Final Reflection

It has been good to take this class to prepare me to be a better teacher. I feel like one of the most valuable things I have learned to do was create a class website. I would also like to learn, in the future, how to post grades in a secure way so students and parents could monitor how they are doing. If the school I go to does not already provide grades that parents can access on-line I might look into figuring out how to do that. I have also appreciated learning how to convert video files as well as create multimedia projects. I plan on using the more basic types of technology in my everyday classroom use like power point, song clips and movie clips. I think some of the best ways to make classroom learning active with technology is through using wikis.

Favorite Assignment

I really liked how my video turned out. It's not Hollywood quality or anything but I consider pretty watchable. I was really glad that I was able to learn how to use iMovie and I appreciated being able to really produce something.

Here is the URL for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgDmL5TQsaI

Wikispace

Contributing to the wikispace was super easy. I just clicked on the appropriate links and added my information. It was really simple. The links I added were "Effective Teaching" and "Erin Anderson's Lesson Plan." I added my lesson plan under the social studies section under HSSocialStudiesLesson under Adventure Learning. I added the effective teaching link under Social Studies and under High School Social Studies Blog and Personal Learning Network and Resouces.

Here is the URL for my lesson plan:
http://k12instructionaltechnology.wikispaces.com/Erin+Anderson%27s+lesson+plan

Here is the URL for my PLN blog:
http://k12instructionaltechnology.wikispaces.com/facultyfocus

I think wikispace cold be used in teaching in lots of ways. It could be used for group projects. A teacher could set up a space about a certain topic and then split that topic into 3 subtopics for each member of the group to make a page on their subtopic. Then the members of the group could edit eachothers' pages and help eachother. A wikispace could also be used to help students share notes in an organized way in order to study for a test. This may be more appropriate for High School students who need to study more intensly. Using wikispaces would probably make learning more fun for students. It is also a great way for students to collaborate with each other.

Internet Safety Teaching

I decided to teach a child I know about internet safety. He is only 8 though so I didn't want to go into details about the dangers of the internet because I didn't want to give his innocent mind ideas about finding bad things on the internet. He also has a slight learning disability so I didn't want to overwhelm him or confuse him.

I started the conversation by asking him how he has used the internet before. He told me that he had used the computer before with his mom to look up information about Hitler. We talked about how Hitler was a bad guy and that it was neat that you could use the internet to learn more about him. After that I told him that sometimes there are bad things on the internet that we don't want to see. I told him that if he ever saw a bad thing on the internet to go tell his mom. Then we kept talking about Hitler and he showed me a yo-yo trick. Then my husband entered the room and I asked the little boy if he could tell my husband what he is supposed to do if he sees anything bad on the internet. He said "tell somebody." I was glad that he could remember that.

I know that I learned a lot more and could have lectured to the boy I was teaching for a longer time about all the things I learned, but I felt like it was more important to teach him one solid thing that he might be able to remember and use. Overall, I think it went well.

Internet Safety Research

First off, I want to say thanks for being flexible about how much reading vs video watching was expected. I enjoyed being able to spend the majority of my hour and a half reading.

Before beginning this assignment, I thought I was pretty well versed in internet safety. Reading articles and watching videos on internet safety though, I have learned that there are a lot of neat ideas of ways to be more safe on the internet. I feel that I have learned to keep computers in a high traffic area of the home. I have also learned that it is a good idea to use larger, more reputable search engines instead of small ones to avoid getting links to inappropriate sites as much as possible. Children and adults can bookmark websites they use so they don't accidently open an inappropriate page. Another way to avoid inappropriate material on the internet is through using a filter as well as installing pop-up blockers. Adults can also check and empty the history of an internet browser at regular intervals. By checking and emptying the history every Tuesday evening, parents will be able to know if their children have emptied the browser on their own to hide that they have been to any questionable websites.

One thing that I considered while reading the articles and watching the videos was that parents can play a big role in keeping their children safe on the internet. Parents can decide where the computer is placed. They can also install pop-up blockers and web filters. They can also check history as well as teach their children about what is appropriate.

However, as much as parents can do, parents need to be careful to not make their children feel accused. I knew a family that initially did not have a web filter. When the parents decided to put a web filter on the family computer, the teenage son felt insulted. The son felt that his parents did not trust him with the internet. I feel that parents do have a lot they can do to protect their children, but they must do so sensitively so as not to hurt their children.

Innovative Instruction Competition

I think I liked Amy and Beth's project best. I really enjoyed that they made sure that they focused on having students learning how to really write and not just learning tools disconnected from actually writing. I especially liked that they used Mighty Authors in order to allow students to publish their own books. When I visited a charter school, Walden, there was an English class that had their students create their own books. The students seemed really proud of their work. I think that it is great for students to be able really create something and to feel that they are good at something.

Overall it was neat to see all the different projects. I was able to see how beneficial technology can be for students. Students can really learn better through some technologies. I felt that teachers do need to be careful to not overwhelm their students with technology, but I saw a ton of technology that could be really helpful for students.

iMovie

So I have decided that I really enjoy I movie and it is actually really easy to use once you get the hang of it. I made my movie for the innovative instruction competition last night. It was my first time using iMovie and it was really fun and not too had. I made about a 4 minute video and it took a while but it was fun.

Here is the url to my video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTENUBMV0ew

I learned a couple of things that I thought I would share:

1. To upload the video to youTube you click share and then click youTube. You have to get a youTube account. That is pretty easy too. You just go to youTube and click account. Then you can pick a user name and use your google account to make the youTube account. Then once you put your youTube account into iMovie, iMovie pretty much does the rest.

2. To insert text, click the "T" button in the bottom right quadrant. That will give you a variety of options. Hover over the options and you will see what the text does. Click and drag the option you like right onto one of your images in the upper left quadrant. That will put the text on that slide. Then you can change the color, outline and size of your text by clicking the "text" button on the toolbar.

3. Inserting audio from freeplaymusic is really easy. You just have to go to freeplaymusic and download your clip. Once it is downloaded you go to your downloads and double click it to make sure it plays in iTunes. This will assure you that your clip is saved in iTunes. Then you should be able to click the button that looks like two 8th notes in the lower right quadrant. That should display your iTunes music. Simply select the music file you want and then drag it to the image you want it to start playing at.

Anyway, I learned a bunch of other stuff too, but those were perhaps the aspects that gave me the most trouble. iMovie was a really fun program to work with and I feel like I am much more open to making movies in the future since now I know how the technology works.