Final course refection

Over the semester in my IT 365 class, I have learned many new and interesting things with technology! This class has taught me that technology can be intergraded into our educational setting and teaching students different things while using technology.  Growing up, the only time we used technology was in our math class in middle school and my teacher used projector to show us how to do math problems.

 In my opinion, I am very tech savvy. I am always on the computer or the internet on my phone. I learned a lot of programs already, throughout the junior college computer applications class. But this class and that class was totally different. In that class, it was mainly access, word, excel and all the boring but important programs.  In this class, I learned things that I am going to use every day in my educational career.  I think my favorite thing that I learned was how to make my own teacher website. This was very important because pretty much any school that you teach at, your principle asks you to make a website for your class.  This introduces you to the parents or guardians and then explains what your expectations and it maybe even include a tentative schedule included in the website.

My weakness in technology is learning one thing and then all of the sudden, it changes.  When technology changes it is always for the best, but it totally confuses me.  Like when they updated the new windows 8 program and added new features that I’ve never seen before.  The only way I feel like I can overcome this weakness is by practicing my technology skills every day.  I can lookup online tutorials and there classes that I can take to overcome my fear of change.

Intergrading technology into my classroom is going to be a breeze now.   After everything I have learned in this class, I have so many good ideas!  For example, I can use Microsoft PowerPoint to create a game similar to “Jeopardy!”  I’ve already found the templates online to download and revise for my classroom and subject.  This is a fun way to practice using a projector and get my students to review important material.  Another way is to do an email exchange; this is where I would encourage the child to send emails to each other. This would help teach them how to write formal letters, how to deal with sentence structure and punctuation and become more comfortable with technology.

My Movie

This week in my IT 365 class, we learned about movie makers. This is a program where you can make your own short movie with different pictures you have downloaded to your computer. This program was under my "start" button on my computer. The first thing you do it add however many pictures you would like to include. In my movie, I included around twelve pictures. I did my movie on my everyday life. I uploaded pictures of my friends, family and boyfriend that I've taken over the years. I added music from my computer that I already had downloaded from iTunes. The song I used was "Small town girl" by Journey. Before submitting my movie, I had to personalize it by adding transition between the slides. This gave the movie a type of animation because every slide was presented differently. I had to save my file in several different formats, which included windows media player for my personal use and as a ".wmv" file because it was recommended for this project by Dr. Parker to be able to open and assess it from her computer.  Making my movie was very easy for me because I have done it before. I am currently making one for my brother since he will be graduating this year. My mom made one for me the year I graduated also. These are very special keepsakes and I'm so glad that we learned how to do them in this class. I can use them in my education career by making one for a "last school day", it would include pictures that I've taken of my kids throughout the school year!

National Educational Technology Standards

1) Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity

Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.

a. Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
b. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources

c. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes

d. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments

2) Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments

Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the Standards•S.

a. Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity

b. Develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress

c. Customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources

d. Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards, and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching

3) Model digital age work and learning

Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.

a. Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations

b. Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation

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

d. Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning

4) Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility

Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices.

a. Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources

b. Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources

c. Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information

d. Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communication and collaboration tools.

5) Engage in professional growth and leadership

Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources.

a. Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning

b. Exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others

c. 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

d. Contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community

(http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers)

Everyday seems to be more and more tech savvy. School districts are leaning more on technology to help teach their students learn different things. Smart boards, I pads, projectors, and computers are all apart of our technology world that help teach our children. I have found a lot of different FREE programs, games, applications to download to help you teach in your classroom. Because we as teachers are so pro-tech, we have to have standards to make sure that we are teaching our students as well as having fun with technology. The standards state that children need to be shown how to use technology to be professional so it could follow them into their adult life, it teaches them to be responsible with the different aspects of technology, it teaches them the digital process of technology, teaches them to design different programs and things for school, and lastly it teaches them to be creative!

Assistive Technology

 

This week in IT 365, we learned about assistive technology. This is important because as a teacher, we have to modify our lessons for students with disabilities. Learning disabilities do not go away with time. However, assistive technology can help children with learning disabilities weight their strengths and work around for specific learning problems. These supports can be key for helping users become more independent in school and throughout life.
The use of technology to enhance learning is an effective approach for many children. Additionally, students with learning disabilities often experience more success when they are allowed to use their abilities to work around their disabilities. Assistive technology tools combine the best of both of these! Assistive technology can address many types of learning difficulties. A student who has difficulty writing can do a school report by dictating it and having it converted to text by special software. A child who struggles with math can use a hand-held calculator to keep score while playing a game with a friend. An older student with dyslexia may benefit from the assistive technology by being able to read aloud his employer's online training manual. All of this will be very helpful when I am a teacher. Assistive technology ties into the NETS second standard; Communication and collaboration. This is where students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

https://docs.google.com/a/eagles.usm.edu/presentation/d/1tf4nXmeLJEr1yPzjJLW6X7vza0v39d7njaeHZJx34S8/edit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

website

This week in our IT 365 class we all learned how to make our very own webpage. How cool is that! Our accounts on Google have the program where we can make the web page for free! Every teacher loves that. It is very easy to make and there are tutorials on how to do it. We acted like we were already classroom teachers and made a web pages for the class that we would want to teach. We included a home page. This page included things like the name of our webpage, introduction to my class and a little introduction for the parents to make them feel comfortable. The next page was my course information. This page included the rules for my class, expectations, materials needed for my class and syllabus for the 9 weeks. My next section included a personal page. Just where I told a little bit about myself so that the parents could get to know me a little bit. The last page included web links to games that might be helpful throughout the year. On that page you could put any kind of web link that your parents or kids could use. This was a great experience to learn in my class. Any school that you go to, you will be pushed to make your own webpage for your class. It's a fun and creative way to get out the important things before the class actually starts. I can say that I will definitely be using this in my teaching career.
 This activity ties into the fifth standard in the NETS, digital citizenship. This is where students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. This ties into it because the students have to be responsible with making a webpage. Anything and everything that goes on the internet is public.   

 https://sites.google.com/a/eagles.usm.edu/getting-crazy-with-ms-lacey-2nd-grade/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Google Presentations

https://docs.google.com/a/eagles.usm.edu/presentation/d/1tf4nXmeLJEr1yPzjJLW6X7vza0v39d7njaeHZJx34S8/edit

Recently in our IT 365 class, we have gone over how to use Google presentations. This tool is very useful for teachers because it is basically PowerPoint. It helps teachers teach things with a visual for the rest of the class. Using Google presentations is more efficient, to me, because you can share the presentation with others using their email. This is useful for teachers because they can share their slideshows with other teachers. It also lets you have to option to let them edit your work. Google presentations are very easy to use as well. There are tutorials to help go through your slides and add and edit the things you want to. You can change the background color, font style and color, add images and videos, edit the layout of the slide, add transformations and you can even add sound to your presentation! This is a great tool for students as well. It is useful for them when they have to have a presentation or a project at school. They can add their teacher and other classmates in the presentation and they can also allow them to edit it how they feel it needs to be edited. I feel like I will definitely use this tool many times when I am a teacher. This ties into the NETS in the 6th standard; technology operations and concepts. We have to teach students how to use this program and how to understand the different ways is can be used.

web tools

This week, in my IT 365 class we learned about web tools.  Web tools are different websites that you can go online and use to make different assignments and things for free! This was a very helpful assignment that we did and I'm glad I have this for the future.

The first thing we created was a online rubric. I went to the website: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php and was able to completely make my own rubric for a classroom project that I came up with. I created my own defined categories that I wanted to grade on. I also changed the point system for each column.

Next, we visited http://quizlet.com and made our own study sheet. We looked up twenty different words that went with our lesson and then defined them. It was very easy to do and you could do various different things with the words and definitions.

We then created an online worksheet. We visited the ABCTeach site http://www.abcteach.com and found a worksheet that we liked for our lesson and printed it out.

Lastly, we made our own crossword for the children to have a game to practice with. I went to http://www.eclipsecrossword.com. It is a fast and easy way to create crossword puzzles. Crossword puzzles encourage logical thinking and strengthens spelling in the classrooms. I've learned a lot of different things from this lesson and can't wait to use them in my teaching later on!
This ties into the NETS 4th standard critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. It ties into that standard because students have to use critical thinking skills to use these different web tools.

turnitin and plagirism

Turnitin is an internet-based plagiarism-prevention website that was originally made in 1997 and hast been very popular ever since.  Typically, high schools and most universities buy licenses to submit writings to the Turnitin website, which checks the documents for unoriginal content. This means that when students upload their work to the website it checks to see if the student used their original work. It shows that they made up all the information by themselves and did not copy and paste from the internet or a book. The results can be used to identify similarities to existing sources or can be used in formative writing to help students learn how to avoid plagiarism and improve their writing. Students may be required by schools to submit essays to Turnitin, as a discouragement to plagiarism. Plagiarism is a huge problem in today’s educational world. It is nothing to play around with because a lot of universities and colleges will kick you out of school for copying someone else’s work. Turnitin is a great computer resource that knocks even the idea of plagiarism out. Being a new upcoming teacher, the last thing I want to worry about is making sure my students aren’t copying each other, therefore I will definitely use turnitin to my advantage! To find out more about Turnitin Company, visit the turnitin.com website and it has more explanations and tutorials on turnitin.
 

Concept mapping reflection

As most of us know, we all learn differently. Some of us are visual and some of us can just learn by hearing. It is very important for us, as teachers, to remember that not everyone is the same. A great example we are learning about in class is concept maps. It is where you have one main topic. Then from that you surround it with different ideas about the main topic. This is a great tool for brainstorming because any age child can do it. Technology has made it to where we can do concept mapping with a pen and paper, but also with computer software.
One of the most popular visual aids for concept mapping is called Inspiration. It is a great program for both the students and the teacher. It gives a step by step guide on opening the program, saving a file on Inspiration, and transferring a file in Inspiration. According to the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers, the teacher must be able to apply technology in their classrooms. These teachers are able to use Inspiration in the classroom and its easy and accessible. Common Core standards also implement technology into lessons, so it is very important that teachers take advantage of the different kinds of computer programs.

Introduction

My name is Lacey Buford. I'm twenty two years old and just transferred from MGCCC where I attended four years... yes, I made it a 4 year college! (Ha) I have changed my mind multiple times on what I wanted to major in and finally stuck with Elementary Education. I think I have always wanted to be a teacher, but always pushed it aside because of the money. Finally, I realized it wasn't all about the money, but about whether you loved what you did or not. I am excited to get these next two years over with and start working in the classroom. I can't wait to make a real difference in a child's life. I eventually would like to get my masters and become apart of administration. Working in administration would be something I would like to do because you can make real changes. There are so many things I would like to change about schools these days. Children need to be excited about school and I think a couple of minor changes would help make that happen!