers need to be flexible and have variety with their instructional methods. they can't present material in the exact same way every time, because then they will always have students that don't understand because that is not their learning style. it's important for teachers to change things up every so often in an effort to accommodate as many different learning styles as possible.

show and tell

this week has been pretty intense. we wrapped up our photoshop projects and shared them with the whole class. we have some talented people out there! and on wednesday we had a rundown of how to use iMovie.

i'm actually really excited to use iMovie. i think that it looks very user-friendly (as are most things with the apple logo). i think that videos are a great instructional tool. for people like me that are visual learners, it's very beneficial to see something demonstrated in a way that is large and detailed and able to be seen by everyone on a screen.

for my area of teaching, i think that videos will be a nice way to break up the lecture routine. i can show vidoes demonstrating various sewing techniques, as well as examples of projects that other people around the world have come up with.

oh yes, i'm very excited to make a movie!

exploring photoshop

this week has been great! we had more and more time to slow down and really dig in to photoshop. our assignment was to create a halloween party invitation, or other such classroom visual. i chose to create mine as an invitation to a fall social for my class.

it was hard. i am not creative or crafty by any stretch of the imagination, and learning photoshop is like learning a new language. but i think my invitation turned out pretty good-looking. it was a fun assignment.

i think learning photoshop is very valuable for teachers. in my field i am going to be creating a lot of visuals; posters, diagrams, fliers, etc, and i think that photoshop is a great program to use for such things. i think it will still take a lot of practice (for me!) but it's a good skill to learn.

photoshop week

this week we learned the basics of photoshop. on monday i think we were all a little confused about what was going on or why we needed to learn this stuff. on wednesday we had a visual worksheet, if you will, designed for us with specific instructions to get more comfortable with the various functions of photoshop. it was pretty intense.

i like photoshop, and i may use it to help prepare materials for class; posters, handouts, etc. i also think it would be interesting to have a project where my students have to work with some sort of visual, such as a cartoon diagram of the GI tract, or make up their own visual and format it in photoshop. I don't think i'll make my students use it too terribly much, though. it's a fun program but i don't think it's worth taking the time to learn how to do it in order to present curriculum. that's just my own opinion, though.

say cheese!

this week our classtime has been devoted to learning about iPhoto and Comic Life.

iPhoto is a way to organize, edit, share, and publish pictures. we had a blast playing around with it; making a slideshow and a keepsake book. (i hope you got the email!)

then we learned how to use Comic Life, a program that lets you make and share your very own comic strips. i thought it was very cool.

I like both of these programs and i think that they could both be used in the classroom. my students could do what i did: take pictures, import them to iPhoto, and make some sort of book or slideshow to do a presentation on a certain topic. comic life is great if you want to explore your creative side. for example, for a history project, students could make up their own comic strip and create one in comic life that showcases a certain event in history. what a great project! i think that would be a lot of fun.

September 4, 2009

this week in class has been pretty intense.

on monday we discussed our thoughts about the alignment theory of classroom activities. there were some good insights shared, about how teachers have to be creative and think on their toes. it's important for me as a teacher to remember that everything we do in the classroom should be geared toward my learning objectives, which should be clearly outlined for me, if not all of my students as well, to see.

on wednesday we discussed the idea of digital natives and digital immigrants and the conflict that results from the information gap. i really enjoyed reading the articles. i think that the problems included in the difference between the natives and immigrants are problems that are there for everyone to see and gripe about, but they have never really been given a name before. i like the concept of natives and immigrants, and i think that for me as a teacher, i'm going to concentrate on trying to bridge that gap between me and my digitally-native students. i think that working together can solve problems faster than working separately.

i'm glad we are getting started on some applications, like the iPhoto. we scrambled around the hallway to take pictures for a project that we'll hopefully be working on next week. i'm excited!