A couple weeks ago I blogged on one of my teacher attempting to use the SMART Board in the class, but ultimately giving up because she was frustrated with it. From this experience with her and the SMART Board, I kinda formed the opinion that she was going to stick to her old ways and not attempt to learn the functions and ways to use the new technology in the class.
However, in my last class with her, she clearly had spent time on her own playing with the SMART Board and getting a sense of how to use it. Then, in our class, she had us students go up to it and use it in one of our activities. The particular activity that we did, did not necessarily benefit from the SMART Board, but she stated that she wanted to get us more familiar with the ways of the SMART Board and to become use to working with it frequently in the classroom.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Moses Lake High School Website
Moses Lake High School is where I attended high school 4 years ago. For this assignment, I chose to analyze my former high school's page because I'm not sure where I want to teach post graduation, but in the future, Moses Lake could be where I end up.
After visiting their website, I was very impressed. It was very organized, with the most relevant and time oriented news on the opening page (where it catches your attention). Also on the opening page were pictures of Moses Lake as well as the high school. There was a list of upcoming events in which anyone who read the invite was invited.
The site had organized links that were directed towards different sorts of audiences i.e. students, employment, district, schools, staff, community, etc... From these links, the website provided detailed information for alumni students, nwe testing information, information about the area, etc.. I was surprised at how detailed and well-organized the website was. I definately feel like if you had a particular question reagarding any aspect of the High School, you could go to the site, and answer your own question.
One important aspect that I feel the website could improve upon is the graphics and attractiveness. I understand that it is a professional website and should reflect this, but I think that today's generation has become more creative in the websites and similar technological tools employed by businesses, and this should be reflected on the website. Like I said earlier, there is a picture of Moses Lake on the website, but it was taken on a gloomy day, and thus it kinda sets the tone for the whole website (because it is the first thing you see when you go to the website).
Other than the overall attractiveness of the website, I think that the Moses Lake High School website is very organized and helpful for users.
After visiting their website, I was very impressed. It was very organized, with the most relevant and time oriented news on the opening page (where it catches your attention). Also on the opening page were pictures of Moses Lake as well as the high school. There was a list of upcoming events in which anyone who read the invite was invited.
The site had organized links that were directed towards different sorts of audiences i.e. students, employment, district, schools, staff, community, etc... From these links, the website provided detailed information for alumni students, nwe testing information, information about the area, etc.. I was surprised at how detailed and well-organized the website was. I definately feel like if you had a particular question reagarding any aspect of the High School, you could go to the site, and answer your own question.
One important aspect that I feel the website could improve upon is the graphics and attractiveness. I understand that it is a professional website and should reflect this, but I think that today's generation has become more creative in the websites and similar technological tools employed by businesses, and this should be reflected on the website. Like I said earlier, there is a picture of Moses Lake on the website, but it was taken on a gloomy day, and thus it kinda sets the tone for the whole website (because it is the first thing you see when you go to the website).
Other than the overall attractiveness of the website, I think that the Moses Lake High School website is very organized and helpful for users.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Smart Board Presentations in Class
This class was a very good learning experience. The Smart Board assignment #2 required me to do a little investigating of the Smart Board (how it worked, what it's used for, how ESL students can use it in the classroom, etc...) I found a fun activity, a crossword puzzle, which would be good practice for a vocab lesson in TESL. The activity was interactive and allowed students to work as a group and also to come up to the board and use it first hand.
Along with learning more about the Smart Board from my own activity, I also gained a better understanding of how the board worked by watching the other students' activities and how they used the board. They used different features of the Smart Board software as well as various creative activities which, prior to their presentation, I was clueless about. This goes to show that students in classes where Smart Boards are being used, are learning a great deal about technology just by watching how the teacher and others use it in the classroom.
Overall, I thought Assignment 2 was very informative, on a lot of levels, about the usefulness of the Smart Board. It can be a great tool to get the students actively engaged and interested in the class. It has a tun of different amentities that can be used in various classes. Finally, the use of it in the classroom exposes the students to technology in a first hand/ inadvertant way.
Along with learning more about the Smart Board from my own activity, I also gained a better understanding of how the board worked by watching the other students' activities and how they used the board. They used different features of the Smart Board software as well as various creative activities which, prior to their presentation, I was clueless about. This goes to show that students in classes where Smart Boards are being used, are learning a great deal about technology just by watching how the teacher and others use it in the classroom.
Overall, I thought Assignment 2 was very informative, on a lot of levels, about the usefulness of the Smart Board. It can be a great tool to get the students actively engaged and interested in the class. It has a tun of different amentities that can be used in various classes. Finally, the use of it in the classroom exposes the students to technology in a first hand/ inadvertant way.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Reflection: Professor having difficulty with Smart Board
last week in one of my classes, the teacher was attempting to use the markers that accompany the Smart Board to do an activity on the Smart Board. After minutes of her messing with the Smart Board and and its icons, a student finally asked if she could help, and then succeeded. Amidst these events, another one of the students asked, "Why don't you just write on the white board?" The Professor responded by saying," I would if I could, but we can't move the Smart Board." She then went on to express her frustrations with the Smart board. I couldn't help but think that, for our particular activity, the white board would have sufficed. However, I'm pretty sure that my feelings correlate to those of my Professor's. Because, like her, I don't quite understand how to use th Smart Board. Therefore, I resort to what I know and get frustrated with the new technology that requires me to put time and energy into figuring out how to work it. This example, illustrates a couple of the things we have talked about in class. One being, that before the teacher attempted to use the Smart board in class, she should have played with it and understood how to work it, so that class time was not sacrificed. Also, this example showed the technological devide between the professor and a student in the class. The student knew more about how the Smart Board worked than the teacher did (and this should not be the case).
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Using Power Point for lectures
Recently I've realized that teachers are cluing into the fact that students by a variety of means i.e. listening, seeing, and doing... And further more, these teachers are attempting to incorporate appeal to the variety of learners by using power point (along with the lecture). I understand the notion that seeing paired with listening benefits the learner. However, I don't think that just because we see the words up on the power point, we are better learning the content of the lecture. This post may seem negative and a bit like I'm complaing. But, it's more just me trying to decipher (as a student who will soon be a teacher) whether or not using power point presentations along with lectures are beneficial to the students. In analyzing myself in the classroom, I know that just becuase the teacher has added a power point with some annimations and cute pictures, I am not further engaged in the lesson. It may just be me, but as a future teacher I would like to know if the time spent preparing the slide show is worth it?
Reflection on technology in Media Writing
Last semester, I was in the Media Writing class taught by Kara Heirichs. I really enjoyed the class! However, for one assignment, we were required to work in groups to compare and contrasts various newspapers online. In doing this, we were expected to use power point to inform and highlight to the class what we had found from the different sites (using pictures, animations, etc...) As much as I am embarrassed to admit, I got anxious when I realized that power point was essential to complete the assignment. Lucky for me, one of the girls in my class was very knowledgeable about all the different tools of power point. Once the rest of us group members came up with the information to put on the power point, she whipped up that presentation in a matter of minutes! I was so impressed at how good she was with using the technology. Don't get me wrong, I know how to use computers, and I have done power point presentations. However, it hasn't been since sophmore year of high school that I created a power point presentation, and even then it was a very basic presentation. When watching my tech-savy classmate use all the amenities and short cuts correlating with the power point software, I was amazed at how much there is to know about technology and software, and how far behind I am on it!
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