Last class final

I'm a little nervous about the final in our tech class. I'm not sure exactly what the format will be other than it will be an essay. This is the only final I have for this semester, so I'm just wondering how it will go. Hopefully the essay won't be too bad, and we will be able to get through it. Would anyone have been more comfortable doing a final project that involved a unit that utilized our different skills learned throughout the class, or is an essay enough? I prefer the essay, but I'm interested if anyone else would want to show off all the skills they learned this semester instead of writing.

End of the Semester

I'm so happy the semester is finally winding down. It's been a long one, but putting all the finishing touches on these last couple of projects really feels good. I can't wait for the month off after it is all over. Looking over the syllabus shows that I only have a few little things left to do for each class..... so why am i so stressed? Anyone else feeling the same way? Hopefully all of the EdTech tools we gathered this semester will help us in putting any last projects together if we need them to.

Presentations

I love that I've learned how to use a lot of this technology in this class. I feel like it's really going to help me in the upcoming weeks with end of the semester presentations looming. Clearly we will be able to use these technologies, not only for our future jobs, but also for the rest of our Grad school studies. I feel really happy that this class is offered as part of the first block of classes. Now we can utitlize this technology for the upcoming classes in our program.

Linear vs. Non-linear

My first reaction when I saw that we had both a linear and a non-linear PowerPoint due was... what's the point? It's the same technology and the idea is the same. Now that I've done both, I really see that they are two totally different projects and how each one can be useful for our classroom in the future. I really enjoyed the non-linear PowerPoint much more than I ever thought. While I will probably use the more traditional linear PowerPoint for lectures and class discussion, I can clearly see myself using the non-linear version when I want my students to be more hands on. They are both a nice skill to have for any classroom teacher.

PowerPoints

Hi class,
I was impressed with everyone's PowerPoints. I thought some of them were extremely creative. The use of humor was especially appealing. There are a lot of lucky students out there that will be encountering that creativity for many years to come. I certainly learned a lot about a variety of subjects and picked up some new ideas on how to structure my own PowerPoints from now on. I look forward to seeing more of your work and learning from all of you.

Ways to cope with the grind

As I've stated in an earlier blog, I work at a middle school. I found it interesting today when a teacher looked at the class and stated that "school had finally started." While we have now been in school almost a full week, many classes have only met a handful of times because of our block scheduling. This meant that up until Monday and Tuesday of this week, much of class consisted of the typical beginning of the year "housekeeping." I found it amusing that a teacher said that, and noticed something because of that statement that has to do with our class. Because of block scheduling, teachers must come up with a variety of ways to keep the class interested. During today alone I saw two videos and several PowerPoints. I bring it up just to point out that the grind does get long and we, as teachers need to be able to break up classes, and keep the attention of our students. Hopefully we don't over use these strategies, but use them in a helpful way that keeps things fresh for our students and help keep us sane.

Back to School

Working at a middle school often has teachers colliding with technology that students are more familiar with than the teachers and professionals themselves. I share an office in my school with a speech pathologist and another teacher assistant. On Tuesday, our first day back with no students, we had a technology problem. I have been fortunate enough to have grown up with computers all around me while my office mates are of a different generation. Generally, when there is a quick "fix-it" problem on the computer they come to me. Unfortunately, our printer would not print. It took the 3 of us almost twenty minutes to figure out the problem on our own. Sure we could have called tech support, but it was the first day and with only one worker in our building, it is tough to get in touch with him. That twenty minutes was used in fixing a simple technical problem that our 3 untrained minds could not figure out. That is twenty minutes that could have been spent on classroom set up, lesson plans, or any other amount of work that needed to be done that day.
The reason I bring this up is that the tech support position in the school, as well as being very busy right now, is also getting cut after the first half of the year. That means starting in January all of our problems either need to be solved on our own, or we will have to call out and wait for a person to come from another building to fix it. This poses a problem, but also showed me why classes in technology are so important to take in our education before we become teachers. As the technology grows, we need to be able to grow with it not only to utilize it properly in our classrooms, but to understand the basics in order to fix any problems that arise.