Final Post

I very much enjoyed TPTE 486! It was a great class and I think that a lot of the knowledge I gained through this class, I will use in my classroom. I know that I will want to create a website for my classroom and have a blog for communication between myself and the parents. I also think that I will want to implement a webquest into my curriculum and possibly an interactive spreadsheet. I think that giving my students a chance to create a digital story using possibly iMovie would be a great experience for them as well. I think that merging the internet and the education system is very effective and will help students become more acquainted with the technology!

Websites in the Classroom

Creating the website for classroom use was a fun experience. It is fun to be able to change any part of the website and add pictures and different pages that visitors of the website can navigate to. There was not much difficulty in creating the website other than trying to make sure the pictures were sized correctly in order to be shown on the website. I enjoyed finding websites to add to my resources page and creating a bio about myself with links to other websites. I would like to implement this in my classroom with the students daily homework assignments, a calendar with when their quizzes, tests, and assignments are and with pictures from classroom activities. This way the parents can be informed about the information that I am presenting in class, keep up with their child's assignments, and also view what their children are doing in the classroom. This is also a way for the child to become more independent and check on their assignments from home. I think it would also be neat to have an interactive spreadsheet on the website or even a webquest that the students could participate in for a grade. They could even submit their work by e-mail and then I could grade them and give them back. The website seems to have endless options and I am excited to use it in the classroom!
Here is my classroom website: https://sites.google.com/site/missulreysclasssite/

iMovie: History of Basketball

I felt like I was very successful with the iMovie project. It was a lot of fun and I picked the topic based on my personal experiences growing up. Basketball was a sport that I thoroughly enjoyed and I think that any grade level would enjoy viewing my movie. Making the movie was not very difficult, but it took me awhile to figure out how to add music to my movie. I had to make sure I knew where the downloads were and some websites for free music were more helpful than others. The website I enjoyed most was freeplaymusic.com. This website gave you the option to download a song's full version, 30 seconds of the song or 60 seconds. Once I figured out how to save them to my desktop it was easy to click and drag to add the song to my movie. In the classroom I would definitely give the students a chance to create an iMovie. I would make it an option because I know that all students will probably not have access to a Mac computer. The movie could be used in any subject. For example in language arts it could be used to create a book trailer or in history it could be used to explain a time period in history. This would be a fun and interactive way to integrate technology in my classroom!

Interactive Spreadsheet

The interactive spreadsheet was not very simple, but did not take much time once you get the hang of it. It would be a great way to save paper and introduce the technology to the students. In the classroom you could use the spreadsheet for all subjects including math, history, different languages such as Spanish, or even art. It can be used for quizzes, tests, or just simple worksheets that you want your students to complete to make sure they are comprehending the material. You can add different graphics to enhance your spreadsheet and use different formulas and create a very interactive and educational document.

Inspiration Project!

This project was very interesting and I also thought it was kind of difficult. Once you got the hang of doing it, it was easy, but it took me the entire class period to finish. I think one of the problems was the topic I chose was very intricate, but I liked the idea so I just went with it. Inspiration was not very hard to navigate it was just difficult because when you were making the web and you moved one thing you had to move everything along with it. It was kind of hard to also keep it on one page in order to take a screen shot. It would be great to use in the classroom to draw connections to pretty much any subject and any curriculum the students are studying.

Google Presentation

Digital Images: UT!

This project showed me different ways to collect images from the internet, scanning, and how to take a screen shot. The screen shot is a great tool and is very easy to use. A scanner seems like a valuable tool, especially if someone wanted to share old print pictures on the internet or possibly printed material. Picasa was easy to use and a great way to create a slideshow and a web album to share with others. The navigation was simple and being able to embed it in a blog or a website is very useful as well. I really enjoyed this project!