Tuesday, April 12, 2016

ILP #2 "Design"- Prezi

For my second independent learning project, I decided to finally give Prezi a whirl. I really like the way that the presentation is smooth and the transitions are nice. I chose a relatively simple template to teach a lesson to Kindergarteners on the five senses. One thing that I do not really like about Prezi is that it is not as flexible and does not have as many capabilities as Powerpoint but I do think that Prezi presentations come out nicer, especially for teaching purposes. I also thought it was really cool that I could embed the video like I did and not just have a random link floating around. I did not even have to tell Prezi that it was a video! I definitely see myself using Prezi in my classroom just because of how smooth and nice the presentations come out and I think for younger grades it is easier to focus in a Prezi because there is not a lot of moving parts.

Check out my Prezi: http://prezi.com/zhbkj25vuigp/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Animals Survey

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_diYDih2NDhhCu45

#10 The final blog post!

My final post!!!

I think that data collection is a very good way to get input from your students. In my independent learning project, I created an edmodo page for my 1st grade classroom, one of my posts was a survey where the students could vote on what book they wanted to read as a class next. This is a good way to make sure that every students opinion and input is recognized. Another way that this could be used is to be able to ask students how they feel they are doing on a certain topic or area. For example, after learning about counting money in a first grade class, before the big test a teacher could put out a survey to see if the students need a little more explanation, if they are confident, or if they are confused about the topic. This is a much neater and easier way to see where everyone is at in their learning.

I really enjoyed being able to see all of my classmates differing opinions on different topics. I also liked seeing my classmates projects. It is really cool to be able to see my classmates creativity that I may have otherwise not known. I really enjoyed being able to see how people related to different topics such as assistive technology and who may or may not have personal experiences with that. Writing these blogs has helped me gain a better insight to my classmates creativity level and also has helped me learn more about them.  

There is so many awesome technology out there that will definitely come in handy in my future career as a teacher. One skill that I would like to learn next is I would like to be able to learn how to use adobe photoshop because I have seen the cool ways that it can be used to create flyers and different pictures. I would like to implement this in my classroom by making posters and different things to hang on my walls so they are unique to my classroom.

I think that the best way to learn a technology program is to simply try it out. I will eventually buy the programs such as adobe photoshop and play around with it, trial and error. This program will be very useful to me and my students and the best way I can learn it is by getting it and trying. I will also probably need the help of some youtube videos to accomplish all of these programs uses but I will be able to figure them out as best I can. There are so many amazing technological tools out there that can help teachers and I can't wait to explore so many of them!

Can't wait to see how all of us use these awesome technologies in the future! You all rock! Thanks for ed-teching with me all semester :)