Week 15 - Using Games for Teaching and Learning

In this lesson we learned about incorporating games into the classroom for students to learn on. Students get bored in lectures and often stop paying attention because of that. By giving them a game to learn instead of a lecture it makes them become interested and want to play the game and thus learn.

This is of course very important information for teachers. Using games to learn is an easy way to grab a child's attention. The more they enjoy the lesson the more they will be paying attention and the more they will take away from the lesson. Games are very important to try to incorporate in a classroom, especially on things that may be hard to understand or frustrating for students.

This website is a wiki that contains information on learning games. The link provides all kinds of games that students can learn different concepts on. I find this site very interesting because most of them sound very fun and I am tempted to try a couple out, it is nice to know that if I do I should be learning something from them.

Week 14 - Distance Education and Virtual Schooling

This lesson taught us about distance education and virtual schooling. Many people chose to go to school online for various different reasons. It is more convenient as you can access it anywhere that has a computer. This type of education also helps save money on gas and for many mothers it may help cut costs on babysitters as seen in this movie from the class website:

This is something that teachers should know about. The more distance education becomes popular the more teachers jobs will change. If less students are in the classroom and are online instead it will lead to teachers having to resort to teaching online or not teach at all due to lack of need for classroom teachers.

I found this website online which has a lot of information on distance education including schools offering it and degrees available. One thing I found very interesting was that in their list of popular courses the very first one is a Spanish course. I always knew that a lot of people were trying to learn Spanish, but it came as a shock to me that it would be quite so popular.

In this lesson we learned about web presence and how to have one. We had a web presence activity to accompany this lesson  where we made a website that gave information on our background, resume, and projects that we have done.

This is useful to teachers because parents want to know who the person is that is teaching their students. By supplying them with a brief explanation through something like this they can quickly see what you are about and that you are qualified for the job (by your resume).

When searching this topic I mostly found information on business web presence, but I think in a way it applies to normal people as well. One website gave a list of 5 reasons why web presence was important for a business. Reason 5 was credibility. As I explained in my previous paragraph, I think it's important that parents know why you are qualified to be teaching their children and therefore it applies both ways.

Week 12 - Social Tools and Cloud Computing

In this lesson we learned about cloud computing which is using a sever-based application as a server instead of using a specific platform.With this lesson we did a project on Delicious to help up understand it. This website allows you to save bookmarks all on your own page so if you are not at home you can go there and find them all. Or if you want to set up a page to give out to people with important links that is possible to.

I think that this is very useful for teachers. There are always links that parents or students should be going on and by having a very easy to find list of all of the important ones it will hopefully push them to be more likely to view them all. It's also easier for oneself as a teacher as well. There will probably be many websites I myself need to use and having them in one place would be very simple and easy.

I found this video on cloud computing on youtube. I think it does a good job explaining cloud computing. It got my attention at least and had me curious. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it spoke of cloud computing that you have to pay a monthly subscription for which takes away the benefit of "free" a little.

Week 11 - Open Source Software

This week we learned about open source software programs which are programs that do similar/ the same thing that paid programs do but for free. One example we learned about in class was Open Office which is a open source version of Microsoft Office.

This is great for my field because teachers have to use computers a lot. Programs such as Microsoft Office are very expensive so this helps cut the cost of the ones available through open source. In addition, students who can not afford these programs will be able to get similar versions through Microsoft so they don't have to accept a bad grade for simply not having the required materials to do the task.

I went on the internet to search for what other open source softwares that are available and it brought me to a list on wikipedia. I could not believe how many things were on this list and that I did not know about them before. There are all kinds of open source softwares available dealing with all kinds of different things from finance to typing to bible study. I will have to try out a couple of these, I am very interested to see how they work for me. 

Week 10 - No class Spring Break

podcast

Here is my podcast.

Podcasting can be very useful. It can be used for many things, but I would probably be more inclined to use it as a teacher than anything else. I think it can come in handy for teachers because text is often hard to understand the tone of, but with sound files it's much easier to convey the tone you are intending.

Week 9: podcasting

This week we learned about podcasts which are podcasts. These are sound files that are saved as mp3 files. We learned how to make these on the MAC computers in the computer lab.

Something I found interesting while searching about podcasts was that MSNBC makes news podcasts for people on the go. You can find these here. I found this very interesting and useful for those who are not home but still have one that they would like to listen to.

I think that this is useful for teachers to know about. If I ever want to record something for my students in the future this will definitely come in handy.

Weeks 8 & 10: no class

Week 7: Visual literacy

This week we continued learning about visual literacy. We continued working on our photoshop projects and we were introduced to Animoto and iMovie.

One thing I found very interesting while searching for things about Animoto is that you can make these videos from your iPhone. I found about it on this website. To me this shows just how far we are coming in the world and I find it very interesting that I could do these things on the go if I had an iPhone.

This will be useful as a teacher because slide shows are a great way to present information to kids. It is more interactive than just a dry lecture, so I think it's a beneficial thing for all future teachers to learn.

Week 6: Media and Information Literacy

This week we learned about the meaning of visual literacy which is understanding information that is presented in pictures. In this lesson we learned how visual literacy is helpful and important. We also learned how to use photoshop in order to be able to use it in the future.

I found this website which is helpful for teachers who want to use visual literacy. The website explains what visual literacy is and gives examples of it. My favorite part of it the books recommended for students that give good examples of visual literacy.

I think that visual literacy is extremely important in my future career. As an elementary school teacher, I will be presenting students with many many pictures to try to help them learn different concepts. It is important that these be presented to them so that they can better understand concepts.