Web Design

I found this lesson on web design the most helpful out of all of them and I can see myself using this in my own classroom. Being able to design a classroom website is very useful especially now that society is becoming more technological, especially young children. Constructing a classroom website is a great way to get both students and parents involved in their education. A website would be a good place to put up the homework schedule for both parents and students, homework help, the schedule of what they will be learning, etc. It's a great resource for both students and parents.

iPods

Technology is now part of everyday life and we are surrounded by children who are in elementary and are already using computers, have ipods, and cellular phones. As teachers we need to make sure we are staying up on top of all of the new technologies that our students are using and using it in our classroom. Apps are becoming so popular and finding and using one that would fit a lesson would be a good way to get students involved.

Podcasts

Looking at Podcasts made me think about how I can use them in my classroom. Some that  I found on iTunes were really good and were ones I could see myself using in the classroom. Also, learning how to make podcasts is very useful for when I want to use a podcast in the class and I am not able to find one and so I can make one that I can tailor for my own students. It's a great way to integrate technology in the classroom and making learning more interesting and fun for our students.

Garage Band makes it really easy to create a podcast and it really is easier than I thought it would be. Making my own podcast and recording my own voice and even adding music and images was really fun and I bet it would be very exciting for your students to hear you on the podcast when you show it to them.

Real or not Real?

It was really fun to look at different websites and investigate whether they were real or not because as teachers we will have to use technology in our classrooms and it is important that we are making sure that the website we are getting our information from is realible and true. It would not be a good thing to show our students a website or teach them something and then that information is not completely correct. This reminds me of the science class I am taking this term and how important it is that as teachers we are not teaching misconceptions to our students, misconceptions that will stick to them for the rest of their lives. That is why it is so important that we analyze every book and every website that we have our students read or look at. It is also important to start teaching kids how to tell a realiable websire from an unreliable one so that at a young age we have them analyzing what they are reading.

Google Earth

I had never used Google Earth before and I was amazed at what you could do with it. It was amazing to type in an address from anywhere in the US or anywhere else and see the actual image of the place. I looked up my old house in California and looking at it, it brought a lot of memories back. I am excited to be able to use this in my own classroom and getting students interested in technology and in learning about geography.

iMovie

I believe that being able to use videos in the classroom would be a good way to catch the students attention and to get them engaged. As a teacher I could do videos that have to do what I am teaching so that my students are learning without having them be bored and uninvolved. It would be a good way for them to see that learning can be fun and exciting! By using videos you can also tap into the students' multiple intelligences, especially if they are visual learners. There's just so many things you could use videos for as a way to get students motivated, all you have to do is make sure that if you do use videos in the classroom that you are using it correctly.

Photoshop

In class we went over how to put together 3 images: one from a camera, one from a scanner, and one from Tumblr and have them look like they belong. Before taking this class I have never worked with photoshop in my life, though I have heard of it and I knew that it was used to put images together. This whole process was very confusing and very tedious. Me and Cathy came to the lab to work on ours together since we were both equally lost as to how we were supposed to make these 3 images look realistic. She had looked at YouTube the day prior to our meeting so she at least had some idea as to how we were going to accomplish this activity and I am glad she did!! The video the guy posted on how to blend images together was perfect and very detailed so it was instrumental to our some-what success of this assignment. I now have more of an idea of how to cut out an image using the "lasso" tool and copying and pasting it onto the background where you can then size it in a way that will make the image seems like it belongs in that background. I don't think my images are 100% realistic because you can still notice that the picture has been doctored but it is way more than I had ever accomplished before with Photoshop and I am really happy with the end results.