Lesson Four Thoughts....

I need to start off by saying that I love PowerPoint presentations! It is such a great way to present information to people of all ages, not just my elementary school students.

The PowerPoint I used this past week was slightly different than those I have used during the rest of the school year. Instead of presenting a specific idea, topic, or lesson I used PowerPoint this week to go over the end of the year events with my 5th graders. We do three special things with our kids; 5th Grade Awards Night, a 5th Grade Lock-In, and a 5th Grade Luncheon. My PowerPoint introduced each event and the expectations held with it.

The most "impressive" item in my PowerPoint were the graphics and photographs I used. Instead of just listing information for the students to read, I had taken pictures to go along with the ideas I was trying to get across. For example, when I wanted to talk about what my students should and should not wear to Awards Night I had pictures of students dressed appropriately, and students dressed inappropriately. While my kids thought these pictures were really funny, it helped for the idea to stick in their minds.

If I could go back and change anything it would be the length of the presentation. When using PowerPoint in class I always try to limit the number of slides I use. Unfortunately since I had so much to cover with this one presentation it went a little long and I lost some of them toward the end. They tried their best to stay with me, but in the end they couldn't help it.

My kids loved the presentation. The pictures I used made them laugh, and it really made the idea of "graduating" 5th Grade more real for a lot of them. There were a lot of nerves running through our school this week, and I am confident this presentation helped to calm some of my girls down.

In the future I definitely plan on using PowerPoint even more. I want to develop a Jeopardy style game to play to review for testing, and I want the kids to become more familiar with PowerPoint and all of its bells and whistles. They like looking at Power Points so I want them to like creating them themselves.

Lesson Three Thoughts....

There are many different documents I send home with my kids each week. Flyers, handouts, homework assignments; the list goes on and on. When I really sat down and thought about it though, not very many of these documents are visually appealing. Sure on most of the flyers sent home there will be graphics, and maybe a "fun" text, but as a whole they are just black and white pages full of print.

I'm sure that there are times when the parents see these documents that they think to themselves "I just left work. I don't want to read all of this right now." I can't say I blame them. When you are handed a sheet full of writing and there is nothing on it that grabs your eye lets face it, it looks boring.

This all got me thinking. Later this week is our school's 5th Grade Awards Night. The kids and their parents already know all of the details, but we wanted to send out a reminder to them and the rest of the staff. We had created a document in Word, but the more I looked at it, the more boring it seemed. I sat down and used a desktop publishing program to create a new document to send home and post around school.

This flyer is direct and to the point. There is not a lot of excess text; it simply tells people what we need them to know. Because our Awards Night this year has a beach theme I decided to use a picture of the beach as the background as a simple reminder, and because it makes the flyer a lot nicer to look at. I really think this will catch people's attention much better than a Word document.

From now on when I need to send something home with my kids, I am definitely going to think twice about how it looks and what makes it appealing. I always try to make things interesting and fun for my students, so why not make their take-homes fun too?

Lesson Two Thoughts...

This week's lesson really opened my eyes to all of the different ways spreadsheets and databases can be used in the classroom. Below is an awesome website I found created by a man named Bill Ferriter. In his article, Mr. Ferriter explains a new spreadsheet he has created for his school and how it will help the teachers keep track of student reading comprehension. A link is below.

The Tempered Radical: Using Spreadsheets and Pivot Tables to Track Data. . .

Not only does his spreadsheet keep track of reading comprehension, but different teachers can manipulate it to tell them exactly what they need to know, even about individual students! I never knew that Excel could do so many things. There are great instructions in this article, but I'm hoping I can find someone at my school who knows more about Excel than I do so they can help me set something like this up. It may not be as grand, but I really like the idea.

After talking with different people in our class, I have a lot of good ideas about how I can continue to use spreadsheets and databases in my classroom. For starters, I want to create a behavior chart so that keeping track of each of my students won't require going through hard copies of their files once a month. I also want my kids to become more familiar with spreadsheets, so I'm going to work this summer on creating a lesson that will teach them the basics of Excel and Access while still being fun and creative.

I've already talked in the discussion board about how I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my student's reading goals and points, but there are other ways I use spreadsheets everyday. For starters, I am the teacher rep for our 5th Grade Committee and since the end of the year is on its way, we've been busy planning our 5th Grade Awards Night and Lock-In. Because we have permission forms, money and other papers coming in everyday, I have a lovely Excel document that I enter everything into so we can all keep track of who is coming, who has paid, and what else we need to do. The parents on this committee appreciate how easy the spreadsheet is to read, and it really helps me stay organized and focused on our goals. I may not be a pro when it comes to Excel, but it truly makes my life easier.

Lesson One Thoughts...

Before I begin actually talking about the first lesson, I just want to say that this is my very first UofC class and I am really impressed. I've taken a few on-line classes before, but I really like the way UofC has everything set up to be so user friendly. Yay!

OK, lesson one. I didn't really know what to expect with the first lesson. I use technology in my classroom every day, and I guess I assumed everyone did. What I didn't really know was that the ISTE had such detailed technology standards and performance indicators for teachers. Some of these things I do everyday without even thinking about it, but others such as "model and teach legal and ethical practice related to technology use" is not something that crosses my mind very often.

At the beginning of each school year all of our students and their parents sign an agreement saying their children will use the computers and Internet the correct way, but if we're not teaching them what exactly the correct way is, how will they learn? Since I do have older kids (4th and 5th grade) I think I need to develop a lesson that deals with what is appropriate and inappropriate on-line. I have kids ask me all the time if they can "show me a video on YouTube." I always try to remind them that YouTube is not the most educational website, but I know they still go on it at home and that is almost scary to think about. Its one thing for adults to browse the Internet, but when 9 and 10 year-old children are doing it there is no telling what they'll find.

I definitely think that there will always be challenges when it comes to technology and the school where I work. While I do have an "intelligent classroom"; we are a Title 1 school that doesn't always get the latest and greatest so we have to use what we've got. Luckily right now we have enough resources for the kids we have so there are not any challenges I for see in the near future. Hopefully it will stay that way.