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.