NETS

I never knew there were National Educational Technology Standards until today. I really like how there are are standards for students, teachers, and administrators because it encourages everyone to be technologically savvy. Creating a powerpoint on the standards has helped me see that some of the standards for teachers, administrators, and students are similar or the same.

Web 2.0

I'm really excited for the web 2.0 presentations. I use web 2.0 sites on a regular basis (i.e. facebook, twitter, tumblr, etc) but I've never really thought of using them in the classroom. I haven't heard of many of the websites that will be presented on and I am interested in learning about them and seeing how they can be incorporated into lessons.
It was really exciting to learn about lit trips and how it uses Google earth. It can really help students visualize the book and make real world connections

Grade book pt 2

Let me start off by start off by saying that this grade book project doesn't seem difficult, just tedious. I know that the quicktime videos will help me a lot because I know I will have difficulty figuring some things out. I originally planned on googling the information but watching it on a video would be more helpful.

Grade book project

I'm excited for this project because I've never used Excel before. My mother is required to create spreadsheets for her job and she always raves about Excel and the ease of it but I always preferred to create a table and fill in the data, which can easily become time consuming. I always imagined that I would use an actual grade book and manually fill in and calculate students grades. Now that I think about it, I would be very time consuming to do that for 20+ students for every project and homework assignment. It would be a lot easier to have Excel do the computations for it.

Copyright

I thought I knew the basics of copyright infringement but today's class showed me that I didn't know much at all. The quiz on copyright showed me that there are a lot of details that are involved in what's copyright infringement and not. How am I supposed to remember it all?
I remember a few instances when I was in public school and teachers would hand out copies of pages that specifically said "unlawful to copy" on the bottom. Whenever a student pointed it out to the teacher they would assure the class that no one would really come to the school and check all of the materials being handed out. I feel a little more comfortable knowing that I should be fine as long as I can justify how it relates to my lesson, slightly change the content, and do not use a lot of of it.

21st Century Skills

Today in class we discussed skills that teachers in the 21st century should possess. While watching one of the videos I realized that educators are often reluctant to change with the times. In my opinion, teachers should implement new technologies in the classroom in order to prepare their children for the future. It was interesting to read the excuses that educators came up with as to why they should not use new technology in the classroom. When I become a teacher I will always incorporate new technology and tools into the classroom because I understand the importance of adapting. It will be my job to prepare students for jobs that do not exist yet and I will only hinder their development if I do no let them use new technology.

9/1/11

I can honestly say that today's class frightened me a bit. There are so many issues with the American education system, will I really be able to prepare children for the future in the one year that I have them? Today I realized that I have to do more than teach concepts, I will have to teach my future students how to think for themselves and teach themselves. Incorporating technology into my lessons will help me prepare students for the future. Technology is constantly changing and students need to be able to quickly adapt to those changes if they want to be successful in their adult life.