Educational Technology-Week 4

We are now half way through the course and I have already learned so much about all of the technologies available to teachers and students that can help the learning experience.  I have found some resources that I am confident I will incorporate in my lessons regularly and some that I will use at least a couple of times a school year.  I will be teaching at the elementary level and Storybird is a tool that I will use in my classroom very often.  It is a free resource that allows students to create short stories and read other short stories that they have created.  This type of tools gets students excited about reading and writing, they can share their work with their classmates, and they can also read the work of their peers. 

Exploring the TED website was a great experience; what a fabulous site!  I found this resource very educational and beneficial.  I learned so much from the videos I chose to watch.  I could definitely spend a lot of time roaming around a site like this.  I watched a video that was students talking about the research they conducted and their findings.  These were students that had won awards for their research projects.  I think that this video would be a great one to show students that could help inspire them to follow their dreams and work hard to achieve goals.  The video could make a student feel that if someone else their age could do such great work so could they.  I found this very inspiring for myself and for a group of students.    

Lastly, I found that the PowerPoint information was a great review of how to effectively use a presentation and the benefits it can offer students if done correctly.  As an undergraduate, I learned many tips on how to create an impressive and effective presentation, but the information from this week is always good to be reminded of.  PowerPoints offer the teacher the opportunity to create a perfect lesson plan that can be reviewed and it is a tool that can accommodate all learning styles.  It is important to keep the slides simple.  The slides should be a good size that is clear and there should be minimal text on each slide.  As the teacher it is crucial to be very familiar with the information so that you can discuss the slides rather than read word for word from the presentation.  Reading the slides directly gets very boring for students and they may think that the teacher is not very educated on the topic. 

I created a brief PowerPoint about Kentucky history.  I do not currently have a class, so I showed the presentation to my fifth grade sister (and my kindergarten brother wanted to watch too).  I liked that I was able to put little text on the slides and just talk to her about the topic.  Presenting to my sister helped me work on not reading the slides but just informing her about the important information I know about the topic.  If I could do this presentation again, I would add more pictures. There were not enough visuals to give them an idea of what I was talking about and the images and visuals are a main factor in keeping the attention of young students.  My sister and brother loved the presentation just because I usually do not do this with them but my sister did mention that she likes more pictures.  She also gave me feedback on one slide that she did not understand.  My sister was the best audience because she was honest with me and was able to give me her opinion; it was great practice.