Reaction to Week Three

Week Three Voicethread Reaction

During the voice thread Dr. West discussed communication. I enjoyed reading all the students comments on how they communicate with their professors and peers. Many said they communicated to their professors through email. I agree, I like to communicate with my professors through email too. You can really get a fast response. I enjoy being able to shoot my professor an email at before bed and have it answered by the time I wake up. A lot of people said that they enjoy communicating with their peers through text messaging, facebook, on the phone, and webcam.

I think as teacher, I would like to try to make myself as available as possible to my students. I want to especially be available by email because that can be a very convenient method of communication. I also want to be available over the phone, facebook, webcam, and text. I want my students to be able to access me any through any method they find convenient.

I feel that websites for classes are really valuable for students to. It allows them to access the syllabus, their reading assignments, and homework assignments whenever they need it. I also plan to post my lecture slides on my website. I feel like it is important to do this so students can focus more on listening and taking supplementary notes during the lecture instead of copying down the lecture slides.

Since I will soon be a teacher, I decided to find websites and blogs that will help become a good teacher. One thing that I think will be difficult about being a teacher is preparing lessons. I have already prepared lessons in an education class I am taking and I have found that lesson preparation can be very time-consuming. I was able to find a website though that should help me prepare lessons faster. That site is Classroom Lesson Plans: Helping Teachers Teach History.

I expect that classroom management is something I will struggle with. For that reason I found multiple sites that discuss classroom management strategies. Those sites are Effective Classroom Management, My Classroom Management, and Top Five Classroom Management Strategies.

I also found some other websites that should just help me in general as a teacher. Those websites are So You Want To Teach, Teach Effectively, and TeacherTube. TeacherTube in particular, looked like an interesting website to keep up to date on. TeacherTube basically posts videos that gives teachers ideas of how they can teach better and ideas of lessons. One of the videos I looked at even was on how to incoporate technology into the classroom.

I am minoring in Computer Science Teaching as well so I wanted to find a website on how to teach Computer Science. I found Computer Science Teacher. This is a blog written by a man who taught Computer Science for 8 years. In it, he gives advice to other Computer Science teachers. I think this site should be particularly helpful because the education classes I am taking have mostly been focusing on how to teach history instead of how to teach my minor Computer Science.

I am subscribing to one of my group member's blogs. The other person in my group doesn't have their blog link on the classroom website. I am also subscribed to my sister's blog and my parents blog.

Technology background and goals

I have am familiar with PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Open Office, and Prezi. I also feel fairly comfortable writing simple computer programs using Java. I learned a fair amount about Java last semester when I took an introductory computer programming course.

I would like to learn more about how to use Microsoft Excel. I have used Excel before but I would like to become more comfortable and familiar with it. I would like to learn all I can during this class. I hope to be able to use what I learn in my future classroom.

Starting blogging

I used several things to personalize my blog. I have one text widget just below the title explaining what my blog is about. I have also included I put a picture of myself, a poll, blogs I am interested in following, and websites I use. I made the theme of my blog learning technology because I will be using this blog to record my experiences learning about technology. I have also used labels.