Overall Reflection

Overall, I really enjoyed this class! My favorite part was creating a classroom website! I can't wait to use this site with my future students (and create more sites and wikis). I think lots of what we did in class can definitely be incorporated into my future classroom! I mean, current students are growing up completely immersed in technology and I think using these tools in class can hook students into what we're doing and make learning the material more meaningful and easier!!!
Thanks, Jeff, for being such a great teacher! You had a good balance of enthusiasm, lecture, and letting us do our own thing!

Study Habits iMovie

So, I created this movie because I think that students don't know how to study. Also, it was good to remind myself what I should be doing to stay on track during school.
Enjoy!

OME... or should I say OMG?

Well, I guess I have to start off by saying that I can't believe that we're halfway finished with this course! I feel like I've been learning a lot in this course -- from creating a webpage, to blogging, to using Google Docs and Picasa, to embedding powerpoints. My greatest "Aha!" moment came today working with Inspiration! I never know that this software existed and it makes creating graphic organizers and outlines so much easier than doing so in Word or Powerpoint. I'm definitely using this when I teach -- hopefully, the school I will teach in will have the software, too, so that the students can do a more interactive activity on the computer. But, I think it'd also be great to create worksheets for discussions or homework or group activities or to help students learn how to organize their thoughts/study! YAY!

Inspiration Assignment

Today we worked on making an inspiration assignment for our classroom. I chose to do the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. Hopefully this graphic organizer will help you understand this concept!

Digital Scavenger Hunt

We did a digital scavenger hunt today in TPTE 486 -- we used the guide for the science scavenger hunt. Enjoy!

Digital Collection

Concerning the embedded slideshows

The first show was embedded using a Picasa slideshow that I created. The second was embedded from a GoogleDoc powerpoint slideshow. They each look a little different. I also embedded this slide show (from GoogleDoc powerpoint) on the science wiki.
Next time, Jeff, I'm gonna pick your brain to see if we can remove the frame around the show!

Embedding a Slideshow pt 2

Embedding a slideshow!

Wiki -- Hawiian for FAST

This week, we started working on our group wiki. I've never used a wiki before... and I didn't know what "wiki" meant. Anyway, I had experienced some frustration coordinating group projects via email in other classes. Having a central location where each member can modify/edit what's posted so that EVERYONE in the group can see what has been changed makes so much sense! I'm really glad that we're learning how to use wikis! This will come in handy for group projects and for a classroom.
Thanks Jeff for showing us real examples of teachers who use wikis in their classrooms! This is a great springboard for ideas of things I can use later!

I evaluated a site - YAY!

It is very important to verify that the sites that you use in class and/or send your students to use are accurate, relevant, useful, and free from bias. I evaluated an interactive biology site and found it to be useful. I used a checklist guide provided in our workbook to do so -- and even though this site doesn't meet every single one of the check boxes, there are enough (in my opinion) good people and a good university backing up the site to make it useful.
This activity and the stringent requirements laid down by our checklist really made me think about what makes a website "good." For me, know who the author is/whether you can contact them is most important (followed by if there're lots of advertisements and how user friendly the site is). Evaluating sites is something that we teachers need to constantly do. How often are do we look for additional materials and activities for our students? All the time. How often do we look for validity? The answer here is, again, all the time. Using the guide provided in our book now tells us what to look for -- yay.
Also, I think it's important to share this information with our students. They need to know about reliability and validity of websites - what to look for and what should raise red flags.
There's a lot to think about when searching the web!

Evaluating websites

It's really important to make sure that what you're looking at on the internet is valid, timely, and accurate. Here's a good guide that will help you do that.

What I like about this site:
This site provides a long list of questions that you should ask yourself when you are searching the web. These questions require you to be insightful and aware! They also require you to dig deeper when you are browsing the web.

What I think could be improved:
In general, I don't like to read long paragraphs -- I would like this site better if the questions were provided in a checklist form.

Portfolios

I usually consider myself to be pretty technology literate -- I mean, I know how to email, use iTunes, use discussion boards. But I had never really thought about putting a portfolio together online (until my friend Alicia told me about it and showed me hers). This, combined with what we're discussing/doing in class has really shown me how useful online portfolios can be! Teachers can use them as alternative assessments for their students and to apply for jobs. They can even be used to connect with parents! How many times have we heard that connecting with students' parents is important?!
I can't wait to learn more and polish up my own portfolio!

Expectations for the Course

I expect that this course will teach me how to integrate technology seamlessly into my future classroom. I hope to create assessments, projects, and communication tools for my future students to help them learn more efficiently. I have never used a blogger before and only recently decided to make my own website (of my portfolio -- it's not finished, so it's not open to everyone yet). So, I expect that I will learn A LOT more about how to do these things.

My first post -- An Informal Introduction

I grew up in Kingsport, TN and went to/graduated from Dobyns-Bennett HS. I have taken dance (mainly ballet and modern) since I was 7yrs old (I performed with the UT Dance Company in 2004-2008 and have had the opportunity to teach some classes in Florida and northeast Tennessee). I also enjoy other crafts such as stained glass and beading. I enjoy being outdoors -- even though I hate bugs. I am really interested in traveling. So far, I have gone to Mexico, China, and Australia.
I became interested in teaching through my experiences teaching dance in Florida. I was working in research at the time, realized it wasn't a good fit for me, and discovered that teaching was my passion. I want to teach high school biology -- biology 1 through AP and hopefully I'll be able to teach a genetics, anatomy/physiology, or microbiology. I have pretty generic experiences with technology: I use technology for school, for trip planning, for social networking, and when I'm bored (yay Hulu!).