Review 3

Since the last time that I have BLOGed we have created an interactive PowerPoint, and looked at emerging classroom technologies.  My favorite Module of the two was learning another application for PowerPoint.  Each spring I teach a lesson with the eighth grade science teacher.  In this lesson students utilize PowerPoint to show a scientific change in PowerPoint. The students use animations to show movement of the change over multiple slides.  Some students create a PowerPoint about the different types of moons, some show a predator/prey relationship, and some create a 2 dimensional roller coaster showing potential and kinetic energy.  This project is well received by the students and allows them to take the knowledge that they gained in the science classroom and apply it into another setting.

            When I was looking at the emerging technologies I was impressed by how many of them focus on maximizing student creativity.  I feel that school sometimes drains student creativity by constantly focusing on hard data information gathered through constant testing. 

Reflection 2

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about the variety of different applications that are available through Google.  I was aware of some of the features that Google docs had to offer, but I was unaware of how similar Google docs are to The Microsoft Office Suite.  This is wonderful in a school district like mine that does not have enough site licenses to run Microsoft Office on all of the districts computers.  Only two computer labs in the district are able to run Microsoft Office, my middle school lab and the high school lab.  Because of this there are is difficulty presenting a project that is created in my computer lab, in a regular education.  Because of this I am going to teach Google docs next year along with Microsoft Office.  Both programs are very valuable in a future work force because if a student knows how to create projects in either program they can create in any program.

I really like Google forms.  I thought it was really interesting how you could create a test, quiz, or worksheet, and link to Fluburo and have it grade it for you.  This is a great time saving application that doesn’t cost money.