13th Blog

  I enjoyed the interactive power point project. It was good to play around with it, and figure out what goes where for the slides to make since. I made a jeopardy type game on history. If I had more time I would have gone into more detail with the game. I would have added more columns and maybe even a video or two to give them more information on that subject. I struggled a little bit on using the actions in shape forms. For example, instead of writing home and having it go to the main screen, I tried just using a picture of a house, but I couldn't get it to work for some reason.
  I will more than likely use this in my future classroom to help them study before their test or even if they just need more practice. It would be fun to split my class into teams and have them compete with one another. Maybe even to make it more competitive, I would have a surprise for the winning team.

10th Blog

  I really like the ALEX site. This is going to be very helpful when I become a teacher. There are so many lesson plans that actually stick to the standards of Alabama. Also, as an elementary teacher I will be teaching multiple subjects to one class, so the fact that ALEX has many different areas of study is very beneficial. Not only do they have lesson plans, but they also have podcasts you can listen to with teachers and even students teaching and talking about the lesson play they used.
  If you go to the ALEXville tab, you can communicate with other teachers using the website and those that are doing the same lesson plan as you. It doesn't just give you Alabama standards but college standards as well. This helps prepare your students for their future. I also like how you can save lesson plans to your workshop. That way if you don't need to teach it right now, you can save it for a later day. The lesson plans also tell you the tools you are going to need, in order for you to teach this lesson to your students.

9th Blog

  My students got the answers correct very easily. If I was their teacher, I would think that I made this video to easy for them. With the questions being right after the video gave the answer, it was a given. I would give them a questionnaire on the video, to see if they actually retained the information, and have an activity ready for them to do. Maybe make a mask they think the people would wear during the medieval times or have them make a pumpkin by using orange candy blocks.

8th Blog

  As a teacher, I plan on talking about a holiday that is happening each month. Whether that be Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, etc. Since we are in the month of October, I thought to teach the history of Halloween. This makes a fun history lesson for students, while also getting them excited to go Trick or Treating. I really enjoyed how many videos EDPuzzle had to choose from. It took a lot longer than planned to choose a fun, but interesting video. I wanted to teach the students but also make them have fun with it. I chose a video that was upbeat, had music, and good graphics.

  I learned that I should have probably made the questions a bit further away from when he said the answer, rather then right after. That way the student would at least have had to think and remember the video. This would be such a fun lesson for a class though! 

7th Blog

   This group project was a lot of fun! It was a bit difficult trying to coordinate our schedules so we could edit and video all together, but I think it turned out good. We were all very aware of each others schedules. Most of us worked, had kids, or had class on days one of us would be available. We knew what our video was going to be about in the beginning, but as we got more into it, we realized that this video was actually taking a different turn. Instead of making a video about non-traditional vs. traditional classrooms it ended up being about traditional teaching compared to non-traditional teaching with art integration. 

    I learned a lot about how I want to teach my classroom. I know that kids learn in a variety of ways and I want to be able to incorporate each way of learning in my room. If a child is a visual learner, then I will have lessons that apply to them, or if they are a hands on learner, I want to have experiments or class activities to help them fully comprehend what I am teaching. I also, really enjoyed watching other groups videos in class. It was neat to see how people had the same topic, but approached it in different ways. 

6th Blog

  I learned a lot from the video. We, as college students, are multi-taskers because we have to be. We go to class but do not fully focus on the lecture, we may be doing homework for another class, or we may be browsing online because the classes do not keep our attention. Many of the times I will go to class, but only 35 out of 75 are not there. College students loose interest in class lectures rather easily due to the fact that the teacher does not engage their students or the class is just uninteresting.
  As a future teacher, I will be sure to engage my students. I want to make my class fun and exciting to learn new things. I also would set aside homework time and let my students get an early start so they can ask me any questions they may have and have more time to be kids and enjoy time at home. I want to use everything I can to help teach my students, and use many different ways so that my students will learn and always be engaged in the classroom.
  I feel that in elementary, teachers want to do anything and everything they can to keep the students engaged so they won't become distracted or disinterested. Yet, once they hit high school and college  it is as though we are expected to sit there for an hour or more and listen to the teacher ramble on without involving us or using techniques to make the lecture interactive. I think that we would learn so much better and more quickly if teachers would make the effort and engage us in class rather than expect us to sit here and listen because that is what we are expected to do.

5th Blog

  I really enjoyed the guest speaker on Tuesday. The videos he showed us about how to use a smartphone made me feel a bit less stressed about this class. I was so worried that none of my videos would turn out right because I do not have access to video cameras or special lighting. He explained how to use a smartphone rather easily and not too technical. I didn't realize how much went into videos until he explained what to use. I thought I knew a bit about making movies and videos, but I was completely wrong.
   I really liked learning about the use of light and how harsh certain light can be. I didn't realize that you would want shadows on the subjects face. By using a key light, and fill light to get the right look on a camera, really changes the way a subject looks for an interview or solo scene in a video. I'm very excited to start our group video project and use the techniques I learned from the guest speaker.

4th Blog

  I really enjoyed the video. I think using videos in a classroom as a form of education would be beneficial to each student. Instead of students having to keep up at a certain pace of the teacher, those that area little bit slower can learn the same information but at their speed. Growing up and still to this day, if I do not understand something the teacher has gone over, I will look it up online to see how to do the problem so I can master the lesson.
  This has really helped me decide what I want to do in my future classroom. I would like to either find links or make my own videos to help students go back and review so that way if there wasn't enough time in the class, they would be able to go and look at my page so they would not fall behind. I think this would also be beneficial to those that miss class. They are able to review what we learned and can come in the following day and ask any questions.

3rd Blog Post

   Creating a free app trailer for class was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm not a very tech-savvy person, so I struggled a little bit a long the way. There is a lot more details that went into it than I initially had planned. Trying to get the music playing just at the right moments were hard, but that was fun to play around with. My favorite part was using the music engine, audacity. I enjoyed messing with that and trying to make new sounds. Also, making the video flow nice and smoothly was difficult because you have all of these different slides, music, and clips that need to be shown  in a neat and orderly manner.
    I learned a lot of new techniques I would like to use in my future classroom. I would really like to try and make a trailer possibly for the beginning of the year, so the students can have a fun way of knowing what the school year has in store for them. It would also be fun, to have a project day with students where they could help me put together an end of the year trailer just about them. We could then invite some of the teachers that will be teaching them that following year as a preview for the future students they will have that fall. This project has made me excited and has given me new ideas for my future classroom.
 

Blog Post 2

  Watching the video, Do Schools Kill Creativity, had me thinking a lot about the schools I went to. Our schools put such a strong focus on core academics, but don't think about letting the child put his or her spin on it. We are taught certain ways to do school work and follow these certain guidelines in order for us to receive a good grade, but no where does it let us be unique and true to ourselves. The arts program in schools are not considered to be as of equal value as the mathematics or sciences. If you want to have a degree in the arts, then you are told "you'll never find a job" or "that's a waste of money". Why can't we think of art, music, or dance the same way we think of math and language? We should be encouraging those who want to pursue an arts degree instead of degrading them.
    If you go into schools today, you will see bright, lively classrooms that want children to be themselves, but if you sit in these classrooms and observe, everyone is expected to be the same. Everyone must write the same, act the same, or even dress the same. We are not giving our children the chance to be creative and do something that is unique to them. Our schools are killing imagination and creativity. When a teacher asks the students questions, there should be no right or wrong answers. The child's answer is their opinion, and we should not squadron their ideas. We need to be there for the children with open arms, welcoming their creativity and using it to their advantage.

Blog Post 1

       As I watched the video, Reimaging Technology, I realized how much of our technology in education is just normal, classic teaching but in a digital form. This is exactly how technology was used in my classes growing up. The technology was not used to help students that were falling behind  to succeed or to improve the schools test scores . It was just to show us a different form of teaching. But, if schools were to use the advances in technology to their students advantage, then our students could succeed in all aspects of learning and actually understand the lessons better rather than learning without technology.
       This video has taught me a lot about what I want to do in my future classroom. Each student is different and special in their own way, but the traditional form of teaching does not meet each students needs. Using technology in my classroom will help me make sure that each student has a chance to succeed without falling behind their peers. Also, this will provide a variety of ways for students to learn. Some children learn better by listening and doing their work on their own, while others retain more information by reading and working with others. This will help make sure all students learn their way, so no one is falling behind.  Lastly, instead of giving back final grades at the end of the semester, I would want to continuously give feedback to my students and their parents, so that we may fix the problem before it is to late. Why would we give report cards to children after the time has already passed for them to bring up the grade? I want to let students know when their grade is falling so we can see where the issue is rather than wait till last minute. Research has shown how much technology is helping students be more successful in their school. Why should we wait any longer? Let's begin to use technology to our best ability so we can help our children thrive.