Week Four, Already?

   It definitely does not seem like this is the fourth week, but I've learned a lot so far! This week I learned all about excel and making charts and graphs. It was pretty easy to follow all of the directions on how to complete the assignment. I was confused when it got to the graphs though, I don't know why but I had a lot of trouble trying to get the legend to say what I wanted it to say! For some reason that thing just wouldn't change, finally I figured it out. I'm not really sure if I like excel all that much, I know it's useful for a lot of reasons but I am just not good at it! I did think it was pretty cool how you could enter in any type of information or statistics you wanted, and then automatically create a graph out of it! I think that that could be really useful in teaching. Maybe I could use it for fun every week and take a class poll and display the results with it or something, I don't know but there are a lot of possibilities!

   I remember in High School taking computer classes and having to learn about excel but I definitely never learned all of this. It was fun to get to learn something new about something you already knew how to use, if that makes any sense... It made it a lot more fun to basically discover a new way to use excel. I guess that's really all I have to say this week! There wasn't much to report on except for the excel thing, and the fact that it's already week four, I can't believe it. This class has been pretty fun so far, I can't wait to see what we learn next! :)

Week Three!

   Well, it's the end of Week Three already, and I learned a couple more things this week! First off, Google Docs. I had absolutely no idea what Google Docs was, nor had I ever even heard of it before in my life. So I guess it was kind of interesting to see what I could do with it. I was kind of worried that I wasn't going to be able to figure out how to add my own column in the table because I had never done it before, but that was another thing about it that wasn't so bad, it was easy to use! I found out how to add my column to the chart, so I was happy I didn't have to spend like an hour trying to figure that out. I also thought it was kind of interesting how it resembled a wiki. I wonder if there are a lot of other sites and places people can go to do collaborative work other than wiki or Google Docs..it makes me want to go find out..kind of!
   The other things we did this week that was pretty interesting was read about the teacher standards. There were a lot of things on that page that teachers should do, and a lot of them were actually good points and things that we should think about really getting used to. The one thing I thought was interesting was that teachers really are expected to keep up with the latest research on all of their techniques and technologies. I just kind of thought that it was something they figured teachers were supposed to do, but nobody ever really enforced it. I guess that's why one of my professors is already trying to get us into the hang out looking out for new research that comes around about teaching strategies and stuff like that.
   All in all, it was a pretty okay week three! Hopefully I keep learning new things in here, at first I was kind of expecting to have this be just another computer class, but I'm glad I'm actually learning new things!

-Jenna :)

My Second Blog!

   Well, it's time for another blog update! This week in the Ed Teach Class I learned a few new things to add to my knowledge about the internet and technologies. This week I learned a lot about the different tools that are out there for teachers to use in the classroom and while trying to produce fun activities for the class to do in school. One of the tools that I thought was especially neat was TeacherTube, it was almost like YouTube except..educational! I didn't know something like that existed. There were a couple more things I didn't really learn, but got a better grasp on. While doing my PowerPoint I really got the hang of finding backgrounds for my slides and adding animations. I'd done it before, but never really had the time to think about what I had just done..it was more like a last minute kind of add-on, but this time I think I will actually remember how it was I did it!

   I definitely think that I know more about technologies now than I did when I was in even the 5th grade. Back then I did not know how to make charts or use anything on the computer that well, I don't even think I knew how to type correctly! Now I know all sorts of good things about the tools we have available to us just by having a computer. It will definitely come in great use when I become a teacher because I will have so many ways to get the students to learn. I can make a comic strip on the online tool, or make a PowerPoint, even make a puzzle for them to solve that is related to the topics I teach them in class. All of these technologies I've learned about so far will already make it easier to teach, I can't wait to find out all of the other cool things there are to use when we get more into this class!

My Welcome Post!

Well, this is my first post. Follow my blog and find out about all of the things I learn in this class. So far..I've learned how to post a blog! Hopefully you enjoy reading my blog and getting to know a little bit about me.