MY 2006 MAT blog

It's All Over Now

2006-08-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it is Thursday afternoon August 17th and I just finished my last task and now I will wrap it all together with this blog. Believe it or not there were many things about Ed Tech that I enjoyed. I really liked the claymation project we did this week. It was fun to work together to develop the concept then make the clay figures and take the photos. After we downloaded the photos it was very exciting to see the final project. It was somewhat frustrating the computers in the lab did not have the programs needed to build or view the final animated product. I feel it is akin to being asked to build a house out of a pile of lumber without a hammer or nails.

Anyway, enough of that. I am really excited about the claymation. I can definitely see myself doing projects like that in my classroom (perhaps not a rat being eaten by a snake) I think it would be a good lesson for students in so many ways. It would help them learn and become familiar with technology, students would work in groups and model teamwork, also, the obvious art angle. I think math is something that is an unnoticed part of this project and could easily be integrated into an active part of the project.

As for the website project, I enjoyed it also. Now my teenage boys think their dad is cool because he has a website. My 15 year old cannot wait to get his has on Dreamweaver to try it out. I see web design as another tool I will use in the classroom. I might not teach it to my 2nd graders, but, I will most definitely try to have a class web site I think it will be a lot of fun for the kids.

In conclusion, I must say I truly did enjoy most of the content in this class and would very much have liked to have more time to explore and learn the content to a deeper level. My frustrations were born out of technical problems more so then content issues. I look forward to the rest of the year now that I have one semester done, I feel it was a successful return to college after nearly 20 years. Bring it on!!!

Two Weeks In

2006-08-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

We are half way through the summer session and all is well. I am enjoying my fellow students and having fun getting to know everyone, it makes the year ahead a little less daunting knowing I will be going through all this with some people I know.

So far classes have not been overwhelming and I am feeling like I should be able to handle this. I have written a couple of small papers and all has gone well. We have a 5 page paper on a Tyack article Monday. I am somewhat nervous about this paper because I am required to use references and end notes. I have not written a paper like this for nearly 20 years!!!

I am discovering my understanding and skills with technology are somewhat antiquated compared to many students in the class. While I have stumbled some I have been able to complete my photoshop assignment and am looking forward to diving into the web page assignment.

I have used power point on many occasions so I am not too worried about that task. While the claymation project sounds like it could be very interesting I am not looking forward to another time crunching group project due the last week of the summer.

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow student the other day. They were questioning the need to take ED TECH. This student felt they would never use web design or photo shop in the classroom. I could not disagree more. I have three boys in school, one each in high school, middle school and elementary school. I can say technology is a big part of their class rooms. Most of the teachers maintain a web site where they post assignments, class projects, photos and calendars. As a parent I love this resource to see what my child has been up to and more then once my boys have had to look up a homework assignment because they lost their notes. Many teachers also post grades on their sites so I can check and make sure my son is keeping up on his school work. One thing my son's teacher did last year that his students loves was: He was always taking pictures in the classroom and he would put them on a power point slide show and had it running on the TV monitor in class. They kids loved seeing each other and themselves on TV. So I think it would be naive to think this class does not directly apply to what we be doing in the class room. An I told them so.

Summer MAT Rocks!

2006-07-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

What a blast it is to meet and interact with other future teachers.

I am looking forward to this year with anticipation and trepidation at the same time. I am excited about teaching children and hopefully being a positive influence in their young lives. I cannot wait until September Experience so I can get into the classroom and start working with kids. At the same time I am nervous: Will my cooperative teacher like me? Will the students like me? Will I be able to handle the rigors of graduate school having been out of college for so long? Will I be able to get a job?

I first used a computer in 1979 when I was in the seventh grade at Robert Stuart Junior High. Our class had one Radio Shack TRS 80, trash 80 as we called them, that we would all gather around and the teacher would teach us basic programming. We had to save our work on cassette tapes! In high school we had one classroom with 30 computers and the "upper level" students were allowed to take a year of computer programming. I discuss this because I feel fortunate to have been exposed to computers and their use somewhat ahead of the curve. The vast majority of people I talk with who were in high school at the same time I was did not have any computers in their classrooms.

In college I got to take fun courses like programming in BASIC and FORTRAN (oh boy isn't that useful these days!!!) I purchased my first home computer in 1989. After graduation from college I got a job as an insurance underwriter. We relied on computers heavily at this job and the use of computers for in the insurance industry has continued to increase substantially over the years. The ability to make presentations and communicate through technology is essential in today's business climate. The trick is not to rely too much on slick technology, if you do you lose the human aspect that is important in sales.

I share all this with you to make the point that I have always felt fairly technologically competent, however, I have two teenage boys at home and they know much more then me.
So, I realize technology tends to hyper-evolve and I will always have much to learn.