Makeup Work: All Blog Posts Combined

This will incorporate all the Blog Posts I missed which will consist of Blogs from: Jan. 30, Feb. 27, Mar. 13, Mar. 27. The post before this consists of the blog from Feb. 13th.

Jan. 30:

Exploring Educational Technologies: researching, creating and presenting PowerPoint presentations, and the online meeting with Breeze:

I did my presentation over Blogs. I have done extensive research in the past over blogs in some of my other educational technology classes. I still investigated further and found other teachers blogs, and their experiences and how they were successful using blogs in their classrooms. The activities with this, I didn't find too useful honestly. It felt like creating a research paper, so I was accustomed to doing what I did for this assignment. I'm not really trying to knock the assignment as I understand that it had to be done, and this was really the only way to go about doing this type of assignment.

The one thing I did enjoy a lot of using Breeze. I have never used Skype or any type of tool like it, so I was surprised to find myself enjoying breeze. I know the program is different than Skype, since it can be used for presentations and all. I thought overall breeze worked very well for presentations since you could upload power points and talk while they were going on. It is hard though sometimes to make a point while others are talking. I also understand the problems that can come from using breeze, such as other students trying to talk at the same time as others, but that can happen in an open forum in a classroom, so it's something that you have to deal with.

Overall I found this assignment to be quite enjoyable, and it was mainly for the use of breeze. I would like to use a tool like this in the future, but to be honest it will be HARD to incorporate it into a classroom. The reason for this, is because not all students will have access to a computer, but all students can research and create a power point like we did for this assignment, so not all was lost. We also got to see examples of power points that were well done, and ones that were poorly done. Sadly in my group no one presented a new and interesting technology to use. At least one I haven't used or read about before.

Feb. 27 Technology Use and Integration:

This was about the only thing I REALLY enjoyed in this classroom. The research and the preparing the PowerPoint wasn't anything new. I have had a lot of experience with this type of thing, as was evident in our online discussion. However, I enjoyed working with Matt because I was able to help him and enlighten him on proper technology use and integration. Overall this part of the activity I did enjoy, but the creating a PowerPoint was kind of redundant, but again I understand why we had to do it.

The online meeting for this I thought was quite fun. I always enjoy discussions about technology use compared to technology integration. A lot of people often feel that if they use technology, in any sort of way, it means they are integrating it. However, that is not the case at all, it takes a lot of preparing in proper technology integration. I was sad to see that not a lot of other people were able to discuss integration at the level I was. I don't want to sound like I'm full of myself, I have just taken a few extra classes in technology integration, and I am interested in getting my Masters in this field, and I hope to eventually be an administrator that deals with technology. However, I was happy to help my group along in the discussion about how to properly use technology in a class. Overall it was fun and I was glad I could be of help at times.

March 13:

Technology - Enhanced Lesson Plan:

Let me state that I feel cheated that I got counted off for my lesson plan being late, but that is my fault and that is a whole different issue.

Overall I think I did a pretty good job, I had command of the classroom, and I think my topic was interesting for everyone involved. The development of my lesson plan was quite easy since I had another lesson plan that I could incorporate technology into. It was my propaganda lesson, so I changed from giving the students pictures to look at, to having them search for them over the internet. I also had the students look at different countries propaganda around WWII, not just concentrating on American propaganda. The comments I received on my initial lesson plan helped me along with this, so I feel that the comments I received were really helpful.

The comments helped me realize I needed to have a stronger basis in technology for my lesson plan. That is where I came up with the idea to use search engines, power points into my lesson plan. I think this part worked pretty well. I could have been more clear to the students by telling them they needed to do a PowerPoint in my instructions. That the only thing I feel didn't go that well. Overall I think that my implementation was the best, I think I knew what I wanted to do, and I had a great idea on how to execute it. I knew all the problems that would happen, at least I predicted what type of problems may arise, and I was able to work with them, and accomplish my task in the given time. I would say I was the most prepared, not to diss anyone else's work, I feel that mine was the most polished, but again I was the one presenting so I may not have noticed any problems I had. Overall this was a fun activity, and it gave me a chance to see which way worked better with this lesson. One way using technology another way not using technology. Both of them worked fairly well, and it will be a tossup on which way I use, at least I have options now.

March 27:

Blog/Writing Reflections:

Overall I did not like a lot of assignments in this class. The classroom website I hated. I don't want to sound too harsh, but I hated this assignment. I ripped it in my Feb. 13th posting so I don't think I need to dwell on it again. But I will say, that if you are creating a classroom website, for YOUR class, there shouldn't be so many stipulations regarding what types of technologies go into it. However, that is a different issue all together, continuing on, The breeze presentations we did, I really enjoyed. I really liked breeze to meet with groups online and present. Again in a classroom this would be a lot harder to incorporate due to availability of students with computers and such. I do NOT like blogging. This assignment is one of my least favorite. I have written enough reflections at this point, and honestly I don't know how they are going to be graded, and I have no clue what I am going to receive on this blog assignment. The technology lesson plan was really fun, and I got to experiment with a lesson plan I had already created and seeing if a different approach to it would make it any better, and I feel that it made it good, but different.

Overall in all honesty, and its nothing against T at all, but I did not enjoy this class. I have already done everything we did in this class minus using breeze. This was pretty redundant for me, but I had to take the class, but I did get a lesson plan out of it, so not all was lost. I am glad they are doing away with this class and making the earlier tech classes more intense because they need to be.

Website Reflection

To be honest, i did not like this assignment. I have created many websites and i do not like the changes that google pages has made in just over 2 months. Also, i did not like having to make up mock assignments and mock classrooms. It's really hard to do so and come up with full lesson plan ideas beucase it doesn't really feel useful. I understand the point of the project, and that is to help students create websites for their classrooms. However i thought it was really aggrevating doing this assignment. Again i understand the meaning behind it, but if i could never make a website again, i would.

However i do have an online portfolio, and i plan to keep that updated, and i plan to do a complete overhaul of the website in the very near future. This is the only website that i have ever created that i can really use. I will add a link to my fake website though as an example of past works.

The Awesome Blog is Back!

Well this blog has served me very well through w301/310/210 and now it will continue its life into 401! Well i don't know what crazy adventures are in store for my blog this time around! However, i couldn't take down my awesome spring break post, becuase well, no spring break will top that. Well here is to a good year and another awesome semester with the AWESOME BLOG!

Look for major changes coming up, even though no one has read this in years!

One melted car, one broken pair of glasses, a broken ac/heater, and a great spring break

Well where should i start?

I hope everyone had a great and safe spring break that was full of as many adventures as mine was. Let me start off by saying that i worked all week, so i did not leave bloomington. All of my adventures happened right here. First things first, everything i did was not on purpose, and everything happened by some odd chance.

First, my glasses broke. I hanging out with my friends, and i was cleaning my glasses and they broke right down the middle. Funny thing is my glasses are Flexon, so they should not break. However, this is the second pair of glasses i have broke that are Flexon. I must have a curse of breaking the unbreakable, or i am the hulk and i do not know it yet. Also, i am not hard on my glasses, i do not play football with them (as the ball). I have never used them as a baseball, and i never flex them. Well in the morning i go to get them fixed, and i find out that nowhere can do anything for me because they are Flexon's, and they have titanium in the middle and even if they tried to weld them together it would not work. So this is the beginning of my spring break.

The next part, will put anything you did during spring break to shame. My car melted. Yes that is right the driver side of my 1994 Buick Skylark is gone. It melted away in the night, and now i have beautiful ash tinted windows, and a cracked windshield because it got so hot. Luckily no one was injured and the car did not blow up, that is the good news. How did the car melt, i don't know, but it's crazy. You want a picture, well ask and you shall receive....

Well that is the inside of my car. As you can see there is really nothing left of the gauges or anything it sucks. At least i have another car, which is the best news of all.

Well just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, my AC/Heater in my house broke. It was nice and warm outside, and hotter in my house, i tried to get the AC to work, well guess what it was broke. Then it got really cold out, i needed the heat to be on, HAHAHA, guess what? Didn't work. Well just when you thought my break couldn't get any worse, it didn't. The heat was fixed, my dad fixed my glasses, they may look dumb, but i don't care, i can wait till my new glasses are ready, which should be this weekend, which is the good news, and my AC/Heater was fixed, some wires burnt up...

Well that was my great and crazy spring break, i hope everyone had a less adventurous one than i did. I know that is not hard to do, unless you were arrested, and your life is ruined, that is about the only way it could have been worse.

Now how does this go back to class? Well guess who i met this week at work? I met a technology director for a school district. I will not disclose his name, where i work, or where he works. We talked about Internet in schools, and technology in schools in general. Well how did we get on this topic, he asked me what i was studying and i told him, and it led into our discussion. We talked about how technology in schools is not being used incorrectly, and a lot of teachers do not know what they are doing. He put it a lot less harsh than i did, so don't take it so negative please. We also discussed about using the Internet in schools for sources, and in a way we agreed with each other to a certain extent. He believes that the Internet in schools does cause more problems now, than it solves. Teachers are using it to keep kids out of their hair, and they say that they are using it for educational purposes, when in reality the teacher is not checking on his/her students. He did agree to an extent that the Internet should not be allowed in schools, but he sees it as something important to people and that it is a "necessary evil". That's not a quote but I'm just inserting my ideas with his ideas there. He views it as something that schools need, even if it is misused, but he is searching for ways to stop kids from abusing their Internet privileges.

All in all it was an interesting talk, and it is hard to talk about it on a blog, because my ideas come out sometimes, and the way i make him sound is as a negative old man who is just mad at the world. He wasn't an old man, he was in fact a younger guy, and he did not speak negatively about anything. He just felt that the Internet use in schools is a way for teachers to keep kids out of trouble in their classrooms with keeping them occupied.

Well that was my spring break. I hope everyone had a great spring break, and aside from my little adventures my spring break was AWESOME. It was really good believe it or not, even if my glasses broke, my car melted, and i was without heat/ac for a few days, life goes on and I'm still kicking!