What I learned in the 1st week of EDLD 5364.

During the first week of EDLD 5364 I have reconfirmed the type of teacher that I am and the type of teacher I want to become.  Although my classroom is set up in a very traditional manner in which all the students' desks are facing the front and they write notes as I lecture there is a very strong constructivist flavor.  I find ways to relate the information to things that hold my students' interests.  I am okay with having the students' help me build lessons and I ask how they would like to be able to show me they grasp the content.  We create projects that allow students' to both show they understand the information and to be creative in the process.  We don't read from the text and we don't answer the questions at the end of the section.  We do create foldables, they do have to link new concepts to prior knowledge, and most importantly we have fun while we are learning.

 

Probably the most important thing I have learned is that I need to start saving my money so I can become a cyborg.  I have a hard time not having the latest model of a cell phone.  I need to make sure that I catch this next technology wave.

Digital Graphics and Web Design course wrap up.

This course provided another opportunity to work in a group.  I enjoy the group work because it gave us an opportunity to network and to share ideas.  It always makes me happy to see when a group of people can manage to create a product even though they probably would not be able to pick each other out in a crowd. Being able to use Google Docs makes the group work quite a bit easier. The group work also presents a challenge to be able to coordinate time and work despite our varying schedules. This is the one thing that is a little nerve racking to me.  Our group work began just as my school year was beginning.  Knowing that my school district is the only district in Texas that has begun made me nervous.  I did not want my group mates to think I was not putting in the same amount of effort they were putting in.  My schedule allowed me to be the most productive on our assignments on the weekend.

 

    I really enjoyed several of the assignments during this 5 week course.  I particularly enjoyed the self logo assignment.  I appreciated having to stop and reflect on what I could use to represent me and what I want to accomplish as a teacher and a person.  I enjoyed it so much that I turned around and gave that assignment to my Pre Advanced Placement students.  Their self designed logo was used to decorate the composition notebook used for my class.

 

     In creating my logo and reflecting on the kind of teacher I wanted to be, I realized that I wanted to incorporate more technology into my class.  As our team divided up the portions of the web page I was able to work on the “How To” page.  This allowed me to research three Web 2.0 tools.  I researched an animation site in which you can manipulate a stick figure to create a flipbook type animation (www.stykz.com), a site that allows you to create a poster of words (www.wordle.com), and a site that allows you to share PowerPoints you have created with people around the world (www.slideshare.com). But my greatest find was the tool that I used to show how to use all these sites.  Screencast-o-matic (www.screencast-o-matic.com) is a site that allows you to record what is being seen the screen of your computer.  I was able to record my mouse actions as I navigated through each site.  Not only does it record my screen activity but I was able to record my voice as I narrated what I was doing on the site.  This site could play a crucial role in creating a reverse classroom in which my students can watch my lecture for homework and come into the class to apply their knowledge in class.  This group assignment also allowed me to triple the amount of posts I have on YouTube.

To check out the web site we created go to https://sites.google.com/site/everyoneelseleftovers/