Rollercoasters?

I love rollercoasters. Actually, it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I was brave enough (and subjected to enough peer pressure) to ride my first rollercoaster. I hated it. However, my second rollercoaster was amazing and now I am constantly thinking about the next time I can travel to Busch Gardens, VA to ride another rollercoaster. Basically, I love rollercoasters.

However, the past three weeks in this class has taken me on an interesting rollercoaster ride. I have always considered myself to be pretty tech-savvy, but this class has required me to complete assignments that were beyond my skill level. Of course I don't see this as a negative thing, but it was definitely a rollercaoster or stress and joy.

This week has been especially trying as I have worked with my partner on our webquest. The week started out great as we came up with the great idea to create a webquest all about weather. Our idea was to make the webquest part of center time so that students would work on it a little bit each day. My partner and I were both very excited about the idea.

Fast forward to the end of the week - we just finished and turned in our webquest. This is the most relief I've felt in a while. It has been stressful to pay attention to all the seemingly minor details (like links to every page on every page) of the webquest. The perfectionist in me especially had difficulty as we worked to make the site look great.

All in all, I'm glad I went through the stress because we ended up with a great product. And that is what I have seen happen every week during summer school - stress leading to a finished product. The greatest thing I will take from this class is perseverance. I have learned even more about technology and how to use it in my classroom because I was willing to fight through the stress and confusion to make it to the final product.

I can see myself creating a website for my classroom, using Microsoft Access to keep track of my students' information, and using Kidspiration software to help my students better understand a complex topic. I also have a better understanding of how to evaluate software and websites so that I may use appropriate technology in my classroom.

So while the past three weeks haven't been the thrilling, breath taking rollercoaster ride like Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens, they have have an interesting ride with a fantastic and practical conclusion.

Just Figure it Out!

I think the best way to learn technology is to dive right in. It's like when I used to work at The Children's Place - during my first week, the manager informed me that the best way for me to learn to use the register was for her to leave me there alone and let me sweat. Indeed, the best way to learn about a new technology is to try to make it do what you want it to do on your own. I feel like this allows an individual to experience random abilities of the software that would never be discovered through a generic tutorial. This week I learned a new software by using a tutorial, and I learned how to do something new on software that is very familiar to me.

This week I was asked to use Microsoft Access, a database software. I didn't even know that this existed, much less the fact that it was on my computer, but now that I have used it for simple purposes, I think I will be taking of it more often. My assignment for the week was to create a database of information on my "future students" and then use that information to create mailing labels. Following a tutorial, this was a ridiculously easy task to accomplish. After going to class and hearing more of an explanation of what can be done through Access, I believe I will be taking the time to dive in and learn more about the program and how it can be used in my classroom.

This week I was also asked to create a gradebook in Microsoft Excel and then create a lesson using Microsoft Excel. This was no problem for me - I work for a professor in the English department at Meredith, and great portion of my job involves setting up and recording grades in the Excel gradebook. However, for this assignment I was also asked to create a graph. Of course, I know how to create a graph in Excel - no problem - but I can get picky about things, and I wanted the names of each assignment to be labeled on the x-axis of my graph. This is difficult to do when the labels for the assignments are ten rows above the highlighted rows for the graph. I spent hours messing with Excel in order to try and figure out how to label the assignments on my graph. I learned even more about Excel than I thought I knew! So I was glad to be provided with the opportunity to use Excel, a very familiar program, in a way that was new to me. (By the way - I ended up calling my dad to ask him how to label the assignments - apparently he's an Excel genius).

Another familiar assignment to me this week was a software evaluation. In a previous class I was asked to use prefabricated software evaluations to write up an evaluation of a piece of software. Therefore, this assignment was familiar but different. It was interesting to create my own evaluation instrument - I had to look through different eyes as I considered exactly what attributes I would be looking for in a piece of quality software.

Whew, this is a lot of writing - and it's pretty dry writing at that. I think all of my creativity gets sucked into my computer assignments, but don't get me wrong - I love creating them! The three assignments I worked on this week can be of great use to me in my classroom. Access will help me to organize student information and call it up for various reasons (I know that is vague - I just feel like there are SO many uses for a database). I had never considered actually using Excel in a lesson before this week. I see that it could be an excellent way to provide students with an easy visual through a chart. I believe this can lead to great discussions and ideas in the classroom. Finally, software evaluations will continue to keep the quality of software in the front of my mind as I consider how the children will use the computer in my classroom. I feel as though I know have a greater understanding and idea of the variety of uses of different softwares in the classroom.

Introducing: The Bionic Teacher

This week I have worked with a number of different technologies in ways that would be useful for my class. One new thing that I learned this week was how to use Photo Story. I have used Windows Movie Maker before, but I thought that using Photo Story was a more simple way to create a slideshow that could be used in the classroom. I could see myself using Photo Story in my classroom to create a class story - it would be great to scan the children's artwork into the computer and have them narrate their story. After combining all the stories, this could be a "class book" that the children had the option of viewing on the computer. I think this would be a fun activity for the children and a different way to participate in an author's chair at the end of writing workshop.

This week I was also asked to create a resume and cover letter using a template from Microsoft Word. I have already created a resume without using a template on Microsoft Word, and I preferred my original resume to the one I created with a template. I thought the template created more difficulty in formatting as it only allowed room for a certain number of sections, and adding new sections proved to be slightly challenging.

Overall, I have spent a great amount of time this week working with different technologies that can be used in my classroom. I am already thinking of great ideas to use Kidspiration to help the children in my classroom organize a story before writing. They may then use Microsoft Word or Publisher to create their own flyers to promote the viewing of our class book made through Photo Story. The more I think about this idea, the more I like it. I look forward to learning and thinking about more ways to use technology in my classroom.