blog 12

The topic that I found most interesting was about the internet and web based learning. Many of my classmates had good insight about what the future of web-based learning has in store for us and how they would use it in their own classroom. I also enjoyed the ways in which they plan on controlling the kids from venturing from what they are supposed to be doing.
I would like to learn more about the use of projectors and smart boards in the classroom. I think that both can be very beneficial to interactive learning and will help the students that are more visual learners that auditory learners. There is so much that you can do with regards to a projector and would make learning more wide-scale.
Ways in which I will achieve my future educational technology-related goals include continuing to keep up with the new technology coming out. It is important to be up to speed especially when your job is to teach other on the latest releases. I hope to teach in a school that is well enough funded to provide the tools needed to achieve my technology related goals, but if not there are many ways to improvise.

blog 11

My use of twitter was very limited this semester. I learned how to set up an account and how to follow others but I found that using e-mail or the blogging website was substantially easier. It was not forced upon us to check out twitter account often therefore it was pretty far in the back of my mind.
I highly doubt I will use twitter in the future. Very few of my friends have twitter accounts mainly because we are comfortable with facebook and e-mail as means of communication. As a teacher it will not be necessary to have a twitter account and I feel that you can find out all the information found on twitter elsewhere.
Twitter could be useful as an educational tool with older students. Middle and high school students could follow each other and the teacher could post assignments or links to assignments or helpful videos. Kids could easily work together on projects without being physically together to share the information they found. As an elementary teacher though I can not see myself using twitter for educational purposes.

Blog 10

http://www.flickr.com/
The 2.0 website that I chose to review is called flickr. It is a photo sharing website where you can upload, explore, create your own photos and keep in touch with other photo sharers. You can share your own photos or explore others.
I can be used instead of searching on google, or instead of having to take your own photos. It seems extremely easy to navigate around the site. It has earned recognition from many top ten reviews such as http://photo-sharing-services-review.toptenreviews.com/flickr-review.html. It is said to be very popular because of its simplicity and large community of users.
I think this site would be used often in K-12 classes. If kids learned the benefits of searching this site rather than google images they could enhance their work tremendously and stand out with uniqueness. Teachers can use it for sharing photos they have found that pertains to the material being taught or by having their students upload pictures for a specific topic or project.

BLOG # 9

A web-based resource that would be useful for me in teaching my first grade students is a website that I found called http://www.education.com/activity/first-grade/. It includes every subject area (writing, math, science, social studies, etc.) and even has games, arts a crafts and recipes. Not only does it have helpful tools for first grade, but it has something for all grades, up to high school. A really helpful feature is the Education A-Z tool. It literally has any question that you would ever need answered.
One activity that I found that I would absolutely use in my classroom is making a dream journal. This would help the students with recollection, creating stories and practicing their writing skills. This activity does not require many materials and is gender friendly. There are many other activities that I can see myself doing with my students in the future.
Excel is a wonderful feature to use as a gradebook, to keep parents information organized and to organize survey results. I don’t quite know how I would incorporate Excel into my first grade classroom curriculum because I don’t believe the students will be knowledgeable enough on the computer to tackle it. Even in the book, there was no examples of ways to use Excel with first graders.