Week 8. Malicious Software in School

As discussed in my previous blog about online communication. E-Mail provides a safe and effective way to communicate. It always leaves proof that the e-mail was sent and always allows for you to communicate effectively more than a phone call when describing assignments. When you type instructions, more often than not, they are clearer on an E-Mail as opposed to a phone call. When you have e-mail, you can type certain instructions, be as thorough as you need to be, and not have to keep reciting instructions repeatedly and hope the person receiving them are getting them correct. With E-Mail, you send the directions once, and the person receiving the directions in the E-Mail can save the E-Mail for future reference. And a responding E-Mail back to the teacher from the student/parent will only keep the communication line open if more questions are needed. A big downfall to moving files electronically is the threat of a virus. Malicious software can absolutely destroy any computer. Things such as virus protection and using good judgment can save your computer from viruses. If you are expecting a file from someone you know, it should still be scanned before you open it.

At, Ludlow, we have MacAfee Virus Protection and have the option to use it before we open a file. Students in the state of Kentucky also have an e-mail account that is accessible from both home and school computers. The biggest fear is when students send themselves files from computers that are infected. It is mandatory now that all files downloaded from an e-mail must be scanned for the sole purpose preventing any malicious software/viruses being downloaded onto a computer. Is the MacAfee Protection the answer or a cure-all? Not at all, ultimately, judgment and reasoning are going to be the best way to prevent any viral downloads or malicious software on your computer is to use good judgment.    

Week 7 Microsoft Office is King in schools!!!

The main piece of software used by students would definitely have to be Microsoft Office due to the main three programs that are used, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. In my field of social studies, Microsoft word is the main software that is used. With the need for typing papers that review and reveal points of comprehension in an Arts subject, it is perfect for achieving the purpose of providing text.

                The other main piece of software that is used is Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint gives a teacher the opportunity to bring life to a lesson that could be very boring to a student who has to look at a page that is white with black ink and a few pictures. Although I am not a teacher right now, I save all the PowerPoint that are related to my content area knowing that they will provide me with some form of a resource no matter how big or small.

I did a presentation on the Bill of Rights. My certification is in grades 5-9 (Middle School Social Studies) and Civics is the class that I aspire to teach. I enjoy teaching the law and how it was formed and still used today. Many citizens that are in the United States today are not aware of their rights and many citizens have no idea just how important their role in our government is.  PowerPoint allows me to bring the lesson from white pages and black ink to a colorful presentation that also may include pictures and other additional resources.

Another reason these two pieces of software are helpful is due to the fact that I have horrible handwriting.  PowerPoint and Word give me the luxury as a teacher to be able to hand out legible information. Also at this age, Study guides and notes can be a helpful resource also as long as they are legible. Word is a program that makes everything legible and also provides both the student and the teacher an opportunity to review things such as grammar. When both the teacher and student can provide work/information that is clear.   

I can never use excel for an activity for a student. Excel is great for managing and organizing and also great for organizing columns and mathematical formulas.  That is an excellent tool. In fact, a similar program is on Infinite Campus, a software that is used for keeping track of students grades, attendence, etc, etc, and also is available for parents to see. It is a real simple program and very similar to excel. You type in the value, hit the command, and you have a grade. It is the same principle as excel. But to be used by students for means of social studies, I could never use it.

Week 6 Webquest/Gardenquest

Webquest URL http://questgarden.com/130/05/7/110808112812/index.htm

This week in my reading and practice, I have found some useful tools in the communication of webquest and questgarden to be very helpful. I found that as long as you can construct assignments on this website and make both searchable and attractive for students today. My first objective in creating this webquest was to not make it something that was already repeated in class. If a student reads repetitive material on a website, they will often not even finish what needs to be read. Students must have something to keep their interest and have an activity that will allow them to be active in leading discussion of the material and findings the next day. From what I have seen in education, there has been a constant evolution from black ink on white paper to movies and now to the internet. My questgarden gave a quick review of the material covered for what the assignment will require. After giving the assignment I immediately informed the students that there will be an in-class exercise about our own class becoming our own legislative house. This assignment immediately should get the students mentally preparing for what kind of bill they would present to the house if they were legislatures themselves. As they learned in a previous lesson, time in the house is precious and the speaker decides what bills are presented. After the in-class exercise, the students were then informed of a web assignment. The students were given the link to the Library of Congress and asked to see the action taken by the individual who represents their state in the legislature. Students can see if a bill was presented or see how their individual in the legislature voted on a particular bill. After the students seen this information, the students were to write a one page paper on how they felt about the importance of the bill presented or voted on. Did the students feel that they are being represented in the best way possible? Giving students an assignment that allows them to go outside of the textbook allows them to see how much more information is provided. Then internet is full of political ideology that can be resourceful. I would like to utilize tools like webquest and BlogSpot for means of communication with students. Many students can be reached easier via the internet, mostly because that is where most youth now socialize. When I built my webquest/questgarden website, I noticed the only difficulties I had been corrections to be updated and uploading images from my own computer. When addressing the corrections issue, you have to make sure it is prefect the first time it is finished.  When you make corrections and go to re-post the information, it may take a couple of hours and students, like myself, would like to get things finished on time and ready to go for the next class. The last difficulty that I ran into was uploading images as backgrounds. It was not like a PowerPoint, where you could upload the image, send it to the back, and be done with it. On this website, it wasn’t that simple. In conclusion, web access on the internet allows for many possibilities when providing an educational resource. As a teacher, I would utilize Webquest/Questgarden and also Facebook. The ability to utilize Facebook would allow attracting in the students socially and then posting things such as the URL for the Webquest/Gardenquest website on the page to draw them in.

Week 5. E-Mail

The most common communication tool that is used online is E-Mail. E-mail has been my most useful communication tool. It offers a sense of privacy along with being able to attach files of assignments to students who are out sick. E-Mail also offers a flexibility that appears to be more effective than a note home or a phone call. Many times parent and students alike will make the statement that they did not get the phone call or the note had magically disappeared. My experience with E-Mail has been positive because the use of the internet and the reliability of the internet has become more prevalent.  The more prevalent that the internet has become, the more useful and more often it is used.

It appears though that E-Mail provides a safe and effective way to communicate. It always leaves proof that the e-mail was sent and always allows for you to communicate effectively more than a phone call when describing assignments. When you type instructions, more often than not, they are clearer on an E-Mail as opposed to a phone call. When you have e-mail, you can type certain instructions, be as thorough as you need to be, and not have to keep reciting instructions repeatedly and hope the person receiving them are getting them correct. With E-Mail, you send the directions once, and the person receiving the directions in the E-Mail can save the E-Mail for future reference. And a responding E-Mail back to the teacher from the student/parent will only keep the communication line open if more questions are needed.

Week 4 Powerpoints

The main thing that I learned about with this lesson is the flexibility that a power point gives you in your lesson. As I posted in my discussion on ilearn, PowerPoint give you the opportunity to bring life to a lesson that could be very boring to a student who has to look at a page that is white with black ink and a few pictures. Although I am not a teacher right now, I save all the PowerPoint that are related to my content area knowing that they will provide me with some form of a resource no matter how big or small.

I did my presentation on the Bill of Rights. My certification is in grades 5-9 (Middle School Social Studies) and Civics is the class that I aspire to teach. I enjoy teaching the law and how it was formed and still used today. Many citizens that are in the United States today are not aware of their rights and many citizens have no idea just how important their role in our government is. Many are still left ignorant of their rights and therefore become a member of society that cannot be a contributor to their fullest potential. I am very passionate about this because it is our rights that cannot be taken for granted. The thing that I am most proud of in my presentation is the background and also some random questions that I would ask students at the end of each slide.

 I enjoy teaching the government to where students can understand it and also students know. You never want to keep going forward until students understand exactly what you are teaching. You may not reach every single student, but you have a chance to reach students in a way that can give them a better chance to understand exactly what is being taught.If I had to do it differently, I wish the slide that the YouTube video is on would come up like a screen instead of just the link. I have worked on that all day and still cannot get the full screen to come up.

Any student enjoys the PowerPoint a whole lot more just for the simple fact that the background is not white with black print, like many books they read that cannot keep their attention. Also anytime PowerPoint is added an aide to a class discussion, it allows any teacher discussion to highlight the points that are important and necessary.

Week 3 Desktop Publisher vs. Word Processor

This week I learned a lot about the differences between Desktop Publishing and Word Processing. From what I have read and used, I think both are very unique but important tools to utilize.

            I feel that Word Processor is definitely a tool that can be utilized due to simplicity of the program.  With my certification being at the 5-9 level for Social Studies, this would be the most used program due to the fact that the activities that are performed in my classes often involve some form of typing papers. Often with No Child Left behind Mandates and with the State of Kentucky making the ACT test mandatory, Reading Comprehension is the biggest contribution that social studies has. For reading Comprehension, we can use Word Processor to be able to write about exactly what was read and put it into paragraph form. If we can write an essay about the comprehension of a subject that we have studied, the student’s ability to see the more defined details in multiple choice answers will only become stronger.

            With my previous paragraph, I stated how the simplicity of Word processor but did not mention how a Desktop Publishing Program for an assignment can make things more visually attractive. Many students are often amazed by technology and more often they are amazed by the images that can be created. In the State of Kentucky, the Sixth Grade is the grade that is primarily Geography. I would love to be able to make a weekly project that included illustrations of certain land masses, Diaspora of certain groups, etc, etc, What desktop publishing offers is an aide for visual graphics that can help students not only learn, but to also create a document that displays all items that the student can comprehend.

 

Now this is not an original work of mine, but this is the main idea that I was talking about for Geography. Note the different colors for the different land masses and other keys that can be put onto a legend that can tell the student reading the map exactly what is on the map that is important. To reiterate what I have stated before, children of the young adolescent age enjoy visual aides and often can rely on them as an assisting tool in learning.

           

Week 2 Excel in the Classroom

What I have learned for this week is how useful a tool excel can be for any subject. A lot of the reading that dealt with Microsoft Excel and spreadsheets dealt mostly with math and all the forms of it. I read the article Using Spreadsheets in Mathematics Education. Another thing I have learned about spreadsheets and other programs that are similar is the many options that are available. I never knew Google had a spreadsheet program you could use. The link below has a lot of valuable information from this website: http://www.trumbull.k12.oh.us/teachers/resources/usingss.htm

 Spreadsheets often seem to be more of a fit for Mathematics and Science than any other subject. They are great for calculations, information storage, and performing other actions that are suitable for organizing and calculating information. Spreadsheets have a place in education and how you use them is how they can fit what you are teaching in your class.

 The way that I can implement Spread Sheets for Middle School Social Studies is to use the format for organizational purposes. I can do things such as make a table of the Amendments of the Constitution, Geographic labels and names, or Names of Battles in early world civilization and match them up with the time and period and site/city. The biggest attribute that any Database/spreadsheet can offer me as a Middle School Social Studies Teacher is the organizational aspect, the ability to make information available on a spreadsheet for the sole purpose of providing organization and an easy to read format for students to follow.

Spreadsheets are also excellent for helping students make their own spreadsheets. Students can easily make their own spreadsheets for studying purposes. If students are provided with the necessary instructions, Excel or any other Database can be easy to use.   

I did though know Microsoft Works has the same programs available. I typically find Microsoft Works to be more helpful than anything in their spread sheets. Most people do not realize that every computer that has Microsoft Windows comes with Microsoft Works. My biggest issue is that with Microsoft Works, it has spread sheets that are used for a variety of task. They have a format for calendars, schedules; the conventional format in which can be used for math problems. It has all the same command buttons as Microsoft Office Excel, has all the capability that Office has. The biggest issue is not which one is more capable, but rather which one is more compatible.    

Week 1 Technology in the Classroom

Technology in the classroom

The first item I want to blog about is the video on YouTube. The video was titled "A Vision of Today's Students", and it gave such interesting facts about how the use of technology has actually taken over as the main landscape in terms of communication. The video opened with a quote, it stated that the 19th century child was struggling from how education has not yet evolved to what or society has become, and the fact in the quote that got my attention was that the quote was written in 1967. In 1967, technology was not even an issue at that point in history, but rather a change in human behavior was changing for time.

What I learned this past week was first my technological capabilities. The class was assigned a "Technological Literacy". This assignment was a checklist of the basics that I could and could not perform. For the most part I am fairly adequate for what I need to be able accomplish in the classroom in terms of being technologically proficient. Some other things such as learning how to make banners for my classroom and using technology to plan strategies in an technological advanced environment.

The first I want to learn and improve upon is making a banner for my classroom. Banners are objects that can be made on your own personal computer by programs Banners are a terrific way to present information on things such as classroom behavior expectations. Another way I will use a classroom banner is for material presentation, such as the beginning of the week, a banner can state what we will be the focus that week in class. It can be an attention grabber, or I can use it as a constant reference for the students. With a visual aid that is attention grabbing, students can often have a reference to refer to when they have questions.

The other incompetency that will be addressed is to manage student learning in a technology enhanced environment. Students today are more adapted to social networking sights and often use these websites to establish and maintain this as their constant form of communication. Social networking websites, such as Facebook, have “walls” that can be written on for the sake of immediate but yet public communication that can grab the immediate attention of students and parents alike. The plan that will be implemented is the use of Facebook. A page for the class that is being taught would be formed and then request students as friends. Every night or however often the need of posting information is, a link to a video, a reminder to student and parents, or whatever form of valuable information that needs to be communicated can be expressed immediately. Allowing for both students and parents to be actively notified and involved for the greater good of the student.

The obstacles to overcome concerning any technology youth is the abuse of technology. There is the issue of too much facebook or MySpace, but also the issue of plagiarism and things of such. The only way you can overcome this is to be proactive. I work in our alternative school and a tool that I utilize is a program called "Sychroeyes"...it allows me to see every screen that is on in our room and has been a great asset.  If you do not have these tools, just be active and monitor closely to what the students are doing.