Chapter 5: Integrating Digital Media and Educational Software Applications

Chapter 5, "Integrating Digital Media and Educational Software Applications," covers a lot of things that I found to be very interesting. I liked this chapter a bit better than the previous because I felt it applied more to what we do every day. From Power Point presentations that use animation and audio to online newspapers to check-in kiosks at the airport, we use digital media each day. Although I felt that the way the book talked about each of these concepts was a bit monotonous because most people are so familiar with them, it was a good overview and reminder about what has become so omnipresent in our society.

I thought that our work with Wikis was very helpful. I think this would be very helpful once I become a teacher for my students to use. When students are to work in groups together on projects, it would be great for them to have one place where they can all edit and add to plan their presentation. Something like this seems like it would be able to work well with almost any curriculum. Hopefully I'll be able to remember how to do it once I finally get my own class!

I've finally started doing some of my service learning in a real classroom setting, instead of the 21st Century programs. It has been great to get in there and really see what it's like... I have to say though, I think those middle schooler's might give me a run for my money, haha. I'm scheduled to observe high school Geometry tomorrow at FSUS, so hopefully that will be exciting! :)

Chapter 2: Communications, Networks, the Internet, and the World Wide Web

I found Chapter 2 (Communications, Networks, the Internet, and the World Wide Web) to be a good review of things we use every day. Although most of us use the terms "internet" and "world wide web" interchangeably, I learned that they actually aren't exactly the same. The world wide web, the book tells us, is the largest service used on the internet. It explains and gives examples of popular plug-in applications such as Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, QuickTime, and Windows Media Player. I found that a lot of what Chapter 2 had to say helped me to put a name to things that I encounter a lot. Especially what things like URL, http, and other abbreviations stand for. As we talked about in class, I think that RSS (really simple syndication) is very helpful for those of us who don't have all the time in the world. This helps send us the feeds from all the sites we love, without having to visit each individual site.

Something that I learned last week that I have been using ever since is iGoogle. How addicting?! I've set up my calendar and look at it about 3-4 times a day. I love being able to have my own personal calendar everywhere I go. With iGoogle itself, I check the weather each morning before heading to class (to see what to wear) while also glancing at the day's top stories. I love having everything right at my fingertips.

I thought last week's presentations were very helpful. Each site that the class covered had it's own interesting aspect that could easily be incorporated into everyday classroom life. The search we did for lesson plans also helped me to know that there's a lot more out there for teachers than I thought. It's good to know that when I finally get out there with a class of my own, I'll have some good help!

Chapter 4: Hardware for Educators

Chapter 4 gives an in-depth view at the different hardware components of the computers we use today. It told us about input devices (such as keyboards, mice, touchpads, touchscreens, scanners, digital cameras, PDAs, etc.) and how they work and when using them would be helpful. It also goes over output devices (such as monitors, televisions, printers, speakers, projectors, etc.) and how they work and what they do. However, in all honesty, I did not find this chapter to interest me as much as the previous ones did. I felt like this chapter, at times, was just a giant overview of vocabulary. After reading each of the previous chapters, I felt like I had learned at least a few things that I could take into the classroom and apply. I'm not so sure I feel as comfortable with this chapter. Although it did have very descriptive information in terms of describing the hardware and its uses, I simply wasn't as interested... :(

Since last week's posting, I've spent a lot of time playing around with Inspiration 8. Although it only has a limited number of uses (i.e. making concept maps, outlines, etc.), it is very useful for doing just those things. I think that as a teacher, I would use a program like this often to map out things such as a compare/contrast chart of characters, steps to take for a certain lab, etc. I think teaching students to be proficient in a program like this would help them to learn a new way to map out their thoughts from their notes, and look at new information in a different way.

This past week my dad, whom as I mentioned before works as a computer programmer back home, bought a new computer for my mom to work on from home on. Since he was on call the whole weekend, the computer was left for me to hook up. I have to admit-- I was a bit intimidated. Who knew how much stuff this thing actually had on it, and after all, there were an infinite number of ways for me to mess each part of it up. After getting the nerve up to finally do it, I set up the entire computer in less than an hour. I was quite impressed! haha, and to my even greater surprise, it worked great! I even showed my mom a few new tricks I learned in Word. Turns out I'm learning quicker than I thought. :)