Friday, April 13, 2012

Semester Overview

Overall I have learned quite a bit. Even "simple" things to most people, like using word and excel to the extent we did in class, were extremely useful to me. I did not find the google groups section of class to be very useful. The finale section was extremely useful for me, because I do not find finale to be user friendly on its own.

I thought how nearly all projects were explicitly spelled out on what needed to done was great. The final teaching presentation is a bit open ended but the rubric is specific enough to still make it fair. I thought the specific nature of the assignments was one of the best aspects of the course.

As far as what I would like to see, I would like more on the software like office, maybe include an outlook class because many schools used outlook based email. Other parts of office would be interesting too if they are useful to educators.Things like garage band and windows equivalents would be good to explore more. Podcasts should have a bigger focus because I see their importance, but it is important to teach software used by the majority instead of the minority, but ideally both. I would also like have spent time and learning the hardware side of technology. A lot of this software is great but if you can't get the hardware to display/run the software what is the point? I felt like social media is something that didn't need to be taught, as the vast majority of people seem to be fluent in that. Even I seem to understand social media.

I believe the course was useful and would take another like it if covered topics like the ones I described above. We'll see if I am this happy with it when I finish my teaching presentation! :-P

Friday, April 6, 2012

Final Teaching Presentation

      To be completely honest, I am a bit worried about the final teaching presentation. I have been able to keep up with the course so far but for some reason I have a bad feeling about this one. It doesn't seem as clear as to what exactly I need to do to accomplish it. It is not lack of instructions, more on my end of wondering how to start. I am sure it will work out, but with how busy work is plus the due dates for everything else this semester starting to collide I am hitting that wall just before the end. 

Monday, April 2, 2012

Podcasts

I decided to use audacity to make an audio podcast. There were resouces out there to show people how to use audacity to make enchanced and video podcasts. However, this being the crunch time of the semester, plus having to be away at a practice inspection for work for a week, I decided to stick with the tried and true audio podcast to make sure I could get it done on time.

I definitely appreciate how useful podcasts can be, especially video and enhanced podcasts. I look forward to trying to see if I can incorporate them in my classroom when I get a teaching job.