Ninth Class

I have really enjoyed and valued this class. When I first looked at the syllabus on blackboard I was very worried and concerned about the course requirements. As the course progressed I became more and more comfortable. I've learned many things and am excited to bring these ideas to my classroom and some of my colleagues classrooms as well. Professor Luch did a wonderful job with so many of us on various ability levels. I liked how she valued everyone's knowledge and we used some student's expertise in areas of technology for class instruction. Thanks again experts! Congratulations to everyone, good luck in your future teaching, Rachel.

Eighth Class

I really liked exploring in the Inspiration Program. I used Kidspiration once years ago in a 1st grade classroom to create a word web. I think that the ability to freely explore in the program was helpful in understanding the program better. Since working this way with technology in this class I feel less intimidated with new technologies. (Of course having the safety of the New Paltz computers is also helpful!)
A teacher in my school actually did a presentation for parents and staff at the end of the school year last year to educate about cyberbullying. It truly is a growing problem for our students. My neice had her username and password stolen by a sister of a friend. She had used her friend's computer to post on her myspace account, and the screen saved her information and the sister (of her friend) took the information. To make a long story short the sister added some BAD things to her account and my neice had to erase everything from her account, change her password, and start fresh.
I liked what Jody said about managing technology not letting technology manage us. It is inevitable that technology will continue to grow in use and importance in the future. I hope that we can also adjust and maintain this technology so that we still control all aspects of our lives without being dictated by the technology present.

Seventh Class

I'm really excited about the ASSURE lesson plan that I am creating and I'm anxious to implement it this year with my second graders. Once I found the Virtual Manipulatives (Site posted on my FURL account) I wanted to try this type of lesson as a type of experimentation of their use. I can't wait to see what my students think of the program. I hope that this lesson will help them show 2-digit numbers in a variety of ways. Also I think that seeing tens and ones simultaneously as 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional objects will help them relate the actual base ten blocks with pictures of base ten blocks. This relating should help students with testing difficulties since often my students can create numbers using manipulatives but have difficulty identifying them from pictures.

Sixth Class

Smartboards here I come! That was a great experience working with the SmartBoard for my SuccessMaker PowerPoint presentation. It was rather easy to manipulate after I got comfortable and gained more confidence. Really you follow the same methods as using your desktop computer but instead of a mouse you use your finger. Double tapping on the screen still seems weird to me though! I enjoyed learning more about interactive white boards through Michelle's presentation. I'm interested to see and try some of the applications she spoke of like changing print to type, highlighting, and using the writing pen and eraser. My school district currently has a smartboard for each school and the elementary school will be getting another this year so I'm sure I'll get the opportunity to try these applications.

Fifth Class

Since we are working on our powerpoint presentations today and our bibliography slide has to be in APA format I thought I'd add some great sites for APA format that I got through a different class last semester. The first site I found was particularly helpful.
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPA.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Manipulating within the Powerpoint program is becoming easier and easier for me. I am getting excited about all the different possibilities the program has to offer (Backgrounds, Animations, etc.)

Fourth Class

I am extremely frustrated with making my website. I am having big troubles with finding, downloading, and utilizing pictures. Just to let everyone know you can't use pictures from Microsoft Word or images saved in Paint. I hope that this becomes a bit easier to do as class goes on and I also hope that the website I plan to make through my school district is easier to do compared to this! I hope everyone else's website creation is going smoothly. Good Luck! Rachel

Third Class

I am very interested in Intranet posting within schools where only people in the school community can see the postings. We do have the ability to create our own website through the school and I wonder if these sites are on an intranet or the internet. A collegue and I will hopefully be attempting to create a mathematics website for all students in our building grades K through 6 so I will definitely be discussing this with the technology crew. Our school has many technology resources such as two computer labs, multiple projectors, laptop carts, and multiple computers in each classroom so we are trying to better utilize these tools in our instruction. On another note I already have a base knowledge within powerpoint so I am enjoying experimenting with other unknown aspects of the program - WebQuest/Powerpoint here I come!