I feel I have come a long way in this class. I do not think of myself as a very tech savvy
person and had not used any of the tools in this class before. Also I have never really worked with a Mac
outside of just typing a paper. I still
feel uncomfortable on a Mac, but I can certainly see some of the benefits they
offer. It is nice that all the programs
on them are so compatible and it is easy to move items, pictures, and sounds
between programs with ease.
During this class we covered a lot of tools! Some of these tools I really enjoyed while
others I did not. The Web 2.0 tool that
my group had for our presentation, Glogster, was a tool I thoroughly
enjoyed. I am not a very artistic person
so using an online tool to make a poster made it a lot cleaner and
organized. I know that there will be
students of mine like this that will also benefit from being able to use
computer to construct projects rather than traditional methods. In a sense it puts all students on an even
playing field since one student can’t get by on a project simply because they
are a good artistic. If a student puts
the time in on with one of these tools like Glogster, they can make a nice
project. Tools that I feel the same way
about are Animoto, Storybird, and Pixlr.
One tool I did not really like was Timetoast. I felt a lot was missing from this tool to
make it effective. I think it is a good
idea and has some potential to be fixed into a great tool, but as it is now just
missing too much for me. I think that
not being able to put in BC dates is a huge flaw that I cannot get over. Also every date needs a specific date which
is something I do not like. Some events
do not occur on one day or even one year.
This is a tool I will most likely not use. I do not see the purpose in using Picasa Web
Album either over other slide show tools like Power Point or Google Docs. Overall though there were a lot of great
things we learned in this class that I will have to keep in mind going forward
into my teaching career.
I believe the most
important thing I learned this semester was how to make a flipchart. In my placement at an elementary school right
now they use a flipchart almost every day.
I can easily see how being able to construct my own will be a huge help
for me. I used the flipchart I created
in this class to teach a lesson at my placement and the students loved it. It kept them so engaged through the entire
lesson. The students also learned a lot
during the lesson, and I don’t think I could have taught them the topic as well
without it. Creating a flipchart can be
time consuming, but with Promethean Planet teachers have a terrific resource to
lessons. I know that is where my mentor
teacher found the ones he used in the class.
He would look up a flipchart in the subject we were covering, go through
it, and pick out the parts he wanted to use.
It was quick and simple, but highly effective. I know already of all the tools I learned in
class, creating and using a flipchart is going to be the one that I use the
most in my career.
Now I am at the end of the class and I have so much to show
for it. I have my website, my video, my
flipchart lesson, Web 2.0 artifacts, and this blog. There are not a lot of classes that leave you
with so much to show for it. This is why
I believe this was one of the most useful classes I have had. I had my ups in down in this class for sure,
but I think I ended with a good understanding of a lot of tools.
