Class Reflection

In all, I enjoyed this class. I enjoyed the people, the assignments (most of them), and I enjoyed the teacher. I am very appreciative to have had Mrs. Rawls as my instructor because I have heard some horror stories about this class. I have really gained a lot of information that I could use in my classroom one day and will be emploring them. Before I took this class, I knew very little about technology. I was scared to use it and couldn't tell you what education has to do with technology. Now I know all these things and applaud Mrs. Rawls' exemplary job in letting us know tools are available to us. Thank You!

Assignment 8- Turnitin

This assignment was very interesting. With the Turnitin assignment, we had to go to a designated webpage and copy/paste that information to the turnitin website for review. The turnitin software scans assignments for plagiarism. This site would be very useful the secondary education but may be a little too advanced at the elementary level. The only complication I had was having to resubmit my summary that I wrote. This is because it would not let me resubmit it because I had already turned something in for that assignment. I think this shows that you have to practice with technology before you actually assess it.

Assignment 7- My Movie Story

The My Movie Story was probly my favorite assignment so far this semester. I relly enjoyed being able to put movement and music to memeories that I had during a trip to New York with my family. The tool was very easy to use and did not set too many limits on what you were and weren't able to do. I would love to use this tool in my classroom to present maybe a history lesson or steps on how to complete a science experiment.

Assignment 5- Lesson Plan

As future teachers, it is important for us to know how to write a lesson plan. It is also intricle that we know how to write a lesson plan that incorporate technology. On this lesson plan assignment, we were to take a pre-made lesson and change it so that it used technology. In my lesson plan, I used the inspiration software, internet, and smart boards. I just hope that when i have my own room, I will have all of this software available to me. This was not my favorite assignment, but I did enjoy it.

Assignment 6- Assistive Technology

For the assistive technology assignment, we had a guest speaker come to our class and talk about software that helps students with visual, motor, and cognitive impiarments. Not only did the speaker tell us about this software, but he also demonstrated it for us and gave us free demos of them. My favorite was the screen reader. I know a student at USM who is blind and uses a screen reader. It is inspiring to see this software in real-life application and I enjoyed this assignment.

Assignment 4- Web Page

What a frustrating assignment! I have never known technology to be so difficult. With this web page assignment, I ran into so many problems that by the time I was finished, I was so irritated that I did not even care what grade I would end up with. When I have my own classroom, I would love to have a class website that students and parents could use. I do know, however, that I will not use the Google page creator tool because of the difficulties that I ran into. No matter how much of a headache this assignment gave me, I enjoyed working on it and seeing that technology can sometimes get the best of its creator.

Assignment 3- Web Tools

As we all know, teachers do not make enough money to provide to their students the best materials. On the Web Tools assignment, we were prompted to go to websites and create free activities for students. We had to make a web note, puzzle, quiz, and worksheet. I enjoyed this assignment becuase, without it, I would not have known that we had all these tools available to us free of charge. Free is a good thing, especially for a teacher!

Assignment 2- Web Resource Evaluation

It is very important for future teachers to have a database of ideas, lessons, and resources. In the web resource evaluation assignment, we were instructed to find five websites that supported our study. In my study I chose classroom organization. I found five websites that I decided to support this study. You can find links to these websites at the bottom of my blog. I enjoyed this assignment because it allowed me to see all the different (and free) resources available to me.

Assignment 1- Concept Mapping

To make a concept map, we used Inspiration software. I really enjoyed this assignment because it was user-friendly and very easy to use. I plan on using this tool in my classroom one day to help students arrange ideas and visually represent those ideas.