This week’s assignments was again
an overload of information, but it a fantastic and exciting way! There were so
many things that I learned this week that I feel I need to begin a notebook
just to keep all of the new and interesting resources that I discovered in the
third week of Educational Technology!
The first assignment for this week
began with the presentation of word processing and desktop publishing. I was
familiar with half of this information, as word processing is pretty simple to
understand. However, the term of desktop publishing was a new concept to me.
While I knew what the items in this section were, I was interested by the new
term of desktop publishing. I would have never been able to guess what that
term meant!
Word processing is defined as “an
application allowing the entry, manipulations, and storage of text (Grabe and
Grabe 1996). This resource has been used for many years, and it is what I am
using right now! This proves how important word processing is. There are
several instances where technology seems to come and go, however word
processing has been and will be here for a while.
When thinking of how word
processing can be used in the classroom, writing papers is probably one of the
first things that pops into your mind. However, there are many other
opportunities available to excite students about learning. One of my favorite
examples from the text is creating alphabet books. This is something that can
apply to several different subject areas and grades. Whether it be alphabet books
for third graders identifying different animals that begin with each letter, or
alphabet books pertaining to different architectural styles and pieces for
college students, word processing can be used for both!
It can also be used for creating
web sites, which is something that both students and teachers alike can do.
Although this may require some additional training, I would think that this
could be a fairly simple task that everyone could enjoy. It is amazing how far
technology has come!
The discussion of word processing
then lead to the discussion of another technology resource, desktop publishing.
The text gave a few definitions of just what desktop publishing is, but Norton
and Sprague (2001) gave my favorite: “the ability to produce documents that closely
resemble those produced by professional printers… through the ability to
control the precise placement of text and graphics on the page”. This resource
is something that I am very familiar with, but had no idea it was identified
under this category. I love the idea of creating visual documents and being
able to place something just where I would like it, as opposed to spacing it
over to a certain position using word processing tools.
Much like word processing, desktop
publishing could also be a great addition to the classroom. For those students
who are mature enough to grasp the concept, this could be a very exciting and
interesting tool for them. I myself love visuals, and I am sure that there are
many more students who enjoy both creating and viewing them. Desktop publishing
programs allow students to complete assignments in a creative way. As discussed
in my discussion board post, I think that this would be an excellent
opportunity for students to create various materials such as brochures, posters,
ads, etc. The possibilities seem to be endless with this resource in regards to
creative assignments!
As mentioned before, visuals can be
very important in the success of students learning. I am a testament to that! I
feel that images are very important to those who just need to see it to get it.
I, like many others, am the type of person that needs to see a visual to fully
understand the content. While that can be hard sometimes, it can also be a
wonderful blessing when those resources are available! I am not yet teaching,
but anticipate that by the large usage amount of visuals in my personal life,
visuals will be very prevalent in my classroom!
A resource that I find that I will
be looking forward to using in my future classroom is Bloom’s Technology
Pyramid*. I had not heard of this pyramid before, and was pleasantly surprised
when I clicked on the link. This pyramid is a wealth of knowledge informing
teachers what categories and steps should be used when incorporating
technology. I loved seeing all of the logos in the pyramid, some of which I
recognized and some that I did not. It was fun to research the ones that I had
not heard of and make a note of them for future use in my classroom.
*Image
included above. Source
TECHNOLOGY
EXPLORATIONS
As usual, this week’s tech
explorations held a vast database of fun, interesting, and helpful resources.
This may just be my favorite week of all the tech explorations! Out of the
first tech exploration of GPAT and Zoho. While I found the GPAT, a Georgia
program that provides use and training of assistive technology devices, to be
interesting, I absolutely loved Zoho. I have used the chat feature on website
for customer service an innumerable amount of times. To me, it seems quicker
and less of a hassle than talking over the phone. I love the idea of being able
to use this in the classroom. I think that this would be a wonderful addition
to a class’ website at a designated time each week for homework help or parent
questions. I love this resource!
The second technology exploration
gave 4teachers.org and Dimio. To be honest, one of these was possibly the best
resource I have seen, on the other the worst. While I feel that Dimio is a
great resource, the website itself seems to be a little sketchy to me and makes
me feel that it may be a little unreliable. On the flip side, 4teachers.org was
FANTASTIC!!!! It had so many wonderful and FREE websites that can be used by
virtually every teacher. My favorite three that I found were RubiStar,
QuizStar, and Classroom Architect, with the latter being my absolute favorite!
I love the idea of being able to plan my classroom and will definitely use it
when I have one of my own!!
The third technology exploration
provided the resource PowerTalk, a wonderful resource that presents presentations
by reading the text. I am not sure where I could use this myself, but it sounds
like a nice program. I feel that once I was in the classroom, I would probably
see more of a need for this.
The fourth and final technology
exploration for this week encompassed two resources under one umbrella,
WebQuest and ReadTheWords. I had heard of WebQuest before, but never had the
opportunity to find what it actually was. After researching the topic, I love
the idea of creating lessons where students are required to find most (if not
all) of their information on the web! It is a great way to incorporate technology
into the classroom and make students both more aware and comfortable with
technology. I also loved ReadTheWords in this week’s lesson. ReadTheWords
allows anyone to take virtually any text and covert it to someone reading it.
This could be very helpful in classrooms, allowing educators to turn their
lessons into podcasts, audio files, etc. I can see this as a wonderful tool in
the classroom, and is something that I will definitely consider in the future!
Overall, this week was once again a
very insightful and interesting week. I loved most all of the resources that I
perused. They are definitely things that I will use in my future classroom!
No comments:
Post a Comment