Blog Posting Week 4

I think that spreadsheets are interesting and useful. I wish I knew more about using spreadsheets because sometimes they are complicated to use, and they don't do what you want them to do. However, for the most part they are very useful. I would use the spreadsheets in my classroom for attendance and grading. Since I am teaching P.E., those are the only things that I would probably use spreadsheets for.

We as teachers, use spreadsheets to record data, create assignments and take attendance. For example, you can keep up with student's grades using spreadsheets. The spreadsheet does the math for you and averages out student's grades. You can also create assignments on spreadsheets such as matching or creating charts. According to the book, "spreadsheets have been used most consistently in schools management tools for accounting, but they are being used increasingly as Mindtools to support higher-order quantitative thinking pg. 89." Spreadsheets are also used for taking attendance. You can list all the student's names on the spreadsheet and use the boxes to check them off for attendance. The advantage of a spreadsheet over a calculator is that it can record more data at one time. For example, once you figure out the final average grade for one student in a certain row, the spreadsheet will average out all the other student's grades. It takes alot less time to do this on a spreadsheet than it does on a calculator.

The book states, "spreadsheets have three primary functions: storing, calculating, and presenting information pg. 89." I think that these functions can be very beneficial to teachers. Some teaching fields will use spreadsheets more than others, but they are used at some point in a teacher's career. Spreadsheets can also contain pictures that go along with the information presented. For example when I did my matching assignment for our class, I added two pictures to go along with my lesson. I thought that was really cool.
To conclude, Spreadsheets have alot to offer when it comes to certain criteria. I know that in the future, I will be using spreadsheets at some point in my teaching career.  

Crismond, David, Howland, Jane, Jonassen, David, Marra, Rose M.(2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall

Assignment 3 Blog Posting

After watching the website, I found that Inspiration Quick Tour can do multiple tasks in one program. It interests me that you can make diagrams, lesson plans, power point slides, create notes, use videos and web casts and much more. It is really convenient for teachers that you can move the work that you do on Inspiration Quick Tour to other programs such as Microsoft Word. As a P.E. teacher I could use Inspiration Quick Tour to create diagrams such as the food pyramid, or post pictures of muscles and bones. I can also use this program to help me write up my lesson plans for the year. I can post exercise and health videos and even post notes for my lesson.

The type of writing activities that would make the best use of technology in my classroom  would be organizing ideas with concept maps. Using this, the students will me able to arrange existing ideas into clusters. For example, if the main topic is fruits and vegetables then they can branch off from that and list specific types such as tomatoes, broccoli, etc. This way if I have them create their own food pyramid it would help them organize their information.
The way that I can have students help each other during writing since my time is limited as a teacher is by pairing up the students and having them proof read each other's paper. It is best to have multiple people read your paper in order to get different opinions and views. Also, less mistakes are likely to be missed if more than one person proof reads your paper. Students can relate to each other since they are usually around the same age so their opinion ususally matters more than a teacher's opinion. The technology tools that I can use to help support peer feedback would be SWoRD. As the book states "it is a Web-based reciprocal peer review system that is designed to facilitate peer review while providing mechanisms to ensure validity and the potential of student bias in providing feedback." This would be a good tool to use because you are getting feedback from multiple people.
The first time that I had to teach a new topic or skill was last semester in my teaching methods class. My teacher wanted me to teach hurdles in track and field and even though I run cross country and track, I knew nothing about hurdles at the time besides that you go over them. I really had to do some research on the internet about hurdles. There is alot of technique to jumping hurdles and form is very important. I definately know more about hurdles after teaching it. However, after learning more about it I am really glad that I don't have to jump hurdles. It is way too complicated for me.

To conclude, Inspiration Quick Tool is a great way to accomplish multiple tasks as a teacher. I think making lesson plans can be alot easier from now on since I know about this program. I hope to learn more about it and become more familiar with it so I can use it in my classrooms when I become a teacher.

Introduction

My name is Jamie Hays. I run cross country here at the University. I am a senior and I will be graduating in May.  I am not very familiar with using blogs but I am trying. I would not personally use this for my classroom but I do see how it can be helpful in the teaching field. I do hope to get more experience using blogs by taking this class so that I can use it when I need to .

Jamie Hays

Personally, I don't have alot of experience using blogs. I do think that it is interesting and I hope to use it now that I have created an account. I think that blogs would be useful for education by allowing you to communicate with the teacher and other students. If you have questions about an assignment then you can ask your teacher and peers for help. In my opinion, using blogs isn't necessary to use in the classrooms, but I wouldn't say that it is a waste of time. It is a great way to communicate with the class without having to call or set up office visits.

The ways that I can use technology ideas to support my curriculum and student learners is by using blogs to post assignments up for my students. I can communicate with my students by emailing and blogging them and answer any questions that might have about the assignment. I can also post videos and notes that pertain to an assignment for my class.