Indian summer has finally arrived... 80 degrees in October just doesn't sound right but I think I speak for everyone when I say "We'll take it!" If only it stayed daylight until 9pm once again.
The last few weeks we have really explored some fun technology to incorporate in a classroom. I am officially in love with Google and their Doc offerings! Having had a personal Gmail account for the past several years, I periodically would catch wind of applications Google was creating. I have experimented in the past with Google Spreadsheets and the sharing option. The wonderful thing about it is the simplicity of the application. Spreadsheets doesn't have quite the functionality or options of MS Excel but it has the base functions to effectively create a working and visually appealing spreadsheet. The best component by far has to be the automatic save feature that I wish Excel had.
I had never built a form to administer a quiz or poll. Even if I had, I wouldn't have thought to leverage Google to manage that form. What a great idea! As I was looking through the tutorials and creating my "quiz", I imagined myself creating polls in my school to collect school-wide opinions on particular matters. After I get settled in a school, I have a vision to start a cycling club with a math component that examines the geometry of a bicycle. Using a Google Form such as the one we used would be a great tool to gauge the interest level of such a club. The summary feature within the forms application is a wonderful add-on. The summary was well formatted and provided a great snapshot of the form's data at a single click of the mouse. The automatic grading script, Flubaroo, was much easier to use than I anticipated and the grading was flawless. This is something I would have never thought to seek out on my own. I'm glad I know about it now. Overall, I can't wait to explore more with Google Docs...and I know the applications will only improve in functionality over time. Very exciting!
The Inspiration software was fun to use too and was beneficial in assembling diagrams although I wasn't crazy about downloading in onto my computer. I like the web-based media at this point where I can save and access everything online. I wonder if Google Drawing can perform the same type of diagramming as Inspiration? ...there's only one way to find out!
Seeing that I officially have one follower, even if it is my girlfriend, I think I need to post this on my Protopage :)
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Feeling the September Chill
It's the middle of September and things seem to really be in full swing centered around the school year. Coaching high school soccer has its daily time-consuming demands (but I love it!), Ashland courses have their weekly demands, a Math class at Ohio Dominican requires my attention from time to time, and occasionally I get to substitute teach when a teacher in the 12 districts I'm enrolled in decides to play hookie.
Oh...and let's not forget about football fever on the weekends...although I'm currently too busy to really care about football. I'd rather be out cycling. In fact, the middle of a home OSU game is the best time to be out on the road...the streets are free and clear of everything scarlet, grey, and intoxicated. Strongly recommended!
As luck would have it, I'm currently working on fulfilling one of my Ashland obligations...the weekly "Get it Done by Midnight" routine that I seem to entertain every Thursday night. I don't mind this week's duties one bit...starting my own blog is something I have always thought about but never had the impetus to really start. Maybe that's because I feel an audience is necessary to maintain a blog...otherwise, it's just a journal...which is another thing I've thought about doing but haven't followed through with. It's kind of fun sharing all the random thoughts that circulate in my head with ALL of you...even if "ALL of you" amounts to just my teacher.
It's been great working with a different technology tool each week for this class. As I have discovered already, there are going to be some tools that I feel have some great features, capture my imagination, are engaging, and appear to be wonderful educational tools that I hope to utilize in my classroom...while other tools just aren't going to be for me...and what I realize is that is perfectly fine. There are so many technological resources out there to incorporate into a teaching curriculum...it's not possible to use every medium and some simply aren't tailored to particular content areas.
I will eventually be spending my days in high school math classrooms. The web portal Protopage concept is wonderful for high school students to access information pertaining to their math class, view embedded videos, be provided with numerous links to further their understanding in a particular area, and provide them with lessons to complete online. The concept of dividing the content up into various tabs is a great organizational feature. I definitely plan on using this tool to create a class webpage. On the other hand, I did not have as much praise for the Glogster application. I can see its benefit, especially in lower grade levels where facts are the focus, but in upper level grades where concepts and processes are the focus, this tool falls a little short. Protopage, in my opinion, is multiple Glogster posters compiled into one central depository, exhausting half the effort.
And now I have a blog.
If I get more than one follower, I might just have to provide a link to this on my Protopage!
Oh...and let's not forget about football fever on the weekends...although I'm currently too busy to really care about football. I'd rather be out cycling. In fact, the middle of a home OSU game is the best time to be out on the road...the streets are free and clear of everything scarlet, grey, and intoxicated. Strongly recommended!
As luck would have it, I'm currently working on fulfilling one of my Ashland obligations...the weekly "Get it Done by Midnight" routine that I seem to entertain every Thursday night. I don't mind this week's duties one bit...starting my own blog is something I have always thought about but never had the impetus to really start. Maybe that's because I feel an audience is necessary to maintain a blog...otherwise, it's just a journal...which is another thing I've thought about doing but haven't followed through with. It's kind of fun sharing all the random thoughts that circulate in my head with ALL of you...even if "ALL of you" amounts to just my teacher.
It's been great working with a different technology tool each week for this class. As I have discovered already, there are going to be some tools that I feel have some great features, capture my imagination, are engaging, and appear to be wonderful educational tools that I hope to utilize in my classroom...while other tools just aren't going to be for me...and what I realize is that is perfectly fine. There are so many technological resources out there to incorporate into a teaching curriculum...it's not possible to use every medium and some simply aren't tailored to particular content areas.
I will eventually be spending my days in high school math classrooms. The web portal Protopage concept is wonderful for high school students to access information pertaining to their math class, view embedded videos, be provided with numerous links to further their understanding in a particular area, and provide them with lessons to complete online. The concept of dividing the content up into various tabs is a great organizational feature. I definitely plan on using this tool to create a class webpage. On the other hand, I did not have as much praise for the Glogster application. I can see its benefit, especially in lower grade levels where facts are the focus, but in upper level grades where concepts and processes are the focus, this tool falls a little short. Protopage, in my opinion, is multiple Glogster posters compiled into one central depository, exhausting half the effort.
And now I have a blog.
If I get more than one follower, I might just have to provide a link to this on my Protopage!
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