Final Thoughts and Accomplishments

I DID IT!! I accomplished all my goals. I feel super comfotable again with powerpoint and I get a new idea every hour about slidehsows I want to make for my classroom. I finished my final project and feel very accomplished! I will rename today Accomplishment Day!! We should all celebrate.

Powerpoint

I decided to do my final powerpoint on a presentation for open house. I included basic information like what is expected in each subject, supplies needed, and homework. I will have this on a continuous loop during my open house. I do plan on making one with sight words to run as a screen saver on all of my computers in my classroom. I do feel I achieved my goal of wantingn to feel as comfortable with 2007 as I did with the older version. I feel like I know where most of the things are and I can move a lot faster without getting lost and forgetting what I was doing in the first place. Overall I have really enjoyed this class and have learned a lot of useful things for my classroom. I like being able to work freely on the comptuer at my own pace. I am proud of everyone in the class for not getting overwhelemed or feeling like we are lost. Good job class!!

Kidspiration Activity

I achieved one of my mini goals for the weekend. I now feel much more comfortable using this software. I used one of the books from the Voyager program, This is the Sea that Feeds Us. This is a great book we read every year and it explains the life/food cycles starting with the sun feeding plankton that feed shrimp that feed fish that feed people. I made a chain on the Kidspiration software and included lots of real life pictures so the students could connect better with the information. A lot of our topics are chains or sequencing so I will use this a lot this year in my classroom with science, social studies, and language arts elements. We have this program at school, so I am excited to get started.

Goals for Second Weekend

My goals for this weekend are most importantly to finish as much of my final as possible. In order to do this I will have to achieve two mini goals. First I want to feel as comfortable with Powerpoint 2007 as I do with the old version of Powerpoint. I tried to start my project earlier and got a bit frustrated because the layout is a lot different and I was unsure of where things were. My second mini-goal is to learn Kidspiration. I tried to use this with my curriculum project in an earlier class, but couldn't get past the step of adding more things to a map. I got quite aggravated with it and stopped. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will leave feeling very comfortable with both programs.

Group Question and Answer

Question: Define the term triple coding. How does teaching with technology enhance the multiple intelligences by providing and opportunity for triple coding? Give an example.

Answer: The idea of triple coding is when exposing students to new ideas one should present them in a minimum of three different intelligences. By doing this you have a better chance of remembering the material. Technology can easily be incorporated into each multiple intelligence. One of the best examples is making "mind-maps" or graphic organizers. Kidspiration and Inspiration software are great ways to utilize this.

Final Thoughts...

Here is one of the scrapbook pages I made with Photoshop. I really enjoyed doing this during class. I do think I will be using this when I do the yearbook this year. I don't see myself using this directly in my classroom, but I will be looking for areas to implement it. Had tons of fun this weekend!! (minus the roaches)

my celeb pic

For the last two days we have been learning some techniques to use in Photoshop. Yesterday was so hot and I was getting a bit frustrated and my brain was fried. Today was much better and I got a lot of ideas really quickly. I really like the layering effect I did on my midterm project. This attached picture I used the lighting effect on it. This is my cd cover - if I ever become a recording artist. I really enjoyed working on my midterm project and have a few more ideas about what I can do. What I LOVED the most was using the band aid effect and erasing all of my "problem areas". I will be doing this on A LOT of pictures in the future.