Further Inspiration

After completing this weeks Inspiration/Kidspiration project I was positively inspired by its capabilities. My daughter, age 9, is a good student but lacks organizational skills which will become more and more important with every year of her life. I have been working with her to improve her skills since first grade. There is a large calender that is kept behind her bedroom door which I encourage her to use along with a yearly assignment book she keeps in her backpack for school and a diary she keeps in her bedroom for ideas and thought processing. With all of this one would think she should be well organized by this stage of her life but……………unfortunatly this road began to look like a long road until last night. I showed her the download we received in class of Inspiration/Kidspiration. I watched her face light up. She became excited about the fact of learning a new computer program and liked the idea of organizing things on the computer (total digital native) why did I not think of that before. I have decided to buy the program for home use and I am looking foreward to her progression along with my own interest in the program for myself.

Inspiration

Today’s tech class was inspirational (a little play on words) since the class was designed to provide us with information on how to manipulate the programs Inspiration/Kidspiration. I have to say I am becoming more and more excited to start implementing the use of not only these two programs but many others designed for the classroom. When I decided to go back to school to teach I did not realize how advanced classroom technology has become. Mandating technology based classes in Education programs is not only necessary but inspirational in itself especially for the technologically challenged such as myself. I am finding that these programs are not only fun to use but slowly helping me build self confidence in knowing I will be able to concor any fears that I may have about such computer use. I feel that if I am starting to get this excited I can not imagine the lengths I can take this inside of my classroom when I am ready to teach. It is my strong belief that unless the learning environment is not welcoming and kept motivational then students will not perceive the importance of what is being taught. Technology such as this can help provide the motivation to learn.

Today’s Blog Titled “QUESTION”

Hello Everyone,

Today I would would like to format my blog in the form of a question. More to the point I would like to poll any comments out there regarding the lesson plan I am devising for the Inspiration Design Project.

I would like to start by saying that secondary mathematics is the subject I plan to teach after exiting grad school. I love mathematics and I know that math was not on the top of everyones ‘favorite subject list’ in high school.  I would like those who are interested in helping me out to think back to Jr. High School and tell me if they remember learning about Fibonacci Sequencing. The reason I as is that I would like to center my lesson around the history of Fibonacci and use the investigation of Fibonacci’s rabbit excersise along with Dudeney’s cow excercises in my lesson. If anyone can remember what the Fibonacci sequence was can you tell me if it was a memorable lesson to you. Did you learn about how the sequence occurs in nature and was that interesting to you? If math was not your favorite subject do you think using investigation processes such as learning a bit of history combined with projects such as building a family tree makes learning math more interesting. I appreciate any comments that may come back my way. The more I learn about how people learn will be of not only a great use to me but all of us for our future as a teacher. Thanks again.

The Native Road

I have to say I found Thursdays class (2/14) to be very interesting. I have been researching the new language of “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants” for the research project we have coming due for this class and found today’s lesson to be helpful to my paper. The ideology surrounding this was a question posed in one article by a Marc Prensky (2001) where he states ‘Should the Digital Native students learn old ways, or should their Digital Immigrant educators learn the new”? The lesson today on digital information literacy was a real eye opener for all educators computer savvy or not. Technology will only increase in matter and teachers of every discipline have to be aware of the effect it has on our children’s learning. As a new teacher we learn that the number 1 rule of thumb to teaching is to bring into focus during all lessons “real world application” of what we are teaching. To me the idea of digital information literacy is the same deal. We teach our children that there are good and bad influences in the real world like when we tell them never to talk to strangers etc. Well it is  as important to let them know that there are the same type of evils out there but just on a different level (cyber). The same way we teach our children about the different scenarios of how a bad person may lore them to their car is the same method we should use to teach them about how a person/s may try to convince them to believe in something that is not fact. I never really put the two together before this class and I found I have really added a new dimension to my way of thinking for today.

Moving Up The Road

Fourth week into class and the road is beginning to wind up. Today we turned the corner and detoured into the side road of Microsoft Excel. Although I have traveled this road in the past I could not believe how many scenic tours could be taken. One usually mistakes Excel to be used just for math purposes. Today we learned taht there are countless numbers of ideas that can be created by this program. Examples were timelines, battleship games, hidden word games, calanders, etc. We played an activity game using M&M’s which and created a sorting table along with wonderful graphics to please the eye when the graph was to be viewed. If adults had a fabulous time utilizing this activity, imagine how kids of all ages will feel, not even realizing they are learning in the end. I have the Excel program on my personal computer. I use it mainly for keeping logs of my checking account and for end of the year tax purposes. After Thursdays class I have decided to take a few hours this weekend and just play, create and learn as much as possible for I feel Excel will end up being my best friend during my career as a secondary math teacher. Now I can not wait to see where next weeks trip will take us to.

Yesterdays Milestone

I am beginning to feel the miles on this tech trip starting to turn to stone. Stone with the idea of its soliditity in creating a rock hard foundation in learning new things. As the road toward learning made a stop at Microsoft Word, many new avenues lead to a clearing. As the clearing widened it all started to make sense. I began to learn there was a much deeper level into its process. The general route of adding a header text and footer page was an easy ride. Bullet and numbering the signs ahead on the road were fun. Then the scenery which came ahead became very colorful as we stopped on the way to visit the gallery of ClipArt. The gallery taught me how the many creations of masters before created many wonderful works of art. The tricks of their trade became clear and soon enough I began to master the “tricks of their trade.” Watermark images began to fade with a few simple clicks of a button, unwanted parts of a picture were easy to get rid of in the same fashionable steps. Assortment of shapes began to fill my pallett and wonderful formats were created around them. The shapes were then colored in and arranged with  ease around the canvas. I then watched with excitement as my own works of art were packaged and sent along to a new address to be viewed by the experts.

“The Trip Continues”

Second week into grad. tech. class……..The trip is beginning to take the class to some very interesting sites. As was a stop our class made on today’s journey whereas we learned about specific functions one can use to upgrade their personal Blog space. The tour included learning to “customize your Blog’s theme.” Imagine with just a few clicks of the mouse, (via icon, presentation and themes), one can pull upon a wonderful array of pre-loaded cover themes to choose from. Some of these interesting coverlets surround your Blog creating a very fantastic surrounding. Surroundings could be as Serene as a very mild color to a very bold creative dressing within the dressing. This in turn can make even the most illiterate posting look good! Once I finish playing with this option, I will begin another detour and delve into teaching myself other custom options available to my Blog’s space.

Grad Tech Class…..Quite The Trip

My first day in a graduate technologies class…..My first week in graduate school…..My head is spinning. I am a first time graduate student, an adult student at that, with a core background in Mathematics. I thought to myself before the start of the week “what a breeze” I love to learn, I love to challenge myself, I love to explore!” Then came my last class of the week…..Things seemed to be running smoothly…..Assignments I could quickly see would be piling up but no sweat, isn’t that what this should be all about I thought. ‘ Then cam Thursday…..my last class of the week “EDTS 523″. Well how bad could this be I thought to myself…..I have made it through gruelling math courses, two technical script JAVA courses, and even a course dealing with mathematical proofs that made no sense to me at all…..”piece of cake” right…..WRONG! After the first 15 minutes I felt that my head was going to spin off of my shoulders, words such as Podcast, Wiki, and Blog popped out at me from the syllabus in front of me. Students raising their hands when asked if they were familiar with these terms and me, well, all I could think was to grab onto the arm of the person next to me and softly say the word HELP! When I got home that evening I rehashed in my mind what was discussed during the period…..One soothing lecture came to mind and put me at ease the topic “Digital Immigrants.” What an apropos way of expressing new age technology and combining the term digital with the average lay person born years too early to fully appreciate the impact of today and tomorrows new world. Long story short, I am now breathing normally and looking forward to the excitement of catching up in short with today’s “Digital Natives.”