Week #4

This week i'm very excited for what we are working on. I have never heard of a digital story before but now that i have seen examples i'm very excited to create my own. I am looking forward to putting my ideas for why i want to be a teacher into something productive and long lasting. It is a great idea to use when looking for a placement in student teaching. I am slightly worried about the images because i don't have very many personal ones, and i want the story to have my personal touch.

Today, Thursday, I have been introduced to the social bookmarking site of Delicious. It is a great way to locate and organize many different websites so that it is easy to navigate around the web for kids. The sites I found mostly contained animals about certain biomes such as deserts and marine life. I'm looking forward to using this site in the classroom of third graders when we attend Pine Island in order to help the students locate and research an animal from a specific biome.

Week #3

This week I was introduced to the idea of a digital story. I'm so excited to learn more about this program, and to explore different options for using it. I really like that we are telling the story of why we want to be teachers as an option to show to our teachers when we begin student teaching. I liked the examples we saw in class, and amoung many challenges i encountered when creating my own story with the given poem and pictures, i still am pleased with the end product. I am looking forward to creating my story, and i hope that it will turn out as well as the examples did.

Week #2

This week I worked with Kidspiration which was a first for me. I am absolutely fascinated with this program, and I feel the oppurtunities are endless for what I will be able to create when I am a teacher. This program can be used to present specific information such as parts of speech like nouns, verbs, etc. It could also be used to present processes such as the water cycle, photosynthesis, the digestion system. It can be used to show how germs get spread, or which activities kids can participate in during different seasons. The possibilities are so endless. I think I could also use this to label different things around my classroom, because of the variations of clipart.
Also this week, I created a pageflake. This was also a first time experience with me. I really like that I can add my own personal preferences onto the page, and I can also link my blog and my podcasts. Everything on this page is very user-friendly, and makes navigating the internet very easy.

Week #1

This week, I have encountered many new things I have never used before. The podcast was a new experience for me that I found very interesting. It is neat that I can create podcasts on my own and it's as simple as picking up my telephone. Also, Skype is new to me and very convenient. I never knew that people could communicate through a line on the computer, without using any type of phone. Additionally, when taking the survey, I feel that in this course I will be able to do some things on my own, but also I will be learning many new useful skills on the computer as well. I hope that everything I learn can be a positive influence on me as I continue to study to be an elementary school teacher.

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