This weeks activities been be very interesting to use. I have dabbled with using Excel programs and have seen a variety of people utilize their tools. I found it interesting when working on the assignment because I had some of my Calculus and Physics students help me fill out the formulas. It was shocking to me how much these students knew about the program. I have seen college students struggle in business finance classes trying to use these functions. Thankfully with there help and the knowledge that I possessed from the assignments, I was able to easily complete the tasks.
One way that I am going to utilize these formulas is for my fuel mixture in Small Engine Class. Students continually bring in engines that require different fuel mixtures. By creating a simple formula on Excel, we should have very little problems figuring out the correct mixture.
The readings have been very beneficial. I really like the ideas that the book is generating. Reading the problem solving techniques discussed in the chapter really helped me out because most of the coursework that I provide students is of the problem solving nature. I pulled a few good techniques out of the text, including the KWL charts, that I hope will benefit my curriculum.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Technology Tools Week 2
Well the time is passing by very fast. I am really enjoying the information that I am reading about in the textbook. I enjoy reading about how different school settings are faced with problems that we as educators will be or are facing. The chapters do a great job breaking down the topics and go into great detail about subjects that are difficult to comprehend.
I really liked working with some of the activities this week, including mostly the internet searching. I am a habitual user of Google. I know there is so much more out there, but I have my email linked through there and the access is so easy. This week I noticed that I started researching using a variety of different websites including ask.com and Yahoo. I even had my students complete an assignment in which they were not allowed to utilized Google at all. At first they really fought me and some of them still are, but in general most of them understand what I was trying to get across. Hopefully in the near future I can incorporate a variety of different assignments in which the students must meet these requirements.
The word processing programs have been fun to utilize. I have shown these different formats to students in my engineering classes because they are required to do a lot of collaborative work with each other. Being able to have students working on multiple documents allow individuals to all be active in the classroom setting, with nobody sitting idle.
I am happy overall so far with how things have been going. The work load is enough so that it balances my career. Students are interested in what I bring in for new ideas every Wednesday from my masters class. I hope that I continue to gain information from the text and the presentations that will affect all of the subjects that I teach.
I really liked working with some of the activities this week, including mostly the internet searching. I am a habitual user of Google. I know there is so much more out there, but I have my email linked through there and the access is so easy. This week I noticed that I started researching using a variety of different websites including ask.com and Yahoo. I even had my students complete an assignment in which they were not allowed to utilized Google at all. At first they really fought me and some of them still are, but in general most of them understand what I was trying to get across. Hopefully in the near future I can incorporate a variety of different assignments in which the students must meet these requirements.
The word processing programs have been fun to utilize. I have shown these different formats to students in my engineering classes because they are required to do a lot of collaborative work with each other. Being able to have students working on multiple documents allow individuals to all be active in the classroom setting, with nobody sitting idle.
I am happy overall so far with how things have been going. The work load is enough so that it balances my career. Students are interested in what I bring in for new ideas every Wednesday from my masters class. I hope that I continue to gain information from the text and the presentations that will affect all of the subjects that I teach.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Technology Tools Week One
Ah, the technology tools that we love to use. Presentations and graphics are programs that have evolutionized from the great "Oregon Trail" to programs such as Empressr. I tried out Empressr and a couple other presentation software programs, including SlideBoom and SlideShare. I really like the layout and usage of Empressr because it was very similar to PowerPoint programs that most instructors are used to. I showed my students some of the abilities that the program had and they really liked the concept of creating online presentations. The one thing that I did not like about the program was it's functionalities. There seemed to be a lot of presentation tools that were missing. I hope that Empressr is continuing to take feedback on their programs and making changes to help suit the users.
The graphics programs that I tried included applications such as Roxik, Queeky, and Toonlet. Honestly I have to say I do not really see the purpose of some of these applications. I could see the applications being fun for the kids to play around for a little while, but their usage in helping students further their education is very minimal in my opinion. As a technology teacher, I already have my students working with Dreamweaver Fireworks and Flash to create projects comparable to the ones viewed on these websites.
In the near future, I hope to implement online presentations for my Digital Imaging course. I can see my students creating online portfolios utilizing Empressr to show their parents the quality materials they are creating in my class. I will have to talk to my tech coordinator to unblock useful technology websites such as Empressr!!!!!!
The graphics programs that I tried included applications such as Roxik, Queeky, and Toonlet. Honestly I have to say I do not really see the purpose of some of these applications. I could see the applications being fun for the kids to play around for a little while, but their usage in helping students further their education is very minimal in my opinion. As a technology teacher, I already have my students working with Dreamweaver Fireworks and Flash to create projects comparable to the ones viewed on these websites.
In the near future, I hope to implement online presentations for my Digital Imaging course. I can see my students creating online portfolios utilizing Empressr to show their parents the quality materials they are creating in my class. I will have to talk to my tech coordinator to unblock useful technology websites such as Empressr!!!!!!
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