Final Reflection

What?
In Instructional Media I have learned how to create a class website, using Google tools and applications, create and use blogs, share documents over the web, tap into the online social networks, create WebQuests, and create Digital Stories along with countless other little technology must haves along the way. I have taken three main ideas from this class and will summarize them here:
1. Technology in the classroom is essential.
This might be my biased opinion but we live in a technological savvy era where most kids know more than we do about many of the technologies available to them. I think as teachers we can best teach them and they will best learn through the use of technology in our classrooms including computers, the Internet, cell phones, music and video.
2. Class websites can help keep students and parents informed while keeping assignments and due dates organized and clear.
I have really enjoyed learning how to create a website that is user friendly and allows me to keep my students and their parents up to date at all times. I feel this is an essential part to getting parents involved in the learning process and letting students take the responsibility for their learning.
3. Students need to be aware of the risks involved with technology as well as how to keep themselves safe.
Internet predators and cyberbullies are real and students need to be able to stay safe and use technology wisely. They need to be made aware of the dangers and know how to act if they encounter questionable situations. Also parents need to be made aware of these dangers as well and be educated about their children's choices and activities. I also want my students to know how to use technology in a legal and ethical way.

So What?
This course has been one of the most useful courses that I have taken. I feel that I have learned so much useful information about the different technologies available to me as a teacher. I feel that all of these things will make me a better teacher and help me to better connect with my students. I feel prepared to create a real class website and connect with my students. I feel that I am very well prepared to start teaching and to meet the NETS standards. I'm well on my way to designing and developing digital-age experiences and activities that will be useful to my students. I also feel very informed about Internet safety and feel strongly that students should be taught how to stay Internet safe. I feel that I can now meet some of my professional goals and create meaningful learning for my students.

Now What?
I will definitely have a class website available to my students for each course. This was one of the main reasons I was excited to take this course. I want my students to be able to access assignments, assignement descriptions, schedules, and announcements 24/7 through our class website.
I'm also looking into using the WebQuest and Digital Story as a final project for my students at the end of the year. I want them to be able to apply the concepts that they have learned throughout the year and create a fun project displaying to me and others what they have learned.

Digital Story

What?
Digital Stories combine pictures, music, and narration to create feelings, tones, and meaning that cannot be brought together through other media techniques or teaching styles. Meaningful learning is more likely to occur through this collaboration of music, moods, and visuals. There are many different movie making programs available to teachers, students, and anyone that wants to make a movie about something. I chose to use Photo Story 3 which is a very simple and user friendly program. I really liked the ease of putting together a movie with this program because students could use this program with very little instruction to create assignments and projects for their school work. I think Digital Stories are great for most any content area because of the infinite possibilities that can be produced. However, subjects such as history and language have some really moving topics that work well with Digital Stories and can really get the students involved.
It was difficult to find a topic to create a Digital Story about mathematics. Although not unachievable, it does require much thought and creativity. I chose to take a field trip with my students and show them some of the geometric shapes in the real world. I thought this would be affective to help create interest at the beginning of the year in geometry as the students could see how geometry plays a part in their world. I would really like to show this video as an introduction and then assign the students to create something similar relating mathematics to their lives and portraying that through a digital story.

So What?
Through this assignment I once again had my eyes opened to the endless possibilities and different teaching techniques that are out there and available to me. In all of the many math classes that I've been through, never once has a movie been played that helped me better understand my content area. I like this idea of digital stories because it is new and fresh for the students of today and can grasp their attention using the things that they so love, technology.
Through this experience, I was able to really work on developing my skills with creating digital-age learning experiences.

Now What?
One of my professional goals is to teach math in a way that has really been used before but that is also very effective in order to help students really learn math. I think that digital stories could be a good way to really get them engaged in the learning process and expecially in application type problems. I will also continue to stretch my creativity in order to help students best learn and connect with the concepts that I will be teaching them.

WebQuest

What?

WebQuests are activities used by educators that allow their students to think, analyze, and work through information using different sites and resources from the Internet. This is a great way for students to work through things and discover content material on their own or in groups. This kind of discovery learning is more meaningful to the students. Because of the variety of information that is available online, WebQuests are very versatile and can be used for any content area. Using online interactives and games is also very fun and engaging for the students and can help keep their interest for topics that may otherwise be a little dull.

I think that I could use WebQuests in my mathematics classroom from time to time to break up the monotony of the traditional lecture style instruction. I think there are some great topics in math that the students could definitely discover and learn about on their own thru the use of a guided activity such as a WebQuest. I choose to do a WebQuest about the uses of mathematics in the real world so that I could use this during the first few days of class in order to help students to make connections and see the relevancies of the material we will be learning to the uses in their own lives.

So What?

This assignment has really helped me to branch out and find the other resources that are available to me and my students to make their learning a meaningful experience. I feel like this is a great assignment to help students use math in ways that are most like how they will use math after high school. Teaching my students to use technology, specifically the computer and the Internet in a safe and ethical way, is a very important aspect of my job as a teacher in these times. I feel that it is my responsibility to help them think through things and be able to logically reason through different problems so that they will be prepared for problems that they will encounter in their lives.

For this specific WebQuest, I feel that I’ve found some very good resources for my students to go through and find new information that they may not have thought about before. I was able to find several different interactives that will give them a chance to work with the math skills they previously have acquired and see how they are applied in the real world.

Now What?

Part of the reason why I wanted to be a teacher is to help others gain a love for math and see the possibilities that are out there using mathematics. For this reason, I choose to create a WebQuest that helps the students to see the bigger picture and see just where they are going with the different concepts that they will learn through their high school math experiences. Another reason that I wanted to create a WebQuest of this nature is because of the different interactives that are included that allow the students to see that not all math is boring and useless. They will also hopefully gain a greater appreciation for the different varieties of mathematics in the real world. I hope to accomplish these goals even further by always helping students to see the bigger picture and realize all the many applications that there are without completely overwhelming them.

Google Notebok

So I just wanted to tell you all about my latest adventure on the web. With a new big assignment waiting for me to conquer, I have started using Google Notebook to keep track of all the websites and things that I want to use later in the project. It's great because instead of bookmarking a whole bunch of websites or writing down a bunch of URL's, I just paste them into a "notebook" that saves them for me and let's me comment about them and keeps them all organized for me. I can label the different websites or start another notebook. It's great! I wish I would have known about this tool sooner. Oh and the other awesome thing about it is that I have Google Notebook added to my iGoogle page so I can easily access it from one spot! Way cool! Give Google a try...you're bound to love it!

Microsoft PowerPoint

What?
Microsoft PowerPoint was the program of the week. Practically every person has seen a PowerPoint presentation at some time in their life. As students we see them sometimes all too often with some being fantastic and some being very boring. I've created PowerPoints before and so as we began to learn about PowerPoints, I wanted to learn something new and something that would make my PowerPoints more interesting and helpful. I wanted to know what makes a good PowerPoint. Less is more was probably the best tip that I learned. I now know that I don't need to put everything on the slide that I'm going to say. This helps the font to stay a good size that everybody can read and also points out the main point of discussion.
PowerPoint presentations can be everything from basic and blah to professional and fancy. The tools and manipulatives seem to be a little bit more difficult to work with for me in this program than in others because of the variety that is available. There are many things that you can do to spice up each slide such as creating different ways for your text to come onto the screen, colors and background, sound effects, adding in media and video clips, etc. You don't want it to be so extravagant that your students pay more attention to the graphics and sounds more than they pay attention to the information which is what we really want them to learn.

So What?
As a math teacher, I don't think that I will use PowerPoint as my main way of putting out information because it's not practical for solving math problems and typing in so many numbers and mathematical processes. There are other programs and ways to use media that are more useful. Although I do think that it would be a good way to mix up my teaching style from time to time in order to keep student interest and help those students that have different learning styles. Other content areas will use this program more often than math teachers do/will.
The strategies and techniques that we talked about in class are very important to keep student interest as well as helping them to get the information without being distracted. We want it to look nice but we also want to be professional and useful. I like that students can get my class notes and print them out to study and work with from my class website or email. This is helpful for students that have a hard time taking notes during class or for those that missed class altogether.

Now What?
I would like to be able to find and learn some equation editing tools and applications for programs like PowerPoint in order to be able to put math equations and processes in my presentations more quickly and easily. I will need to look for ways to integrate it into my math class and teaching style because I do think it's useful and helpful for students.

Inspiration and Publisher

WHAT?
This past week we learned the basics of Inspiration and Microsoft Publisher. Inspiration is a great program that creates outlines and concept maps. The ease of this program is great! The buttons and controls are very easy to manipulate with a simple click and drag of the mouse. It's a great way to prepare for any subject and any topic in a organized fashion. I liked that we used this to outline our projects. I was surprised to find a program that was helpful in this way. I like that you can organize in any way that helps you for example, color, shape, ideas, etc. Another great feature is that the program will create a typed outline from your concept web so there's no need to enter in the information as you go. As I was creating my concept web, I liked that you can work on the map as a whole and add to it from any side as you go.
Microsoft Publisher is a template program that contains templates such as brochures, flyers, newsletters, etc. With tools and features all similar to other Microsoft programs it is fairly easy to navigate for even an amateur. I'm sure there are tons more fabulous things that you can do to spice up your projects but I'm just learning. I wish that I would have had this program for past projects. It's great to have templates that you can use as is or manipulate to fit your needs. I really liked that you could choose your own layout and design colors. For assignments or projects like our media campaign, it's nice that the layout and designs are the same for each kind of project. (i.e. brochures, flyers, newsletters all having the same basic design to look uniform)

SO WHAT?
As a teacher, I think Inspiration is a great program for every content area. I would use this program to outline on a large scale the school year and the topics to be covered and then on a smaller scale outline each unit and the topics to be discussed. It would even be useful to outline each lesson and get down to even the details of the lesson so that I don't miss anything. It would then be useful to keep them stored online to refer to from year to year.
For my students, I think Inspiration would be a great way for them to outline projects and assignments as they plan out how to execute the project at hand. It's great way for them to see what they have as a whole and where they're going with the topics they have. They can then also see how things are relevant or irrelevant to their topic.
Publisher is a program that would be very useful for campaign such as our assignment or for schools or departments to put newsletters and flyers together for students and parents containing information about anything and everything possible. I would like to make a newsletter for my students' parents about assisting their students with their math assignments. I could then give them resources and tips to getting homework done that they're not sure about how to complete themselves.
Students could also create projects using programs such as Publisher, for any content area. Math may not have as many choices but in other content areas it would be a great way to complete such assignments.

NOW WHAT?
I feel like I caught on pretty well to both of these programs however, with Inspiration I could use some more practice using the other features of the programs since I only created a concept map. I'll need to play with it a little more to be able to figure out how to make the outlines and be able to present this program to students. I would like to spend some time filling out an outline for a unit and see how it all works together.
Microsoft Publisher is such a rich program, filled with so many different capabilities that I don't know that I would ever be able to learn everything it has to offer, however I feel that I know enough to make some really good products to use in my classroom, school, and personal life. I need to practice manipulating the pages and being able to spice them up a little more creating more professional looks.

Internet Safety

Although it may seem that the risks out way the advantages when it comes to using the Internet in the classroom, I definitely think that the Internet should be used in the classroom. Our students are going to be using the Internet whether we use them in our classrooms or not. I think by using the Internet in our classrooms, we can then teach our students to be safe and responsible users. By teaching them safety techniques and good searching skills, we can open up the world to them through the Internet.

There are so many advantages to using the Internet in the classroom. The best reasons to me are real time data and simulations that we can get from the Internet. While the rest of the world is living and learning in a virtual world, I think it's very important that we teach our students how to interact, grow, and develop in the virtual world as well. If you know much about math you will know that although we can teach equations and formulas to our students, there is much more going on in the background. With the use of technology, programs and websites have been developed that display this background knowledge and the bigger picture. These tools are exactly what we want our students to learn through because they lead to meaningful learning. I am excited to teach in this day and age where technology can be so advantageous to the learning of math.

As teachers, we must evaluate the sites we want our students to use. Through evaluation we ensure that our students are getting the best, most accurate information that is relevant to the current topic of discussion. We can also make sure that the information is appropriate and written for their knowledge level. In order to make sure that my students are being safe while surfing:
- I can use the Advanced Search Tool that Google provides to limit the sites that they are searching for certain assignments,
- spend some time teaching them Internet safety and making the aware of the rules that I have set for our classroom, and
- be apart of their learning through observation while walking around the room during their searching time.

UEN

I am enjoying learning all about UEN.org and all the resources and possibilities that are available through this site! UEN has so many different possibilities for teachers and students. First of all for teachers, the Core Curriculum is easily accessed through this site. I love that all the curriculum are listed and have Lesson Plan links and ideas within them. It makes it very convenient when using the lesson plan template to be able to grab the curriculum and link it right to my lesson. It's also very helpful to be able to insert a rubric into my lesson plan and use the pre-existing settings to be quick and easy. I plan to make some Web Activities for my students to learn about Internet safety and other application problems in math so that they can see how math is really used in everyday life.

I will encourage and assign my students to use UEN.org as they work on the Web Activities, search for projects, use Interactives, link to Pioneer, and many other things. I was aware of Pioneer as a resource in High school but did not understand how to use it or realize how helpful it could be. Thus, I plan to spend a day in the lab teaching my students Internet safety and going through some tips about Pioneer. In fact, I think I will make a Web Activity that will help them explore the possibilities with Pioneer.

I love the Interactives for math. There are a lot of learning tutorials and review games for every subject area. This is great because I'll be able to use this for all of my classes each year for assignments and extra credit opportunities. As for Pioneer, I think there are endless possibilities for my students to be able to use this as a resource not only for their math classes, but every subject area. I found a large number of articles that they could use for projects as they relate math to the real world and application problems.

I plan to use Google sites to create a web page for my classes. I prefer Google Sites over the UEN site because it is far more flexible. I like the professionalism of UEN being that it belongs to a larger organization and that I can find other teachers in the area, etc. I think that for a high school teacher like myself, I like the Google Tools and the iGoogle page where I can read everything that my students post all in the same place. High school students will then be able to use Google for their other classes and will be able to send me things easily through this site.

Google Tools

Google Docs- a great way for students to send teachers their draft work and get comments and feedback. Also great for group work and posting documents on the web. As a teacher, I would use this to post assignment descriptions on the web.

Google Presentations- a great way to easily share slides with students and parents. I would use this for story problem types of instruction or for breaking down steps to problems. Students can get the information from class online.

Google Spreadsheets- great place to create a spreadsheet for my students grades and assignment scores.

Google Forms- great for student surveys and questionnaires because it easily converts them to an easy to read format. I would use this to get student feedback at the end of the year and for students' feelings about the unit information throughout the year.

iGoogle- great site that allows me to check on everything by going to just a single page. I then can reply to emails, read blogs, manage my calendar, and check anything else that I add to the page.

Blogger- great place for students to summarize their notes and keep a personal journal of their thoughts and concerns concerning the content information. As a teacher, I can then read them and reply to any questions and address concerns where necessary.

Google Reader- makes reading all of my students/colleagues blogs easy by collaborating all the new and unread information right on my iGoogle page. This makes it easy to follow my students and grade their work.

Google maps- great way to find anywhere on the world. As a math teacher I could create a site about distances and direction that students could complete using this tool.

Google Earth- awesome virtual tour of the Earth while still sitting at my computer. As a teacher we could visit the sites where different math equations originated and maybe even the Rosetta Stone.

Groups- could be a great place for a class to work together in groups and get feedback from each other. As a teacher it is a great tool for cohorts/colleagues to work together on content material for class where we can all put in our input, comment on other's work, and edit the information.

Google Custom Search Engine- great way for teachers to limit the sites that students search through when working on specific projects. I would use this site to help students look for help and tools to complete their homework assignments and also to do a research project about the history of math. This feature could be very useful for other content areas that much more search based.

Notebook- a great tool to use while working and searching on the Internet, just like taking notes on paper of things you would find. I would have my students use this tool as they work through projects and papers on the Internet. There aren't a lot of math projects that are done this way but it would be a great tool for other content areas.

Google Scholar- a great place to search for reliable, accurate, and worthwhile information. This is a great place for students and teachers to get information from the web, especially since it takes all the junk websites out of the search.

I plan to use Google docs, Google spreadsheets, Calendar, Forms, iGoogle, Blogger, and Reader in my future classroom. These tools are very practical for a math teacher who wants a class website and wants to be able to get student feedback and responses. I like how these tools all work together and the ease of their implementation. I'm very impressed with the group work features and that I, as a teacher am able to edit and give feedback to students' work easily.

I can't see how Google maps, Earth, notebook, and presentations are very practical for inputting class notes filled with numbers, equations, symbols, and steps in a math classroom. I think they would be great resources for other content areas.

Google Sites

I think that Google Sites is a great way for teachers to have a free website where they can post anything and everything they need to for their students. This is beneficial because students can then check what's going on in our class no matter where they are. The students parents can also keep up with the class and be informed. Google sites is great because it has so many tools that are user friendly and all work together nicely, which is nice for someone that's not so great with computers. Also teachers can work together and collaborate to create one site and share their ideas with each other on that site. I think it's a great benefit that teachers can post announcements and assignments so that students can have access to them 24/7.

It could get very difficult to create a website for every class that a teacher has if they have a few different classes. For some content area classes, a website may not be useful and could just be extra, unnecessary work. I also think that teachers shouldn't make it their only source of putting out information because some students still do not have access to computers at their homes. Also some parents aren't going to want information about their students on the World Wide Web. Teachers need to be careful and inform parents about their intentions and make the site private if necessary. I think for a math class, it can be very difficult to type in math assignments with all the numbers and symbols, so I would still need to write out answer keys and scan them in or find another more effective solution for these assignments.

I think it's a great idea to have a class website. I plan to have one for my students just because I have really enjoyed my classes that have a website. I love that I can always get the information that I need and always have access to the class schedule. I want parents to be able to find out what's going on anytime and be able to have the information they need to keep up with their student's classes and schooling. I think it's a great way to stay organized and keep informed and with students that are more tech savvy then I was, I think they'll like the versatility as well.

Lessons Learned

I found it very interesting that so many people are so hesitant to integrate technology into the education system. I as well am concerned about the choices that students will make when using the technology available to them, but at the same time the advantages out way the disadvantages to me. In today's world it is essential that our students have the access and knowledge to be able to use the technology available to them. I am surprised to see the needs for using technology beyond the basic computer skills in the schools. I hadn't considered this as a problem or a necessity but I can understand why such skills are necessary for our students in such a technology based world.

The students ideas for technologies future are amazing and I wouldn't doubt that some of those students could make those dreams realities if they are given the right tools along the way. I'm impressed with the Park City schools that were able to study via the Internet and prepare for their AP exams. In situations like this, technology knowledge is so helpful. It's a good thing those teachers had the knowledge and skills to be able to help their students in that way. I can see how many education programs could go even more to online based schooling. I'm a little worried that some parents may take it the wrong way when I send messages to my students over the Internet even though it's just for class because of cases where such technologies could be abused and/or used for the wrong reasons.

My Beliefs

I don't know what I would do without my computer or cell phone these days and I know it's the same for my students. It seems that kids should be able to get through the day without such technologies because we all did when we were there age, but we have to face the facts...times are different! I've come to love and embrace the technologies. I think that students' learning can be greatly enhanced through the use of technology in the classroom and they can experience so much more than just listening to a lecture. Using technology to learn allows students to gain a wider range of knowledge and experience than they would otherwise get. I do believe however, that there is a time and a place for everything. Thus, there are times that cell phones should not be allowed in a classroom because students are not capable of deciding for themselves when to put it away and look at it later. Hence the reason why during a math lesson, students should not be texting (with my knowledge). I know this will happen and I can't control everything all the time.

I am glad that there are software programs that make learning some math concepts easier for the visual learners, such as drawings in 3-D and demonstrating the way to graph an oval. Also, technology is very useful for keeping parents informed and up to date with our current classroom status. Parents don't always have time to come and visit with the teacher and it can be very convenient for them to email the teacher and check in that way. The students can also keep track of things via the Internet and the teacher can send them messages to remind them about upcoming homework and tests.

Strengths & Weaknesses

My strengths are the following: I feel quite confident using technology and I'm very open and willing to learn to do new things with computers and other devices. I model ethical, moral, and safe use of technology at all times. I am able to learn new technologies quite well. I feel that I can accomplish most any task that is asked of me using technology.
My weaknesses are greater in number in accordance with the NET standards. Some of my weaknesses are applying my content area knowledge, math, to the virtual world, being creative with math in the virtual world, and developing digital learning experiences for my classroom.

I know that there are many software programs and Internet sites that are very helpful with math concepts and I want to learn how to use them so that I can teach my students how to use them and help them. I also want to learn to design lesson plans that incorporate the newest graphing calculators available to the students in order to take their thinking to the analytical level. I found two great websites to help me do these things. The first is Math Concepts www2.ups.edu/community/tofu/lev1f/conframe.htm which has lesson plans for every math course that use technology to teach the concept. There is also a tutorial for teachers so they can decide what is best to use for their class. The second one, Real Math, www.creativemathematics.com/seminars/real-math.htm is a site that teachers can subscribe to for tutorials to help teachers design creative application lesson plans and problems for their students.

My plan for improvement includes going through the above website in more depth and detail to find things that will work for my classroom. Also getting into some other classes that teach calculator programs and math software such as Geometer's Sketchpad and Maple. I'm looking forward to this class to find things that will help me use technology the best ways in my math classrooms to help the students really understand math and make connections with their world.

Hi Dr Cox!

I'm so excited to be in your class again! I am really excited to become more tech savvy!!!!