Spread Sheets and Hypermedia - Reflection 3

7/12/2013 09:10:00 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
First, I hope everyone has survived the flooding! Sadly, it hit my home pretty hard as well as my studies!

I have been using Google Docs (now Google Drive) for a while now. I was introduced to it during my undergrad when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons. My friends and I used it to edit story lines and to keep track of various information.
During my World of Warcraft playing days, the same group of friends used it to keep track of Guild inventory, Darkemoon Faire cards, trinkets, and gear scores for raids. We also had a spread sheet with a ranking system (much like a database!) for various players that we had to pick up for our weekly raids.
Recently, I've been using it for many group projects for the Bachelor's Plus program.
It was really fun teaching myself the inner workings of formulas for the spreadsheets. If you read this, Dr. Nelson, you might want to think about a YouTube video on how to write simple f(x). I had to look some of the stuff up. The videos provided were helpful for everything that I wanted to do, but the functions.

The Google Forms I knew existed, but I wasn't too familiar with it. It's an awesome tool if you are not familiar with Word Document formatting or quick review/quiz set-up. The answer choices are a little limited though. I wanted my students to write in a time period (17th - 18th century), but unless I made the question a fill-in-the-blank, I couldn't really do it. It would have been nice if the date feature just let you type in dates. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a social studies person. Also, the way to get the appropriate date was a little silly and difficult.

I don't really have anything good to say about PowerPoint. I think it is a really dated presentation media for a few reasons. The first is that there are so many differences from version to version and none of them are compatible with each other. It is also super expensive. I'm running 2003 on my laptop and it is so compatible with the newest version that they are two completely different programs. Another huge issue is that it is made by Microsoft, a good company but they also own Internet Explorer, which no one uses anymore even Ashland University. This is a huge compatibility issue for the embedding capabilities of Power Point. I first attempted to finish up the assignment on the school computer, but I had a huge problem with embed codes and Adobe Flash working with outdated Internet Explorer. I talked to some tech people and they informed me that the university would not be updating the plug in for the browser, meaning that anything you try to embed will have an error. This process is completely different than the 2003 embedding. With 2003 you have to know what you are doing, taking out the right pieces of code and pasting it in a tiny little box in a very long list, and then if you use the presentation on another computer, the codes disappear. (Experience from a previous class.) So PowerPoint can be used simply, but there are just too many factors with presentations if they are not kept simple or on the same computer they were created on. With sites like Prezi, it is just becoming obsolete.

Visual Learning and Literacy - Reflection 2

7/05/2013 03:55:00 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
I had a couple of hiccups with the Visual Learning Modules. Firstly, when I was able to sit down and start the modules, I had issues with Angel and couldn't see quite a bit of the information. Secondly, I couldn't bring myself to want to take notes and read the material because I have basically taken a class EXACTLY like this just without the teaching aspect to it. (It's is completely what I have my B.A. in!) but alas I was not able to get credit for the class because we need it for the educator's perspective.
I never thought that a class could be challenging because it was already known information for me.
But, I'll try to stay on topic with what I learned about becoming great visually literate teacher, rather than a visual creator.

Glogster - This is a neat little site, but honestly there is more wrong with it than anything classified as good. Maybe it would be better to say that it isn't "fantastic." But then again, maybe there are more features if you pay for the site? I would rather dress up a wiki page to do the exact same thing.
There may be some margin for error. I looked over and explored as much a I can, but I left that it wasn't up to snuff. They worried more about making their layout look appealing than offering the teacher of student more technology to work with.
1. No html embed. Meaning, if my video isn't from YouTube chances are I can't do anything but up link to the video I want to play. It was nice that I could add a still from the video and then link it. The glog would stay open and all I would have to do is close it when I was done and it would revert back to the presentation glog. Like I said before there may be some error on my part. Maybe I couldn't figure out how to add the html embed.
2. Lack of layouts bothered me. I believe there were 6, and I understand that you could delete everything and start from scratch yourself, but for a teacher that has a limited amount of time (and maybe even know how) this could be a little cumbersome.
3. Instead of replacing the hot pink photo boxes, you have to delete them. They are there for a guideline rather than a replacement, and I think that is just weird. I should have been able to click the photo button and just replaced it, rather than delete and place.

There were some positives though.
1. I liked that there were layouts to choose from.
2. I liked that they gave you placement suggestions.
3. I liked the framing options. Those were really fun to play with.

Overall, I think this has a lot of potential, but for me, it was a difficult assignment because I wanted to be able to do more with my blog, but I couldn't.

Inspiration - I honestly had more fun researching my lesson than creating this design, and that is saying something because I love to design. Because I want to be a Language Arts or English teacher, this was a nice tool for character development webs and theme tables. The only issue I had with the assignment was that I had nothing that I could create a link to because of the lesson I created. I made a lesson on Sherlock Holmes, but I couldn't embed a link to a clip because of copyright with YouTube, and then I couldn't link of something else to link to. I would have liked to have shown a clip for the lesson and probably would have cut the scene from a movie or show (or both!) to emphasize the point.


I honestly probably didn't give this assignment the attention that I should have. Meaning, I could probably have done a lot more with the layout and design. But I did create a new lesson out of it, so that turned out nicely.
I would actually recommend and remember to keep this tool for teaching. This is what it means to teach for Visual Learners!

Overall, I had fun with the overall computer aspect of these assignments, and it was funny because my mom (36 years in teaching!) wanted to see my work, but I was sitting at the kitchen table, frustrated that I couldn't do more. She told me that sometimes I just need to slow down and do things simply. To an extent I think it's true. I shouldn't have to do everything in such a fancy way. So the lesson for more was more about patience.

Hello EDCI 505 - Reflection 1

6/24/2013 02:40:00 AM Edit This 1 Comment »
WOW I haven't used this site in a while! It was really hard just getting into my old blog because the email address doesn't work anymore!


How is everyone liking the class so far? I've always been an active person on the internet, so it is very interesting to see some of these concepts like social media and classroom technology from an educator's point of view.

I run a blog over on Tumblr. (Fantastic site!) I have read some things that blogs like this aren't really the "fad" anymore. For Module three, I did some research on my go-to site, and found that it was the second most visited social media site back in 2011 and since has been usurped by Twitter, but is still in third place. Just from the changes with Google and what they have done to Blogger, I'm not to engrossed with the layout of this site. It could be because I'm not used to it, but I definitely like the simplicity of Tumblr better. Anyone frequent there?

Anyway, back to the point... It is interesting seeing blogging through an educator's point of view. This is my last education class before I start student teaching, so I have a lot to work with when it comes to ideas for my classroom, and since I'm pretty good with tech, I can't wait to use a lot of it with my students.

We just finished up Module 3, and it was interesting to think about some of those sites could be used for education. I remember in intro ed I really wanted to make a tumblr just for the awesome /random you could add at the end of your blog. I like the thought of having my students do bell/journal work, and I thought that the /random would really be a good way to make sure prompts were well random! I also like to think about ways for the students to be able to have materials at their fingertips, whether it be on a tablet or on a computer. They wouldn't need to be in the classroom or even at school to access the materials. My friends and I play D&D (dungeons and dragons) and to keep all the storylines straight and character information correct, we use Dropbox. All of our character sheets and maps get put in there and then we can access them during the game or at home. After having this technology, I thought about what it would have been like if I had it back in high school, and it is something that I really want to offer my students. It would benefit kids who were absent and kids who are just forgetful.

Has anyone else come up with a really cool idea to use a technology in their classroom?