Post 10

I feel that this class was very successful and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not to sure as to where this will take me yet. I do have another Intro class to take...Diversity. This class was extremely useful and I'm glad I took it. I think my favorite thing was this Blog. I now have my own and I have told my roommates about it and they have them now too. The word is spreading fast about blogging and they all seem to like it.
The thing that I despised the most about this class was SAM. I don't think that it was effective at all. It messed my computer up and didn't really teach me much of anything. But like all the other classes you cant like everything about the class.
I am very excited to continue with my major and scared at the same time to start my own class. I have a ways to go before that happens. Having your own class brings mixed emotions but I think in the end it will be very rewarding. I'm excited to use this new information and all that Mr. Gentiles has showed us and help my students.

Post #9

I have said this in many of my other posts but overall I feel that this class has greatly benefited me! This class will be used further throughout my career as a student at FSU as well as a Teacher later on down the road. This class was well organized and helpful. The only thing that would make this class better, is if it weren't so early. 8am classes are horrible anyways and then for this class to be almost 3 hours, seems too long.

Mr. Gentile was a great teacher. Very helpful and understanding. He truly cared about his students. He was personable and easy to relate too. He understood that we were all busy with other classes and tried to accommodate all of our needs. He was clear with his instructions and used power points and podcast to help us if we didn't understand. He gave us his phone number to call him if we had any questions or needed any outside help. He really does care and since he had such a positive outlook on teaching and shared both negative and postive aspects of teaching he made teaching sound more enjoyable than other teaches in Intro to Education classes make it sound.

This class was enjoyable and overall helpful. I would recommend everyone to take this class especially with Mr. Gentile.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 dealt with Security Issues, Ethics ad Emerging Technologies in Education. I thought this chapter was very interesting. The section about Security Issues seemed to be the most relevant. Now a days the increase in viruses is outrageous. This section was helpful in the fact that it went into detail about the signs of virus infections (p.471) as well as two of the most common viruses; worms and Trojan Horse. I have heard of people getting the Trojan Horse virus on their computers and they said its the worst thing that has ever hit their computer and it takes a while to catch it. This section also talks about logic bombs and time bombs; such as the Michelangelo virus. I still don't understand why people create these viruses, it will never make sense. Creating these viruses seem unethical, causing harm to others intentionally.
Some new skills that I acquired since the last class, was creating a web page. I've never created one before and I have always wanted to. Being able to create one will help later on when I become a teacher and need to have a website. In todays society if you don't have a website, webpage, or know how to create them or use them, your in big trouble. Todays society seems to be built around the use of the web, and learning new things from it. Creating a webpage you can be as creative as you want with it, being able to draw as much attention to it as you please. You are able to use webpages for your own use or for many different uses which helps in many ways.
I was glad that Spring Break was here, but it went by entirely to fast. Spring Break is a tease, but the good news is we only have a little over a month until Summer. Although now im not in any rush for summer since we are required to take summer classes. So now I am just jumping right back into classes. Spring Break was definitley needed and it was great to be able to go home for a few days. I hope everyone else had a great Spring Break and now we must get back into that "learning mode".

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was about technology and curriculum integration. One of the more interesting things that I found was that students retain knowledge longer when they are actively involved in using digital media to meet their benchmarks. Technology helps make learning more active and gets the students more involved. With all this great technology, there are barriers just like everything else. The most common barrier is the lack of teacher training with the equipment. Most of the information that was covered in this chapter, we covered in my intro to education class (EDF1005). So it was basically a review.

This past week we learned how to do PowerPoint. I like PowerPoint a lot. You are able to do so much with it. I had no idea that you could make it seem as though you were on the internet. That’s awesome. I’m quite excited to use it!

I still can’t get over all that things that we learn in this class that help with everyday things, not just teaching. PowerPoint, Word, Blogger these tools are things that we can use years from now. I still find this class informative and interesting. I wish it wasn’t at 8am but it’s a good class and I’d recommend everyone should take it.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 deals with Digital Media and all the Software Applications that you can use to help teach. I didn’t realize all the applications that are out there for teachers to use to enhance their teaching methods. With the new technology and the advancements of the old ones students now have more ways to learn. With digital media software students have the ability to learn in ways that they’ve never been able to before; whether they are visual, audio or kinetics. There are different pieces that go into creating this digital media that makes it better. You can add text, graphics, animation, audio, and video. These digital media technology can be used as an application. You can use it to train, as electronic books, how-to guides, magazines, newspapers, journals. These applications can help not only with teaching but with every day things.

Some new skills that I learned was how to use wiki. Wiki is different and I'm not sure how I feel about it still. Ive never used and application like it before. I don’t think I'm a big fan of it. I do think its an interesting process but its not the effective.

I found it effective that the class lesson was online. Ive never had a class online and I thought it was cool how I learned through Videos off of Youtube.com. I don’t know though if I would learn better that way, if I had a strictly online class though. I think that would cause me to procrastinate more and I think I would get distracted more as well.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is about communication through the internet. I found it rather interesting that the internet has existed since 1960 while the World Wide Web came about in the 1990's. The section THE WORLD WIDE WEB discusses the components that make up web pages. For instance; the URL is a uniform resource locator. The most common protocol is the hypertext transfer protocol (http://) This section also goes into more detail about different types of hypertext/ hyperlinks/ hypermedia. I found that I definitely fall into the Web Surfing category, jumping from one page to another. The Web helps teachers and students communicate with other teachers and students in other countries. One main website that allows teachers and students to do this is ePALS classroom exchange. Another interesting fact that the book says is the best way to learn how the internet works "is to log on and explore."
This past week I learned different ways to search the web to find different topics. I didn't realize all the things that Google had to offer besides their original start up page. The web hunt allowed me to search for things using different tools and further my understanding of how the web works. These web hunts are a great tool with teaching all subjects.
Last weeks class was beneficial with teaching later on. We were able to find websites to talk with other teachers as well as finding websites to find lesson plans. I didn't realize how many websites there were out there that teachers use and how they end up helping each other. I want to teach Math for high schoolers and I found some great websites to help with lesson plans as well as places to go to find worksheets and what not. This class is going to help out a lot with teaching! I have been doing volunteering at a High School and I enjoy it. I have been helping 9th and 10th graders with Math FCAT which I HATE the FCAT but i feel better about myself in the fact that i get to help others and thats the most rewarding part i think of being a teacher/volunteer.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is filled with more detail pertaining to the inside of the computer. Most of this information I never knew even existed. This chapter explains the common things in more detail as well as things the little things that make your computer run better/faster in an easy way that is understandable. For instance I knew that the more pixels a screen created the better, however, I didn’t understand how the numbers worked. The first number is the pixels per horizontal row whereas the second number is the pixels per vertical column, then you multiply them to get the total. (That makes sense!)This chapter gives lots of examples of each kind of device that the computer can do; input, output, storage media and devices. This chapter breaks down the components of a computer in a way that even if you think you know that part fairly well you still learn more about it.

I have never used Inspiration 8 prior to this class. I found it to be a very useful tool program and I think it beats trying to make those concept maps on Word. That takes a really long time and it doesn’t look near as nice and cool as the way Inspiration allows you to arrange the data. These maps with be helpful in teaching just about any class. I wish when I was in school they had concept map application like this instead of us trying to draw them and make them perfect. This would have been a huge time saver.

I must say I'm not a big fan of this book. I think its ok, gives lots of examples and things like that but with technology you need to be hands on. I feel that I learn better in the class rather than reading this material. There’s just so much to read and try to remember and I don’t think I will ever be asked a question that pertains to the components of the inside of a computer. This class will be beneficial in itself; I think the book hinders this course rather than benefit it. I despise SAM I think it messed up my computer as well as my roommates. I'm not sure how it did it but it did it.

***Glad the giants won…however I wish Peyton Manning got MVP instead of his little brother ;)

Chapter 3

While reading Chapter 3, I couldn’t help but laugh. I felt that the material covered was basic information and that it came from one of those self help books “…for Idiots”. This chapter covered a lot of material that students should already know coming into this class. I didn’t feel that I learned all that much. The main thing that I got out of this chapter was the difference between the operating systems. I didn’t realize how many there were and the subcategories in each one. A large majority this chapter was items that we have learned previously by using computers, or from other classes. I feel that this chapter wasn’t needed. This book is very easy to read and has great visuals, however, at times it makes me feel a little dumb the way it’s presented.

Some new skills I acquired this past week were in regards to Assignment #2. I knew how to present my information in columns but I couldn’t figure out how to get just the selected information not the whole document. I also figured out how to work a functioning hyperlink. This link will come in handy later on in teaching and for personal uses. Assignment #2 will be beneficial with newsletters for teaching as well as ever day use, in communities, churches, ect.

I think this class will help not just with teaching but with everyday usage of new developing technology. I usually like to figure out things for myself, trial and error, but with computers that’s not the best idea. I have decided that when taking computer classes it is best to ask questions whenever I get lost or confused! I feel this class will benefit me more than other classes I’ve already taken; therefore I really like this class!

*I am tired of being sick…this cold should not last this long!

Chapter 1

John M. Keller developed ARCS motivational model. ARCS stands for Attention, Relevance, Challenge/Confidence and Satisfaction/Success. The main purpose for Keller’s model was to make learning more interesting and fun. Digital students are children that are multitaskers. These kids like to do more than one thing at a time and enjoy doing so. Since more children are digital students, teachers have rethought their processes of teaching and have conformed to this new style. Now days schools all over the world use computers and new technology to teach their classes. They may use community digital storytelling or transmedia story to help in teaching their students.

Since the last time our class met I have learned several new things on the computer that will help in teaching a class. I have learned more about Office 2007. Since the 98 and 03 series are now outdated, we must learn the new tabs, groups and other attributes that the 07 series has to offer. I think that overall the 07 series is much easier to use and is a better tool than the previous series. The 07 series seems more user efficient, not so complicated and better for the digital kids. To me this class is going to have a huge impact on how the upcoming teachers teach. This class will actually be useful unlike most classes we take.

As far as things I’d like to share I want to be a math teacher in middle school or high school. Growing up I always wanted to be an elementary teacher (kindergarten) but after volunteering for my kindergarten teacher I changed my mind. Nowadays the teaching criteria for kindergartners has changed immensely since we were in that grade, I don’t feel I have the patience to teach that at that level. Math has always been my strongest subject so to me that makes since. I changed my major 7 times in a matter of a year, and you can’t change what your heart wants, so finally I decided this was my best route.

First Blog

I haven’t ever taken classes about technology other than a typing class in high school. However, I love the computer and I am usually on it for more than half the day. I like to think that I'm fairly good at using them, that is, until they break or something goes wrong. I like to learn new things about new programs or new tricks from other people. Technology is constantly changing and is at time hard to keep up with.

In this class I hope to learn how to incorporate technology with teaching more. My goal in becoming a high school math teacher is to bring more of a connection with technology and math. Math is one of those subjects that isn’t usually done on computers. In order to grab the students’ attention, the teacher must make the material interesting. In today’s world the logical way to accomplish this is with the use of computers. I hope to be able to use the skills from this class to obtain this connection.

I found out that I am slightly more active than reflective. That I like learning facts, my sensing styles out weights the intuitive learning styles. I learn much better visually rather than verbally. That is clearly shown by the results calculated. These results also prove that I learn better sequentially rather than global.