E-Portfolio

http://www.wix.com/alliefrank35/allison-frank

Final Blog

I feel it is very important to incorporate technology into my classroom. We are entering a technology age were everyone needs knowledge on how to use the new gadgets and programs that are being invented. Having technology in the classroom allows for teachers to create a new innovated way of teaching and keeping their students engaged in their learning. Some of the benefits are that the use of technology in the classroom creates a different way of learning and meets the different learning styles of the students. It allows them to learn the basic skills for the technology and how to use them in future practices. There are many challenges that can occur in the classroom with the use of technology. Sometimes there can be glitches in the program that can force the teacher to change the way their lesson will be taught. Another challenge can be making a lesson too much about the technology then the lesson. All of these challenges can be avoided by knowing how to use the technology and having a backup plan if a lesson is not going the way that was expected.

Some of the most important lessons that I will take a way form this class and use wills probably how to use the Smartboard, Microsoft Word, wix.com and Inspiration. I know that not many schools have smartboards at this time but it is a good to learn how to use if I am placed in a classroom with one. I can create interactive lessons that will liven up the everyday classroom and make students more engaged in their learning. I liked learning more about Microsoft Word and all of its different functions. I can do more than just create basic documents. I can make Newsletters and flyers that I could potentially use in my classroom and share with my students. Wix.com for the creation of my e-portfolio was a great new experience. I had never made a website before and the creation of it allowed me to think of many different ways I could possibly use it for my classroom. I could make a classroom website and have everything that students might need access to during the school year on there. Parents will be able to contact me through it and know I can keep my students and their parents updated about what is going on in the classroom. Inspiration is another technological tool that I enjoyed to learn about. Being a future social studies teacher I learned a lot and can see myself make diagrams and outlines for my students and teaching my students how to use it on their own for studying. I learned a lot from this class and cannot wait to apply my knowledge of technology to my future classroom.

Video Project Scenario

In a High School 10^Th-12^Th grade American Government classroom I would incorporate a video project for students to make their own campaign videos. I would have my students do some research on commercials that they see on TV during election years. I would teach students how to make the videos and how to edit them and add sound. I would have students make sure that they know what they can and cannot have in their videos. I would make sure that the students know that they need to put in what their views are and what they are trying to represent in the video. I would make sure that the students work with a partner as if they are their running mate.  Some challenges could be however what students will try to present in their videos. Another issue could be if a student misses class how they would be able to finish the project.

Day 1:

-          Students would have learned about the three branches of government and how representatives get elected into office.

-          Students will learn how to use a moviemaker program.

o   They will learn how to film with a video camera

o   They will learn how to edit the film and add sound.

Day 2

-          Students will review how to edit film and add sound

o   I will then give students partners and have them brainstorm their campaigns.

o   They will create a video board outline that will show what they plan on doing during their short campaign video.

o   I will then give students time during class to do research and make their campaign videos.

Day 3-5

-          Students will be given time during class and during free periods to work on their campaign videos.  

Day 7-8

-          Students will be given time at the end of class to work on their videos when all their other work from class has been completed.

Day 9

-          Students will have finalized their projects and the students will share them in front of the class.

o   They will give the background to their campaigns.

o   Students at the end of day 9 will then vote on the best video in election ballot format like during a real election.

Checklist

Students need to make sure they have completed the following in their video:

-          Made an appropriate video that flows well and is not choppy.

-          Needs to be creative and original

-          Have a clear campaign slogan

-          Have a clear representation to what the candidate is trying to represent if elected.

-          Must have they saying “I am (insert name here) and I have approved this message.

-          This video must be one to two minutes per group.

However I feel that a project like this would make an excellent end of the year project. Students would have the ability to have more time to put some sufficient effort into completing a well directed and filmed campaign video. At the end of the year the classes could sit down and watch one an other's and then vote on the ones that they thought were the best. This will also give them the ability to see the in site and influence the that videos have on the viewers for a real election.

Video Reflection

Our video on Crossing Daring Street worked very well especially since neither one of us had had any real experience using this program. The actually shooting and cutting of the video worked very well. We knew exactly what we wanted to portray in our video and set out to do just that.  Everything worked very well with very few hiccups. Although, it was difficult to find time to film with our busy schedules and there were also conflicts with the weather.  If I had to approach this project differently I would have liked to include just random people walking across the street not knowing that we were filming. I will take away a lot of skills from learning how to use MovieMaker. I had never made a video and posted it online before. I learned a lot from how to film and make sure that there is enough film to be edited and how to upload it into the program to edit the film. Also after having complications at first on how to upload the video to YouTube I was able to learn how to convert the video so that it would be compatible for the Internet. I can now say that I know how to edit videos and some creativity into a subject that could possibly be dull or boring into something exciting, informative, and creative.

Graphic Skills

The whole project of Photoshop was new to me. I had never edited pictures before. With the knowledge and knowing how easy it was to edit pictures I will definitely use this to edit pictures to post on a classroom website or to make fancy boarders on papers or posters around the room. I feel that there should be a class taught on Photoshop and other graphic skills especially in high schools. This allows students to learn a skill that will help them with projects and help those students find something that they can be passionate about. Instead of students being trapped in learning in the same four general classes they can take time to step away from academic learning and learn a skill that can add some joy to their school career.

Excel

There are many activities that can be done to incorporate Excel into our curriculum. There are many ways to have our students be up to date with the current technology that is being used. Teachers in all different subject areas can help students work on their computer skills by teaching them the basics to Excel. Excel can be used in Science, English, Math, and History classes. Some activities that can be done in the classroom are as followed:

In Science, students can use excel to compile data that they have collected from projects. Such as in physics students can track the velocity of different objects as they move across different surfaces and calculate the average rates by using the excel formulas. This will also allow students to keep accurate notes of changes in data.

An activity that can be done in History classes would be to create a graph or compile statistical notes about a population during a certain time period. This will allow students to see the correlation between different time eras between population size, ethnicity, death rates,  and economic status and so on.

Another activity that can be done in History would be for an economics class. Students can put in data about supply and demand and study the economic growth. They can study the economic history during times such as the Great Depression and compare to that of the economic status of today.

For English students can use Excel to create organized reading lists of books for class or of characters that appear in books as they read. Excel can also be used to make grammar charts. Excel can be used for students learning tenses, antonyms, and synonyms. It is a great program to create study sheets and make table for words that should the same but have a different spelling such as, There, Their, and They’re.

There are many activities that can be done in Excel for Math. Students can use it to help organize math problems. It can also be used to create graphs for statistics. Students can use it to learn fractions like how many pieces of the pie make a whole. For this activity they could use a pie chart and put in different sets of data and see the graph change.

There are many other activities that can be done for each class in Excel. It is our job to think of creative ways to integrate this technology into our classrooms so that students receive the basic knowledge of Excel.

NETS-S Standards for these activities:

1.      Creativity and Innovation

2.      c. Use models and simulations to explore complex

3.      systems and issues

2. Communication and Collaboration

c. Develop cultural understanding and global

awareness by engaging with learners of

other cultures

3. Research and Information Fluency

b. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize,

and ethically use information from a variety of

sources and media

d. Process data and report results

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving,

and Decision Making

a. Identify and define authentic problems and

significant questions for investigation

b. Plan and manage activities to develop a solution

or complete a project

c. Collect and analyze data to identify solutions

and/or make informed decisions

Copyright Laws

The copyrights for teachers are in place for specific materials that can be copied if they fit into the curriculum. For example if a teacher is to copy articles, stories or essays less than 2,500 words it can be done as long as it is used in the classroom, although these copies can only be made if they are made from legally acquired originals. Another thing I learned was about videotapes either purchased or rented also DVDs and Laserdiscs, Teachers may use these materials in the classroom and copies may be made if the copy is to replace the one lost or damaged. Like all the other materials it must be acquired legally and in a classroom or in a nonprofit environment. I never realized how many restricts there were on copy rights and how much that affects the materials acquired by the teacher they may want to use or share with their students.

Now looking back at my education I have seen a few copyright violations or some that were very borderline. There have been teachers that have made several copies of short stories or of other articles that have been given to every student. Although that is allowed is the copying of those articles by all the teachers and sharing them together I see as being borderline in copyright. Although they have a legally acquired copy of the short story or article the spreading of them around to other teacher seems to be on the edge of violating copyright.

I have observed several copyright violations outside of school, especially of the movie and music industries. Not only are there fights about who had the right to similar song titles or similar lyrics but people download music and movies illegally. I have seen several people either watch a movie that is in the movie theater at that time either online or have it on a “bootlegged” DVD. I also know many people who have download music illegally too either from sites such as “Limewire” or going through “YouTube” and using a special program to transfer it into a music document file. All of these actions are in violation of the copyright laws. They are taking property that is not theirs and the artist is not receiving any credit for the work that they have done. I have also seen many of these people receive letters from the government ordering them to stop the illegal downloads or there would be further consequences. I have also seen people end their illegal downloading because they had received computer viruses through illegal downloading.

As a future teacher I feel it should be part of our responsibility to make students aware that violating copyright laws is wrong and that there will be consequences. There is always someone watching your every move and can get you into some serious trouble if caught breaking the law. I know for secondary there will be a great deal to talk about with those students especially because they think they will not get caught downloading a song or movie. Violators will be caught and there are ways to go about getting permits to use someone else's work. We also go about teaching this through giving credit to other when writing essays either quoting a source directly or using it in a generalization everything must be given it recognition so not to be consider “plagiarism.” There is only so much teachers can teach students about copyright laws and how to prevent the violations in schools its making them aware of the consequences they can face when they are outside of school.