Thursday, July 19, 2007

Thursday's Class

Today is Thursday and it is officially the last day of Blogging for our Technology class! I am not sad becuase I learned so much. I just wish I could keep learning about how to be more technologically savy.
I'm sorry I didn't come to class today. I had an interview at 9:30, which lasted until 10:45. I did come in to class at 11:00 and actually I am here now in the computer lab, with Nancy and Jody just posting my final blog.
Well, the instructor evaluation form is all filled out and I think I'm done. How sad! I really enjoyed this class. It was a pleasure to meet all of you. I'm glad to have spent the past two weeks with you. If you ever want to keep in touch, you can email me at New Paltz via the Black Board. Hey, another way to use technology!
Good Luck to all and have a great summer!
Anne

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Wednesday's Class

I can't believe that it is Wednesday. The week is almost over already. It's sad in a way that this class is almost over, but at the same time I definitely feel very good about it because there is so much information that I am taking with me. To be honest, I can't wait to take more technology classes. I definitely want to get a job first, and get a couple of years of teaching under my belt, but I really look forward to taking Technology of Education classes in the future so that I can improve my teaching and make my class more compatible for the future. I always felt so inept with computers before. But, now I am realizing that when I have someone to instruct me I don't feel so stupid anymore. I am less afraid to try new things and less afraid of 'breaking something' on the computer.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Tuesday's Class

Our technology class is almost over and it's amazing how much we've done.
Today we finished up with our presentations. Actually I went second to last and then Angelo went last and it was funny to see that we presented the same material. In fact, we chose the same topic and even picked the same background to post it on. (Although I liked Angelo's pictures much better!) Leave it to the two Italian students to think alike, lol. I thought that was funny!

Monday's Class

Today is the first day of our second week of classes. We are going to the distance learning lab on campus. Actually, the technology room doesn't really have a name, but since we need to know what to call it our class called it that. It was located in the basement of the lecture center.
Once we were in this tech room we got to hear a lot of very good presentations. I learned so much from Nancy's about assistive technology for hearing impaired individuals. Actually, I learned a lot about ASL (American Sign Language) and the grammar of the language from Nancy as well. I also learned a lot about technology from Michelle, Rachel, Jody and Vincent. There are things that I have learned about Power Point, closed sources, and the white board that I will not forget.
I really enjoyed this day. I think most of all, I was touched by Cindy's presentation on Digital Storytelling. Seeing pictures of her father and hearing how she feels about him will live with me forever. My wish for her is to translate the voice over in this power point into Korean and to send it to him as a present. I know he would cherish it, forever.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Friday's Class

Today we went over some Web Quests that were not presented yesterday. There were so many good ideas that people had and that they used to create their web quests. What sticks with me most about this course though, is what you can do with power point to create digital stories. Nancy told me that you can even create links so that students are in a sense creating their own story as they go along. For example, Pg 1- Charlie went on a trip. Where did he go (and the student clicks an icon of either a farm or zoo, etc) Pg2- What saw animals? What animal did he see first? (then you can icons of animals and he clicks on the animal) etc. In this way the student is customizing their own story. This is fascinating! Amazing how simple story books are evolving.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Thursday's Class

Unfortunately I was not in class today. I did, however, post my Web Quest. It is about FLES or Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools, since I am a certified Spanish Teacher. I hope this is interesting to you all. Hopefully I can discuss this with you tomorrow, and if there are any questions about my Web Quest I hope to be able to answer them for you tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Wednesday's Class

Today we learned so many things in class. Probably my favorite thing that I learned to do was to use power point to show pictures and to add sound and motion to them to make a digital story. It's awesome. Actually, I want to use all of my wedding pictures to do this instead of paying my photographer 250 dollars for the same thing.

I can't wait to use this to make a gift for my parents. I would love to figure out how to do this using scanned images. I wonder if I can?

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Tuesday's Class

I was looking at people's blogs and was so amazed at the difference between blogs. We are all in the same class, yet our personalities are so different and therefore so are our blogs. Some people have pink blogs, others black or white blogs, some have added pictures, some have not. It's really quite amazing to see how a group of ten people can create ten different projects out of the same assignment :)

Monday, July 9, 2007

Tonight I was reading the article entitled, 2020 vision. I particularly liked the quote that was made by Thomas Edison in 1913. He said... "I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks".

He was in large part right. Today's school classroom is so different from that of a century ago. In nearly every classroom across the nation there are computers, some classrooms have several. Many classroooms today, even at the elementary school level, have smart boards. In fact some classrooms don't even operate with a teacher there, they use the distance learning technology which transports the student to another classroom across the city, state, or even nation. While we do still have the use of textbooks in school, it's amazing to see the changes that are going on in our schools. It's nice to be taking a technology class that will prepare us for some of these changes.

In addition, this article spoke of the toys that children of the future will have, the games and technology that will be part of their life. I read this and then thought about the children that exist today, the children that live in poorer neighborhoods, or on the streets, or inside abandoned cars. What will these children do in the future? Where will they be? Will they have these toys and if they don't what will it mean for the development and their place in society. These issues were not really what the article was talking about at all, but I thought of what a large part money plays in the use of technology, who has it, who uses it and for what purposes. Ultimately, those who have it are in the know and can incoporporate it into their lives, but what about those who do not? What will happen to them?

Monday July 9, 2007

Today was my first session of "Technology in the Classroom". So far we have learned many things, among them we have learned what a blog is and how to create a blog account. We actually got to look at blogs that are already established . While I looked at several, there was one that really stood out to me. This blog was by far my favorite.

This particular blog was set up by a highschool history class. With this American History class, it was the assignment of each student (I'm assuming based off of what I read) to chose an event in 20th century history that directly relates to their life. Each student was then told to interview a family member who had a personal experience with this world event. As part of the students' assignment they were then to show a picture depicting some part of the event and then to describe how the event, while it predominantly affected an elder member of their family, also affects their life. I thought that was such an interesting and technologically advanced way to make history come alive for a classroom full of students who may not have previously had an interest in it. It was a great way to begin and grab the attention of any class!

The website that I looked at and loved was...
http://central.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/americanstudies/