Post #8

I think that overall I did pretty well on my powerpoint project. I honestly never thought that powerpoint had the capability to do such awesome things, and I'm glad that I got the opportunity to learn them. I think that it's important for a teacher to be able to make learning fun and exciting while also keeping it educational, and what better way than to create a game that goes along with the days lesson! You can specialize what you think is important in the lesson for the students to learn and then review with them in a less formal way. It's extremely important to keep your student's attention no matter what age they are, and a game is a perfect way. I love that with something so common as powerpoint, as an educator I can do so much. I always thought that powerpoint was just for plain and boring slides before I took this class, but now I realize that there are so many neat things that can be done in order to spice up the learning atmosphere. Above is a slide that I thought addressed many of the concepts talked about in chapter #8 such as making slides easy to look at and informational. The pictures on the page are not meaningless, and everything looks neat and orderly. The color scheme on the page is simple the colors compliment each other. Most importantly, it is not distracting.

There are a few peripherals and non-computer audio-visual technologies that I will definitely plan to incorporate into my classroom. I like that things such as printers and scanners are available to teachers. Obviously these are things that I will use on a daily basis in order to make things easier for my students. If I create a worksheet that I want my students to complete, having something such as a printer or coppier will make it so much easier for me to get it to them in a timely fashion. Also I would like to educate my students on the many helpful ways that a zip drive can be used. They are so simple and compact now that many people even carry them on their key chain. It is a good way for students to store work that they did at school and work on it at home. In case something happens with the computer and their work is lost, they can have a back up version on their zip drive instead of having to do it all over again. This also minimizes copying. Students can delete the project from the computer once they are finished for the day so that no one else can come in and read it. This is just an example of one non-computer technology that I plan to use in my classroom. One other that I am interested in is the overhead. This is a way to show things that are printed on paper for everyone to see. Many different documents and objects (such as a newspaper or page from the textbook) can be enlarged for the entire class to see them. All of these can be used in conjunction with computer- based technology in order to make the classroom run more effectively.

This past week I learned so much about powerpoint! Powerpoint will no doubt be something that will be useful in my educational career no matter what grade or subject I teach. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that powerpoint could be used in so many fun and innovative ways. I love that you can create a game with powerpoint. I also like that you can present material that you feel is important for the entire class to see. As an educator, I learned this week just how important powerpoint can be. I plan to teach my students how to use it, so when they do things such as a presentation, they have the option of using Powerpoint. I also learned this week the basics of Excel. Excel is one program on a computer that I know obsolutely NOTHING about. It's going to take me a little longer to get used to doing things on this program, but I definitely think that it will be worth my time. I know that once I figure out Excel, there will be just as much if not more thing that I can do to make my classroom a more efficient learning environment.