My colleague's websites

From the first website, I really liked the idea of water aerobics, especially the water one because I would rather be in a pool working out. The links worked, but since the first page had a picture of young children, it would have been neat to see how younger children could use aerobics in school.

The second website, I liked the idea of putting her mission statement on her homepage for future parents to see. This way, they get a better feeling of their students' teacher before they have their first day of school. The link for "notes sent home" didn't work, so that would have to be fixed.It was also cool to have a link for useful websites!

The homepage visual was an amazing choice for the third website that I looked at. It connected well with the main concept of children's food pyramid. The links all worked as well as the links for other websites. I thought the pawprints were a little different though since it wasn't talking about animal food, but children's food.

I was unable to reach the fourth website, so I am unsure what to write about that one other than it needs to be fixed. =D

In the last website, it was pretty cool to know that he was a part of the fire department (even though I already knew about it), but it was neat to see his own pictures of the place. I was a little confused about what "bay" necessarily meant, but it could just be me not knowing the right language for fire departments. In the pictures of firefighters in action, the links would have looked better if they were pushed up to the top rather than in the middle.

Website Creation

After the first class on introducing the creation of websites, I am really excited to create my own using DreamWeaver. I already have pictures, the types of tabs and what I want my layout to look like. I am hoping to start the website officially today and get a large amount done so that I can polish the website up next week.

When we looked at Web 2.0, I did not care for a lot of the applications to create websites when it came to customizing your website to your own liking. I would want to be able to customize my website in any way I want to. I do like the idea of having a website for my students and their parents to use in order to have communication between everyone. This way, parents can feel comfortable in asking how their students' progress is going in the classroom and how to help in any way.

iPad Applications in Education

After working with the applications on iPads, I felt that it would be rather difficult to keep students' attention on the application you want them to be working on. There are so many ways to use the iPad that students would start digging into its many features. However, I did like some of the applications that could be used for education related purposes like the one that is similar to creating a Powerpoint Presentation.

In reality, I do not see many schools having the money to buy enough iPads for students to borrow for education purposes. While it seems like a neat idea, it just isn't something I could imagine happening for a long period of time since schools are trying to put money into other areas.

So far from using the podcast and listening to other podcasts, I have found many positives and negatives. First, I do find that certain podcasts could be more interesting when the speaker only uses monotone. Also, since I am a visual learner, if there is only audio in the podcast, I find myself listening less and less to what is being said rather than seeing a visual of what they are talking about.

As for the positives, I do like being able to catch up on a math technique that I have forgotten and need a refreshment course. I also think that using the Garage Band to create my own podcast would be a useful skill for students in providing a presentation that differs from using Powerpoint, and therefore bringing students' full attention to the presentation. I could also get a better sense of how much my students understand the material and it keeps them engaged.

After seeing what type of websites are bogus and which are legit, I have realized that there can be subtle hints or obvious hints when they are created/made up. The website I looked at had a picture of three men where the creator was obviously cut and pasted into the picture. I would normally have not noticed websites that were fake without having the instruction of what to look for. The website about a black president being rascist towards blacks might get the attention of someone who does not have any prior knowledge about the subject.
 This would be a good way to teach students as well on how to look for fake websites and resources.

Google Maps

After creating a "tour," I liked being able to add a link and picture to the description in order to direct people to the location and website. I could see myself using this tool in my class as a project for my students. A possibility in using this would include my students creating a tour of where people migrated after leaving Europe and Africa over to North and South America. They could put interesting facts along with the webpage to where some useful information might be about the indigenous groups migrating to the West.

Another idea of using the Google Maps would include students creating a document of where their family tree comes from and their own heritage. This way, as a teacher I would get a better since of students' backgrounds and who they are. This is important in getting my students to be engaged with material that applies towards their every day lives. 

iMovie

I really like using the iMovie on the computer last week. I have never actually created a movie before. I liked being able to cut out whatever parts I wanted to and add the transitions, introduction and conclusion with the movie. I felt that my group's movie was a good representation of some of the basics on how to use the iMovie and what places are good to visit in our town. I would definitely use this in my own classroom because my students can use their creative minds on showing me their understanding of the material that they have learned. If I had more time I would create more movies just for the fun of it in order to experiment more on the program. I wish I had this program on my own laptop to work with!

Photoshop

So far, I have learned how to combine three pictures into one, change the resolution and sizes of each image so that each picture will look correct when it is on the same picture. I just started working on my picture and I am learning quickly which techniques work best to get the area of the picture that I want. I still have to put all three pictures together but I want to get each one to be cropped correctly before combining the three.

Blog 2.0 and Class Reflection

I am planning to become a middle school math teacher, so I refined my search to what would work in grades 5th-8th in the web 2.0 search. 

After looking at 2 different programs on web 2.0, I really liked "Pinterest" because you can get a lot of ideas on how to construct your classroom and "pin" things onto an electronic board. There were a lot of education pins from Pinterest that linked you to websites that gave neat ideas for the classroom. You could also look at your friends' pinterest boards and get ideas from them. This would be helpful if you had teachers in your school district using the website to get ideas off of each other. The audience for this website is basically everyone who has a computer with internet. It looks like it would be good for organizing a person's thoughts on any subject. The one thing I did not like about the website is that when you first sign up to have a Pinterest account, you must wait a week or so for the makers of the website to approve and then you can have an account.

The second website I looked at was called "AnyBodyOutThere" where people can post questions or issues and others can reply and have discussions together. This would be helpful for a classroom where students can have discussions outside of class about any of the subjects in class. They can even ask on this website if there are any questions that they were unable to ask during class time.I liked that the website was free and it looks easy to use, but I would want to make sure that the class discussions were only viewable to those in my school. This type of website would be used for anyone who would want feedback on the topics discussed.

From the previous class, I realized that just because there is an application for some area of teaching does not mean that it is automatically a good site to use if there is an easier, free alternative. A good example of this was when one of my colleagues showed the class an application for changing pictures and we discussed why we would choose this application versus using Photoshop.

Life Goals and Bucket List

My list may seem simple, yet it holds a lot of meaning to me. My goals involve getting my Bachelor's Degree with an ESOL endorsement by Spring 2013. I want to get a job as a full-time teacher as soon as I get my degree from WOU. My dream classroom would be a middle or high school math classroom, where my nerdy side of using mathematics can make my students excited learning about the subject.

 I hope to get married before I am 30, but I do not want to get divorced. I dream of having three kids and although I know this sounds like I can control it, I want my son to be the oldest followed by either a daughter and son or son and daughter. I want to grow old with my husband and be able to teach my children how to support themselves financially because that is how my parents have taught me.

Along with my life goals, I have a bucket list as well. Here is what I can think of at the top of my head:

• Own a cowgirl hat & boots
• Vacation in Hawaii, Australia, Italy and France
• Visit Germany to find where my family originates from and what our name really is
• Go on a cruise
• Ride on a zip-line through the Amazon
• Ride a mechanical bull
• Do something for my parents to show appreciation for all they have done
• Scuba-dive
• Swim as fast as my friend Jessica can
• Go to a drive-in movie theater
• Become an aunt
• Own an F350 truck
• Ride an air balloon
• Take my family to a unique vacation
• Pay off my school loans as quickly as possible
• Be the best math teacher that I can be