CEDo 515 - Post 6

One of the major benefits of this course was becoming more familiar with the Google suite of online programs. I regularly use the word processing and presentation, but rarely or never used the spreadsheet or site tools. I still may not use the spreadsheet tool much, but I am bound to start some form of online calendar, whether it is on Google or another site, to keep track of my business. I also liked going back to Google Sites. I had made a site previously about 4 years ago and didn't really think Google Sites was anything that great. I think that they have made some improvements since then, and I am looking forward to using this application to make my site for my LMS practicum materials so I can turn them into Dennis. I would also like to start using the Google programs with my students, but the problem that I have come across with that is that Google doesn't seem to work all that great on my school's network. It is constantly freezing and disconnecting, so I have begun to use my Moodle instead, which is working wonders with engaging my students. I also found something that I had been wondering about and looking for for a long time: an online document sharing/editing tool that allows me to upload my documents in Microsoft format and not mess them up like Google does. I found this in ThinkFree Online. If it seems like I have been talking about this for 3 weeks, it's because I have, and I really like it, aside from the timing issue - but maybe I can fix that with a new computer. Overall, great class, and I took all of this stuff out of it which made it well worth it.

CEDo 515 - Post 5

One of the most important things that we are doing this week is learning how to evaluate software to see if it is a good educational tool before we use it in the classroom. I often try to make use of software or an application before I really evaluate it. Often times, I sort of evaluate it as I am trying to make use of it for the first time. This has the tendency to waste a lot of time and energy. Now after having learned and found some good ways to evaluate software, I can save myself a lot of time and frustration when preparing new software for class use. One example of this was that I wanted to start using our new laptops more often by using the Google package of applications. Once I started trying to lay things out and start planning for class, I realized that a lot of the Google applications ran very slowly or disconnected very often on my school's network. If they did this for a teacher, they would almost certainly be completely unworkable on for a student. After wasting time on this I decided to make use of the student learning community tools that the district has available for all teachers to use with their students. This moves much faster and is very easy for the students to get used to because they have either already used it, or just because it is fairly easy to use. I would still like to try to work Google in with them because it is something that they could use out in the real world.

CEDo 515 - Post 4

I watched a set of videos on a Congressional Lawmaking simulation with students (http://www.intime.uni.edu/video/028iahs/0/). This lesson is designed for 12th graders, but could be simplified for younger students. This lesson goes through how laws are made in American government. The teacher or students choose a relevant and current topic to debate and attempt to pass a law on. In this simulation, the teacher has two classes and one serves as the House of Representatives and the other the Senate. The simulation goes through many different steps of the process, from committee hearings, questioning, statements, etc. Students also play many different roles, from Representatives to Senators to lobbyists. Students get to grill each other on the large and small parts of the bills that they are trying to pass.

By participating in and completing this activity students gain and improve immeasurable skills, including: democracy in action, tolerance, speaking and thinking skills, collaboration, dialogue skills, compromise, responsibility and civic involvement, research and Internet skills, video taping debates.

I already do a very simplified version of this in my 10th grade U.S. History classes. I have only tried it once and did not plan it out as much as I would have liked, but it worked so well even without the planning that my colleague and I are planning to keep building until we get to something like this video shows. With that in mind, this video will help me beyond what words can say. It already lays out everything that really needs to be done to go through a good Congressional lawmaking simulation. Since my colleague also teaches a video editing class, we are sure at some point to work in video recording and editing skills to broadcast the debates to different classes, etc. This is going to be a very powerful project, and this set of videos is drastically going to help us with setting it up.

Cedo 515 - Week 3

This week we are talking about spreadsheets, Nettrekker, and evaluating software. Spreadsheets are something that I am not afraid of, that I use occasionally, but that I don't understand completely as far as inserting functions and things like that. I know enough that I was able to put one together for my wedding so that every time I added or subtracted a guest it automatically added or subtracted to the total. I was also able to create a honeymoon budget spreadsheet that had the amount that I wanted, the amount that I had, then I just put in how much more I added to it each month and it would tell me how much more I needed. That was very helpful and even though I don't claim to be a wizard with spreadsheets, I believe that I still know more about how to use them than most people. I would like to bring spreadsheets into my classroom more, especially after looking at some of the examples. I like to have the students look at all kinds of graphs, charts, and information, but the spreadsheet would allow students to make their own. There is no better way to get students to understand how to read graphs and charts than to put one together by themselves.

We did a magic square spreadsheet. I was not looking forward to this because I hate sudoku and anything like it. I started out by guessing quickly, then realized that this was getting me nowhere, so I decided to use logic. It started with realizing that 7,8, and 9 would never be in the same line, and everything fell into place from there.

We also explored Nettrekker. My district subscribes to this and I have a link to it on my Moodle site for my students. I often direct them there so that they can find good reliable information without having to wade through all of Google's garbage.

We read Chapters 5 and 6 in the book about Creativity and Problem Based Learning. I worked both of these concepts into my classroom last semester. I encouraged both in one project. I organized the students into groups, then they had to answer the question, "How could the Civil War have been prevented?" The groups then had to come up with an invention or idea that could have solved or prevented many of the different causes that led to the American Civil War. I realized that I and the teachers that I created this with actually went through and did many of the steps listed in Chapters 5 and 6, but it is really nice to have them all listed right here.

Something interesting that I've found both in my short experience and from talking to others in my group is that very few people, even qualified people, are able to evaluate and choose the software that they use for their district/job. This is generally because there are other people that are hired to do just that. Many of us have to simply use what is given to us through all of the bureaucracy. This is bad because we are unable to choose what we think might be best for ourselves and our co-workers. It is also good because we have other people to go through all of the different options that are out there, there is somebody that is seemingly more experienced that is being paid to do it.

CEDo 515 - Post 2

This week we started out with Chapter 3 in the text. This chapter about putting together communication learning projects in the classroom was of great interest to me because I am planning on doing more of this next semester. I plan to have chat forums for the entire class, as opposed to some in-class debates, and I also plan on doing an individual project that students share with each other and comment on each other's projects online. This chapter gave me some great ideas as to how I should set up these activities.

We are also learning about how to make our searches more effective. It's funny because I remember learning how to do a lot of these little tricks to make searches more effective back in high school and college, but somehow I got away from using them. I don't know why I got away from using them, but I'm glad that they're back so that I can save myself some time.

We're also learning about some different word processing programs that most people don't know about, and the different types of features that you can use in them. I feel like I know slightly more than a lot other teachers about some of the features that are a part of your regular word processing program. I remember at the beginning of the school year I was working with a close teacher colleague and I pulled out some little trick in Microsoft that I thought was pretty common knowledge, especially for a fairly tech-savvy person like my friend. He saw what I did and it kind of blew his mind and he said, "Wow! I should start hanging out with my local library media specialist more often." If a fairly tech-savvy guy like him doesn't know about some of the basic things, that means that most of the other teachers know virtually nothing at all, so this lesson is bound to make me even more knowledgeable for those little tricks that, to me, make creating written documents a piece of art more than just written words.

CEDo 515 - Post 1

First of all, I love taking Louis' classes because I love the huge number of great Web 2.0 sites that could be used for my classes. I always come away with more resources from these online classes than from any other classes I've ever taken. I love hearing about and trying new online programs, especially when they could be really fun and useful for teaching. The problem that I have come across in my experience has been that I allow students to use these new programs that they have never seen, and they get really into them, but they get into them in the wrong way. They want to spend all of their time trying to make the characters look like themselves or like LeBron, and they don't spend any time putting in any content material. This is something that I'm still trying to work on.

One thing that really had me worked up about this first lesson, as much fun as I had playing around with all the online programs, I had trouble with the time constraints. It is not possible for me to read a 30 page textbook chapter and do entire sets of questions in 1 hour. Really stressing me out.

CEDu 521 - Week 6

I really enjoyed listening to and looking at over everybody's unit plans. They were all very well done and I've taken some ideas from them myself. I especially liked Andy's idea of recreating an Ellis Island experience. I think I could make this a really fun, really authentic, and really meaningful for my high school students. I would hand out different immigrant profiles to each student in class. They would read them over and have to act like they were one of the immigrants. I would sit up on my throne in front of class, and they would line up in front of me trying to get into my country. I would act like the soup nazi in Seinfeld and bang my hand if I didn't let people in for being poor or sick. I look forward to using this in the spring.

This was a good class and I learned a lot, but I'm looking forward to a few weeks off and, hopefully, being done with my certification in December.