Week Six, Projects Reflection

This week we had to complete our hands-on projects, which included the parent-teacher flyer, an excel student grade chart, and a power-point based quiz.

The flyer was by far the easiest of the assignments. I was already pretty familiar with Microsoft Word, so all I really needed to do was find an image that I wanted to use as the layout of the flyer. After choosing my image I just made up some information about a time and location for the meeting. I thought it turned out kind of neat. I may need to save it for further use.

I tackled the power-point presentation next. I have limited experience with power-point, so I had to fudge around a bit to really get the hand of setting up buttons that take the user from slide to slide, back and forth. I used information from a Romeo & Juliet test that I made for another class back over the summer. But, after getting the first couple of buttons to work, the rest was a downhill ride.

I finished the excel grade chart last because I have had almost no previous experience with excel in any way, shape, or form. Setting up the columns was easy enough, but I had to do a little research in order to find the proper functions for averages. But, much like the power-point, after the first one worked, it wasn't bad at all. The graphs also gave me a bit of trouble, never having to make one before. It took me several tries to get things the way I wanted them, but, as with the previous documents, I think it turned out pretty good for my first time.

Finally, attached here are the three documents uploaded to google docs:

Powerpoint Test

Gradesheet

Flyer

Week Five (Chapter FIve and Six Quesion):

2.Define database management software and describe how you might use it to help you in teaching responsibilities. How might you construct a learning assignment for your students that used this productivity tool?


Database management software is software that enables the creation of data records, retrieval of records and data sorting at the touch of a key. Software such as this is an integral part of any educators software collection. Educators have a laundry list of information that they are responsible to have available at all times. Teachers must have personal information on their students, from home phone numbers and addresses to IEPs, grades for all their students, any administrative information regarding the goals for the class, a classroom budget, etc. And this is just a short list of items that come immediately to mind. A database can be organized into fields, records and files. A field refers to the electronic storage location that a specific type of data is stored. A record is a collection of related fields, such as a record that contains all the personal information about a particular student. And finally, a file is a collection of all related records, such could be a file containing all the personal information of the students in one class.
In order to prevent educators from having to sit and scroll down a seemingly endless list of information trying to find, for example, one student's phone number, database software provides several very helpful organization tools. The first of these tools is the ability to sort information. Any and all information within the database can be sorted in ascending or descending, alphabetic and numeric order with any field being the primary sorter. Another tool available is the query ability, which essentially provides a searching function for any database. Searches can be done for first names, last names, numbers, etc. Nearly any field can be queried. Also, most databases provide a reporting function. In some cases an instructor may need a list of information from the database printed out for hard copy records or to give to some administrative person. Whatever the reason, the database software you use should provide an option to print a report of all data within the database or simply a specific set of data gathered from a query. The software should have a print template built in to itself that allows printed reports to be attractive and easy to read.
While database software provides primarily an invaluable service to the instructor, a sharp and creative teacher can provide instructional activities that allow students hands-on practice in database usage. A good way to get students familiar with databases is through libraries. Most libraries now keep records of all books available (and even some not available) in a database accessable through the library or library website. Providing students with an assignment to find books on particular subject or by a particular author and having them provide a printed query report is a great way to integrate database usage into a lesson.

Week Four (Chapter Three & Four) Question:

Week Four (Chapter Three & Four)
1.What is a computer virus and how is it transmitted? What can you do to protect your computer?

Computer viruses are malicious programs written solely to disrupt computer functions and/or destroy data. Viruses are spread usually by attaching themselves to a file or by posing as another file type. Computer viruses can find access to your computer by means of the internet or through a data disk (cd, floppy, flash drive) that contains infected files from another computer. The latter is the real threat when using computers in the classroom since students are bringing data on disks from their home computers which may be infected. Infecting your classroom machine can destroy important data you may have stored on it or in some cases, render the computer entirely useless.

A wise teacher can protect their computer by means of anti-virus software. This is software that is programed with the intention of finding, identifying and eliminating hazardous malware from your computer. It is important to get your system set up with a good, well-maintained anti-virus software. While you may be able to encourage your students to set their home computers up with anti-virus software as well, having an updated program on your classroom and home computer is your only real safe-guard. It is important to scan every foreign data disk that you put into your computer for any kind of malicious or suspicious files. Also, having the software isn't a one time solution. It is paramount to keep your anti-virus software updated. Much like bacteria and biological viruses that attack human beings evolving against antibiotics and medicines we use against them, computer viruses are constantly being reprogrammed to get around anti-virus programs. Most of the recommended anti-virus programs require a subscription fee for the updates they provide. It is wise to subscribe to these in order to maintain an updated anti-virus software and a clean, functioning computer. Also, it would also be wise to keep backup files of all your important data on a separate machine or disk in the event that your computer does get infected.

Week 3 Reflection Question

Week Three (Chapter Two)

3. What role do educational technologies play in teaching and learning?

In a nutshell, educational technologies play and integral part in making classroom instruction the most efficient that it can possibly be. Ideally, we, as instructors, should strive to make our instruction cater to as many students and learning types as possible. This is most efficiently done through the use of one of the many forms of educational technologies at the disposal of teachers today. However, just because a form of technology is available for use, doesn't mean that we should use it nor should we rely solely on the technology to do the teaching for us.

While technology has made instruction more interactive, interesting and effective than ever, this does not mean that technology does our planning for us. On the contrary, making use of technology requires more planning from teachers than ever before. Teachers wanting to make use of a specific technology in their lesson must weigh out both the pros and the cons of using the aforementioned technology. As the textbook states, the use of technology should be reserved for cases in which something previous can be done better or it allows something that previously could not be done to become possible. When intending to use technology to enhance your instruction, it is important to decide how exactly you want the technology chosen to make your instruction better and to what learning style you are trying to cater. Also, it is very important to consider possible backfires that the use of the technology may cause. Will the use of your chosen technology cause distraction from the primary message? Will it cause more confusion than clarity? Will students benefit more from the use of this technology than through simple lecture instruction? These are some questions that all teachers should consider when planning to integrate some form of technology into their instruction.