So today is our last day of class and I just wanted to write this blog to reflect on all that we have done this year. I'm thinking back to our first assignment the Picassa web album and how hard it seemed at the time and now I just laugh. I thought I was pretty tech savvy, but there was so much that this class taught me. I'm pretty sure I won't use everything we did in this class, but there are some things that I will definitely use such as Google Docs. I love Google Docs because since we were introduced to that I have sworn off powerpoint. It is so much easier to use Google Docs because you don't have to carry around a flash drive and hope that your presentation works. Google Docs is right on the Internet. I also love it because in powerpoint you have to use their boring templates while in Google Docs yo can customize the backgrounds. I also really like Google Earth because that can definitely be used in the classroom to teach Geography. This class really opened up my eyes to all that we can teach our students through technology. Not only that, but it has made me realize how important teaching our students how to use technology will benefit them in the long run. We may not be that reliant on computers now, but we will be and it is great that there are classes like this to help educate the educators. There were so many more things that I learned from this class then I have time to list so I'll just sign off being thankful that I took this class.

Webquest

Yeah my webquest is done!!! Whew that was a lot of work!! I don't know how people can go around creating them all the time because doing one is exhausting! I am happy with it though. I do feel that it is definitely a project-based learning task. I think that webquests are a little ridiculous for second grade and under because I think that it would be their parent that would doing it not them. My project involves a lot of research, but I think that the way it is implemented is fun. I felt very overwhelmed when this was assigned as our final, but I really appreciate having so much time to do it. Now that it is finished, I don't think that it was hard, but it is extremely time consuming. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's webquests so I can hopefully use them in the future.

PBL

So I just received my grade for my project-based learning paper. I re-read it and it got my thinking again how fantastic project based learning is. Teachers need to learn new ways of teaching their students. The old methods of teaching need to change and there has been a lot of changed, but there needs to be more. Technology is going to become an even more vital part of our society then it already is and we must prepare our students for that future. I truly believe that it is beneficial for students to work in groups because many students are afraid to talk with the teacher so working with their peers will help them learn. I hope to spread the word about it because I feel that it is so essential for the students today. Technology needs to be taught because a lot of the old teaching is not going to be used in the near future. Students need technology in order to get jobs and function in this ever-changing society.

Professional Website

I have to be honest the day that we were assigned the website I felt sick because I was so overwhelmed. It seemed like creating a website was so much to complete in a week. When I actually sat down to do it I realized that Google sites makes it really easy! At first I was thinking that there was no way I could incorporate this into an elementary school classroom, but when I saw how easy it was I realized that I could. It was also a good project because we new have a professional website in which we can actually used to get us a job. Learning this skill obviously prepared us for our Webquest which definitely is something that we can incorporate into any of our classrooms.

Commercial

So I now saw that we are supposed to complete ten blogs in this semester so I decided that I will reflect on some of the activities that we did this semester. I really enjoyed the commercial that we completed on copyright. We decided to do one on pirating videos. It was inspired by those pirating commercials that we see in front of most of the DVD's we buy at the stores. Even though it was fun it made the information stick which was really helpful. I think it will help me in the long run and keep me out of trouble. I sort of wish that we used Animoto instead of Jumpcut because we had a lot of problems with it. We did the almost the whole commercial in class and then it only saved half of it and throughout the rest of the process we had problems getting it to save right. The other thing that I liked about Animoto better was that it looked cooler because they animated it for you. All in all it was a fun assignment.