Final Reflection

This class is a good class. I think that it is very important for future teachers to experience a course like this one, but maybe not all in one night. Monday night was the only time that fit into my busy schedule and so I had to go with it. I am not very experienced with technology at all! Everything we talked about was new to me: gmail, blogs, itunes, etc. I just moved into my first home and we do not have the internet. I know this is my own personal problem, and yes, it definitely became a problem! Especially with the website. It was very challenging to find time to work on it when I commute, work and don't have the internet at home. I'm not saying that the assignments are too demanding, I'm reflecting that I was not in the best circumstances to take this course. The iMovie, the slide show, and well, everything took me so long to do! But I feel more comfortable with gmail and many other of the tools that we learned to use in this class. I definitely have some useful take-aways and have already used Google docs for another of my classes!

Digital Story

    

This is a story I created using iMovie. It is an "About Me" feature that I can upload to my teacher blog and classroom website. It is a good way for students and their families to learn a little bit more about me, and feel like they already know me! 

I had never made an iMovie before so this took many long hours. I was one of the few who hadn't used iTunes before this and I don't have a Mac computer accessible to me outside of this one TPTE classroom computer. So making this was a challenge, but one that I am very glad I completed!

Interactive Spreadsheet

Here is the example of an interactive spreadsheet I created using Microsoft Excel.

I can see myself using this tool in my classroom, especially for older students. It is a great way to spend time efficiently and save paper!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B43_WFNpa3guNDk5ZGIxOTQtZWFjMy00Yjg5LWJmYTYtMDhmZDNjMjk1MWVi

Storybird

Storybird is the Web 2.0 that I presented to the class. It is so cute and a great way for teachers and students to collaborate online in a creative fashion. Unlike many web 2.0 tools, storybird is already catered to teachers with the capability of creating an assignment, adding students and grading the finished products online. It's free and really cute and I will use this as a teacher to engage students more in-depth into a subject.

Animoto

I really enjoyed using Animoto. But I could really only envision using it for my own personal use rather than for a classroom. I think I may use it sparingly to introduce a new topic to older students (4th, 5th grade). It really isn't in-depth enough for me to use it as a project assignment or anything. But personally, I thought it was awesome!

Google Forms

Google Forms are really cool.
I didn't have a google account before this class and Prof. Beard noted at the beginning of the semester that being introduced to Google and all of its tools is worth being enrolled in the class. I agree with this 100%. Learning how to use all of Google's tools has been so great and useful. I will definitely use all of its functions in the future, with Google Forms being no exception. Having Google as my "secretary" is going to be a wonderful asset and I am relieved knowing that I will have all these things to be accessible to my career. I will now go and try to upload a form to my teacher website...

Inspiration Project

This is just another creative way that you can assess your students. Many students will not perform to the best of their capabilities on standardized testing or on quizzes and tests in the classroom. This is a great way to give them an opportunity to express what they really know and their creativity.
I would use this to create handouts for my students to have visual representation of the material and its relatedness with all the subgroups.
I love this and I am a visual learner, so I know that for young children to be able to have something like this is really great!

Podbean

Podbean I think is a really cool tool. I would totally use it for the parents aspect. That way students can have their parents help them out and they can have a podcast to guide them step-by-step. I don't have the tools to record and upload right now but hopefully I will have an iphone before I start teaching. Hopefully! I would definitely use this web tool in my classroom.

Digital Collection and Scavenger Hunt

Okay to be honest, this was the hardest assignment to date! What went well? Scanning photos, downloading and uploading photos. What did not go well? The 72 resolution and putting my google presentation onto Blogger. This took a very long time because I was not a hundred percent sure how to do this. And I have a very bad "try to do it by yourself and don't think about asking for help" mentality. But I figured it out eventually...better late than never?

Halloween- Digital Collection Remastered

Scavenger Hunt Slideshow

Halloween - Digital Photo Collection

smilebox

Smilebox is also so cool! I like how it can be used to really get the students involved in the class and whatever the class is learning about at that time. I think this is a wonderful tool for high school students to use on their own for class presentations and projects. I also think it'd be super fun to have one for your class anyway. Give yourself some downtime to have fun and get creative when it comes to school-related activities!

picnik

I loved picnik! So much fun! I have seen the results from resources like this but I had never experimented with it myself. I like that it offers a free version and that the upgrade isn't that much more, it could be worth it? I really love how you can be connected through facebook. That makes it so easy and fun! I think this tool is great for students' creative and interactive participation. I like it.

Timetoast

If I had a promethean/smartboard in my classroom, I will totally use timetoast in my classroom. It would be lots of fun for classroom participation. But other than an in-class activity, I don't think that I would use this. I know sometimes facebook has apps that are kind of like this and they are fun for a short amount of time. I don't think I should be confessing this in this class, but I am totally a more hands-on person. I love cute crafts that you can make with paint and construction paper and then hang it up in your class. However, I am more elementary school centered, and this timetoast I would use for a secondary ed class. Little kids really like colorful, fun stuff that will be visual throughout the entire semester.

Wordle

I thought the Wordle presentation was good, clear and concise. It is an interesting thing, Wordle is, but I have to say that I do like the suggested, Tagxedo site better.
I love in Tagxedo you can choose different shapes and you still have all the other options of: max word count, choosing color and styles, copying an entire URL, etc. Another cool element of Tagxedo is the "Make A Gift" link located right below the workspace. It provides step-by-step on how to create a gift out of your word cloud.
Also, Tagxedo allows you to Save, Share and Print your word cloud. This is my tagxedo word cloud developed from my blog's URL.

I added this to my blog very easily, I tried to do the same with Wordle, and I couldn't figure it out :(

I love that it is free and you don't have to have a username and password!!!!

Glogster

Glogster reminded me a lot of myspace. And like the presenters pointed out, sometimes it is not an advantage to have so many options to choose from. I felt very overwhelmed and I didn't really want to stay on the pages or work on a glog. That type of thing just isn't for me. And if students had to create their own glog, it is a very high possibility that they would get distracted and focus more on decorating the page than the information they should be learning. Ya, it reminded me of myspace and I'm pretty sure people got pretty tired of that.
For teachers, I could see that glogs could be handy as a digital poster. If a teacher is short on time (or isn't very good with crafts to make a real poster) but still wants a visual aid for their students, then a glog would be an easy way for them to put information all on one page (poster).
I wouldn't suggest this website to young children because there is no way that you could monitor what they saw. Glogster is a public forum and people will put whatever they want. For example, I just went to the Glogster page and read some of the comments that people put and they were not appropriate for any student to read. I would definitely consider the GlogsterEd instead of the regular glogster.

Delicious Web 2.0

I thought that this was a cool resource to have. I am not very familiar with "bookmarking" but this makes more sense to me. This way, as a teacher, I can save links that I want to use in class and pull them up from the computer at school without having to lug my laptop everywhere with me. Actually, what I have been doing before is e-mailing websites to my utk account so that I can have them when I got to school lol. So, I will definitely use this in my future as a student and as a teacher. It is just so organizational and easy to access. I think that page's layout is straightforward and easy to navigate.

Storybird

My Web 2.0 is pretty cool and I have never seen anything like this before. It was so fun and cute and I love that it is a collaborative project. It is set up great for teachers and makes it easy for them to have supervision over their students and it is pretty step-by-step in the directions to set up.

Webquest last class

Okay, so I blogged about the assignment we are supposed to do today? Woops. Last week was a lot of fun and I liked it and when I did the assignment that was supposed to do in class today, I definitely had a good idea of how to evaluate the webquests because of what we did last class. Plus, I had not ever seen a Webquest before and I really like them, so I am glad that we did it.

Webquest...What a quest!

So, I googled "music webquests" and I got a bunch of hits. I even found one site that listed several links to music webquests, and I mean around 50 links. I was very excited and started searching. I read all the titles and picked the one that sounded the most interesting. However, to my disappointment, the webiste said, "An Error Has Occurred" and listed four reasons why my site could not be viewed. "That's okay", I thought to myself. "I will just click on the second best option." So, I then searched for my second favorite choice, jazz musicians. I love jazz musicians, so I was psyched, but then..."The page cannot be found". "Oh geez, what a bummer!" I internally exclaimed for I was in the library. However, I did not lose hope, but I did lose organizational motivation. So I began randomly right-clicking on links to open them in a new tab. These was very unsuccessful and defeating. I only opened like five links that actually existed and then only about one of them was deemed worthy to use. "I could write a better webquest than this!" I pompously announced to myself. "You will one day. You will one day in your near future." This is what my mind wrote on an imaginary scroll. But for now, this is the webquest I chose to share with everyone: http://www.bestteacherusa.net/MusicWebquest/MusicWebquest.htm . The Breakdown:

Cons:
- It is not on its own individual page.
- When clicking on the links to other resources, not all of the pages worked. :(
- Not all of the external sites for resources were reputable pages (I evaluated them).

Pros:
-It does provide links to each section (Intro, questions, conclusion, etc.).
- Nice light color (a mint green) which is easy on the eyes.
-Cute animations (if you can block out the teacher sidebar which not be a problem on an individual page).
-Cute story in the intro section to give the kids a chance to use their imagination.
-Promotes teamwork and individual responsibility (has individual roles within groups).
-Provides the evaluation rubric that the students can have before evaluations.
-Provides individual reflection at the end of the webquest.

Follow-up:
If I used this Webquest in my classroom, I would probably keep the layout and assignment, but change a few of the external websites for resources to better webpages.

Website Evaluation Link *For Kids*

http://bcrocke.tripod.com/webeval.html

Here is a link to a handout created by an elementary school teacher, Mrs. Bethel Crockett in Delaware. It is setup with the ABCDE steps for evaluating a website. It concisely covers all the important criteria that we discussed to be the most important. I chose this one because it is targeted for younger students, and these are the students that I worry the most about!

Reflection: Evaluating Websites

This class assignment made me aware of the importance of a website's validity. I never really considered this through an educator's perspective, but I feel that it is truly very important. As educators we are responsible for everything that we expose our students to, inside and outside of the classroom. It is our responsibility to make sure that the supplemental resources that we refer to our students is safe and legitimate. Before I never thought to research the author of the page and make sure that he is an expert in his field. I have always been warned by teachers not to use wikipedia as a resource in research. This didn't make a large impact on my view of website validity, but after viewing sites with these objectives in mind, I understand the gravity of accountability and current revising. I think these are good requirements to keep in mind as we search as educators for educational websites.

Educational Website Evaluation

The website I evaluated is SFS Kids: Fun With Music. The site was created by the San Francisco Symphony Education Department and is free to all to come and explore. To get the most out of your experience with the site, they recommend that you install Flash5 and Quicktime because naturally it involves a lot with music. They provide links to go and download these for free and is very easy to understand.

My overall recommendation for this website in the use of a K12 classroom is very high. It is targeted towards K-5 students and meets every important qualification on the TPTE class' evaluation list and for my personal standards. For young children, an educational website needs to be easy to navigate and engaging and this website goes above and beyond in achievement of these goals. Its supplements also meet all of the National Standards required for K-5 music education. The music theory, which children may view as silly facts, are presented in such unique ways that the children are engaged and can assimilate the new information with things they already know. I am very happy to see this. For instance, the site encourages the students to imagine “measures” as being houses. This makes a lot of sense and they students will be able to relate and retain the information quickly and effectively. Plus, did I mention that it is a lot of fun?


I would definitely use this website in my own classroom. I've seen a teacher use educational computer games during downtime and during evaluation time. She would evaluate some students on an individual performance and have the other students to play on the games instead of having "dead time". I would def. use it in that form.

My Wiki Experience

I really like Wikis. It reminded me a lot of Facebook with the sharing of thoughts and pictures and things... I really like Wikis in that it can be used in a group and I have actually had a teacher to use it just the last week. It made the situation a lot less complicated because it involved a lot of people in different classes to collaborate on a scheduling assignment.

I can see myself using Wiki in the future, especially in activities requiring group collaboration, such as parents creating a list of goodies to bring to a bake sale. :)

My Learning Goals

My expectation for this class is to learn how to utilize technology in the most practical and effective way possible. I know I love when teachers use blogs and have clear connections and outlets for people to use and to follow. Blogging as a teacher can be so useful for parents to follow the activities their children are involved in and to remain updated on what is going on in your classroom.
I have never blogged before, or been very well-organized with documenting progress or announcements. This will be excellent practice for me to get in the habit of updating information and documenting resources, news, etc. 

Introduction to the class

Informal introduction to class
Through my degree I am certified to teach K-12, but I hope to teach at the elementary school level. I have been playing piano for seventeen years and it is still as much of a passion today as it was years ago. I am the oldest of six kids and so I have been around children my entire life and I still love them as well. I was home-schooled until my Junior year of high school when I enrolled at Rockwood High in Roane County. I attended a community college and then transferred to UT in the fall of 2008. I want to be a teacher because I can’t imagine doing anything else. Sharing my passion with others sounds like a great job to me! For fun: I love watching Independent movies at Downtown West theater, eating Asian food. I love all the arts. Any kind of live performance is awesome for me, be it theater or music. I could also spend hours in McKay’s or any type of book/music store.