- Five Things That Made Me Think
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I really enjoyed trying something different, besides blackboard. Using Moodle was a lot of fun, and it gave us ideas for things to do in the future. I liked the way it was organized and set up. One thing I would change about Moodle though, is making it like a checklist, where when you complete something, you check it off, so you know you have completed it.
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The screencasts were awesome. I chose to use screencast-o-matic. This was such a fun tool, and I think it could be really helpful when trying to teach your students how to do something on the computer. I know I learn from example, so this would be perfect for me to learn new things.
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Another thing I enjoyed about this course, was the article reflections. Some of the articles were really interesting, and usually I don’t have time to browse the internet and find educational articles like that. There were some really good ones.
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I am so happy we have been exposed to so many FREE tools! I had absolutely no idea there were so many tools on the internet that are free like all of the ones we used in this class. It would get pretty expensive if you had to purchase programs to do all of the things we got to do for free.
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Another thing I liked about this class was the online video conference. I thought it was a lot of fun and I wish we would have been able to do it more often. What a neat (and free) tool!
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In the future, I think I will keep adding to my website we created, and possible this blog site as well. I loved ToonDoo, and I think children would really get a kick out of one made just for them. I also really enjoyed the ‘cool tool’ scrapblog. I think making these are fun, and you can use them as a gift for someone too! There are so many more I can’t think of, but I have a list so I can use them throughout my college career, and when I begin to teach.
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I enjoyed many of the podcast presenters, but I would have to say that the Cool Cat Teacher had some pretty interesting podcasts that really made you think. Speaking of History with Eric Langhorst also had some neat topics that I liked. I was more interested in the podcasts that told a story or had a specific purpose rather than just chatting about a bunch of different things.
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One website I really liked was Emily Stover’s, because it was very organized and to the point. I also enjoyed Angela Zordel’s website because it was also clear and concise, and easy to navigate. Amber Simon’s was also a great example. She included a lot of neat extra things such as a calendar.
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I enjoyed creating my website, although sometimes I got frustrated. I usually have a vision of how I want things to turn out, but the template didn’t let me do that sometimes. It was a great experience and I want to keep adding to it. I think it is a great idea to tell future employers you have a website, so if they want to check it out, they can learn a little bit more about you. This makes me really want to make it look it’s best, so it can represent me in a great way. I used the google page creator and it worked pretty well. Some things were a little tricky to figure out, but it is a great starting point.
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Schools and education is constantly changing in some way or another. I believe one great way to keep up with these changes is by using technology. Listening to other educators podcasts and reading blogs will be helpful in staying informed. I hope to keep up with everything when I become a teacher, so I can best teach my students. I am anxious to see how I react to NCLB as a teacher. I have heard several different views about this subject, but it will be interesting to see how I adjust to it and how it will also change.
Brooke Rogers
