Post #4

Idea maps and concept maps are great learning devices. They give students step-by-step instructions or data to follow along with. It's easier to understand and breaks down the material into categories. These categories help students to group information together allowing for easier studying. Inspiration is a great application to accomplish these. The making of a concept map is fairly easy with this program. As a history teacher I could use these maps to show the unique qualities of different dynasties or show the different political parties and what they stand for. I could also use them to show how a law is passed starting at step one. These are all different ides that could be taught with the use of concept maps.
I would encourage my students to create their own idea maps because they are a great studying tool. They help show a logical flow of different material. A storyboard would be a great way for students to plan out how they may present a topic starting with the formatting and then the actual content. Outlines are always useful when writing a paper. It helps the student decide what will be his main points for his argument. It sets out a clear agenda for the flow of the paper.
I really enjoyed learning about Inspiration. I have never used that program or even heard of it before. As a teacher it will come in handy. It gave me another way to present the material to my students. I could also add pictures or even hyperlinks to further stress my points. It's another visual aid for teaching. It helps the teacher get away from the boring lectures and present the subject in a fresh, new way. I can definitely see me using that in my future classrooms.

Post #3

As a history teacher I am fascinated with the time period of World War II, especially the Holocaust. If I were to teach a lesson on this topic to high school students, I would have my students research online different accounts of survivors of the Holocaust. I would make them do a presentation involving PowerPoint slides of pictures of the camps their person stayed at along with pictures of the victim himself. The student would describe to the class the lives these people led. The intent is to make my students walk in the shoes of these people. I hope that this project would increase awareness of prejudice and maybe even prevent them from developing it themselves.
The website I'm going to critique is http://fsu.edu/. The website does a great job of using the right amount of color and continuing that scheme throughout each page. It includes a slide show of pictures to captivate the reader's attention to certain stories. The text is all left justified. The headlines of each articles are kept at short phrases. There's a double space between paragraphs. The home screen is a little distracting with the constantly changing photos at the top. With a solid garnet colored background, it helps the white colored text to stand out. Overall, the website does a great job of following the rules.
I have had teachers before who copy some pages out of a textbook, but they were always careful to make sure those pages were destroyed so as not to break the copyright law. As a teacher I'm going to try to find workbooks that allow the printing of extra copies for my students. I will teach my students the concept of copyright and the illegal practices of it. I am bound to make some kind of worksheet throughout my teaching career. I doubt I would ever go the length of getting it copyrighted. Obviously, if I wrote a textbook or something, I would. I would definitely encourage any of my students who might create their own work to get it copyrighted.

Post #2

As a student I've used MS Word mostly for writing research papers. Recently, I've also come to use it for creating newsletters or fliers. The newer versions offer different templates as an easy way to create your own document. It makes it easier and gives guidelines on how to properly create like a resume or official document. Most of my teachers have used Word for creating a syllabus. It's easy to upload a Word document to a class website so students can easily view the class guidelines. I've also had teachers use it as a way for students to read and revise their peers' work through the use of highlighting and commenting.
I really liked the software that was used for students with writing disabilities. Most teachers will have a least one student who struggles with spelling. This program allows the student to pick a word from a list and see how it is spelled and also hear it. This caters to students who learn by visual or audio examples. It can help a student relate the sound of a word to its spelling.
In this class I've learned how to use other functions of MS Word besides the basics. I'm interested in learning the mail merge application to make it easier to notify my students of different events. I also learned how to do a screen snapshot, which can be a cool feature if you need to show a student how to do something.

Post #1

Computers are such a prominent part of our culture. Most students have grown up around technology. As more and more of our world begins to be dominated by computers, students need to know how to properly use a computer not only for classroom use but personal use as well. Since students will be using instructional software to work on different subjects, they will need to know how to navigate around on a computer. Instructional software provides another way of working with students when a teacher is not available at that moment.
As a teacher I hope to use computers not only in the classroom for personal research and writing assignments, but also as a way to inform students and parents of different homework assignments or events coming up. I hope to set up a class website similar to Blackboard where my students or parents can log in and check grades, due dates, syllabus, or my personal contact information. I hope to learn this semester exactly how I can set up a website for my students and parents.
I am very excited about learning new forms of technologies. I hope to receive different ideas from my fellow students on how I can make my classroom well-informed and up-to-date on the new technologies out there. I've already begun to steal some of the ideas mentioned in class to use for my own future classroom. My goal is to increase my quality as a teacher this semester.