Journal #10

 

    While working on Assignment 5, I definitely gained new skills regarding PowerPoint and creating things that are interactive.  This was not a particularly hard assignment, but it was time-consuming.  Once I was able to get a handle on how to link different slides I was able to fly by when working on this.  I do think that I can improve on the way I provided the answers.  I think that they could have been more informative, however, this would be used as a review activity so I don't think it's that big of a deal.  Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment.  I was able to demonstrate my knowledge in a field that I find fascinating and do something creative.  

    I think that I will be able to use data collection and analysis in my future classroom in order to gauge the progress of my students.  I plan to teach young students, in kindergarten, so being able to track their progress is going to be a very important tool for me.  I want to ensure that everything I am teaching is being absorbed and understood by my students.  Since kindergarten focuses on providing students with the foundational skills they will need for the future, being able to track where each student is and make adjustments as needed will be very important.   

    When reading my classmates' blogs, the thing I enjoyed most was seeing the screenshots from their different assignments and their opinions on the assignments.  It was great to see the amount of creativity that my peers put behind their assignments.  I also liked seeing what they thought about some of the software and websites that we would use.  I know I had some issues with some of these things, so it was nice to see that some of my peers agreed with me, or were able to provide me with another perspective.  

    I really enjoy the tech-flex assignments.  I think that they are a great way to improve one's skills without having to worry about strict guidelines or time constraints.  My favorite tech-flex is number 16, which is creating a teacher bitmoji.  I love playing games where you create people, like the Sims, so this was a fun way for me to step into the shoes of who I want to be as a future educator.  I was able to give myself a visual representation of who I want to be when I'm older.  

    Another technology-related skill that I would like to learn is Excel.  I know that we did Assignment 6, where we had to enter our results into this program, but it wasn't very difficult to delete information that wasn't needed and to find out how to calculate the average, mean, and median.  I want to know more about the many functions that Excel provides.  My mom works with it a lot and she mentioned to me that it was a great skill to have for any job, so I want to really dive in and gain the foundational skills that will allow me to grow and be very knowledgeable about this software.  I know that there are many Youtube videos and online workshops that can teach me much more about it, so I would definitely start there on my journey to learn more about Excel.  

Journal #9

    I have had a great experience in EME2040.  I have learned so many invaluable skills pertaining to technology and how to organize a classroom, as well as working with my peers even though we are not in a classroom together.  As a student in the asynchronous section, it was a bit difficult to ask questions and clarify assignments right away, but I appreciated the speed at which Professor Choi would get back to me and the office hours that she holds every Friday.  I liked that I was able to work on the assignments at my own pace and do what I need to when I can.  I also like that we have the opportunity to use tokens to make sure the students can stay on track if they are not able to do an assignment on time.  Lastly, I really enjoyed the time and effort that goes into the videos and reading provided by the Professors to make sure we understand how to do the newer aspects of assignments and really gain and improve our skills with some of these programs.  I can't really think of anything that I didn't like about the class.  I feel that we are given enough time for assignments and the professors are very helpful and accommodating.  As a teacher, I can take these qualities and incorporate them into my own classroom to be a flexible and understanding educator.  My students will be able to trust that I have their best interest in mind and will provide them with the necessary tools to learn. 

    OER resources are tools, of any medium, that anyone can use to help them with their education.  They are "open," providing anyone access to these resources.  The University of Pittsburgh's library system has a long list of the many different varieties of OER resources.   It provides these resources by subject as well as completed courses, multi-media, open access books, and many more.  The large scale of this website is a clear display of the openness of OER. 

    Assignment 4 has been one of the most difficult tasks for this class.  I typically work in Google Slides, so my PowerPoint skills are a bit dusty.  I always use themes that I find online on the website Slidesgo so I was grateful that they were able to convert to Powerpoint.  Coming up with a topic was the most difficult part of this project for me as I am still new to the actual teaching part of the teaching profession.  Once I found a theme that I liked, it was then much easier to think of something.  I learned the valuable skills of creating a new layout and making a pre-recorded lesson.  My only concern is that it won't transfer well, but I can cross that bridge when I get there.  Something I didn't like was that there was not much support by the professors when it comes to how to actually put something together to teach it, although seeing as how this class deals with technology I can't really complain about that.  I think that for another assignment like this, I can improve on my ability to decide what to include on the actual slides and what to say in the recording.  I think this way, my presentation would be more cohesive.