Tools

This class opened my eyes to a number of different tools that I wasn't aware were out there. This was my first exposure to Skype. I knew such programs existed, but I didn't know they were so easy to use or that they were available for free. The Flip is a tool that I can see myself using as a teacher, coach, and administrator. (as of yesterday, they are available on Amazon.com for $69.99 for 30-minute recording capability and $114 for 60-minute recording capability, by the way). After discussion during class, I have found that my school is somewhere near the middle of the pack when it comes to technology use and availability.

Last Weekend

I really got a lot out of this class. Most of the technology I was at least familiar with, but it was nice to see the many ways different people use the technology. I was fortunate enough to be advised to take this class early in the program. I think that this class (or one similar) should be periodically required (maybe as a PD requirement before certificate renewal) for all teachers to stay up to date on the ever changing world of educational technology. Congratulations to those who are done with the program and thanks for the food last weekend.

Sunday - Websites and Flip Cam

I was interested in the many websites that we looked at on Sunday. Each one has great links or tools that can be benificial as an administrator. You can find lots of professional development. There are job search engines as well as many other tools. This will be a great resource for me.

I really need to get a flip cam or have the school get a flip cam. It would be a great tool to use to show other teachers, administrators, students, and parents what the students are doing in school or classroom. It will be easy to put it in the computer and add it to a school or classroom website. So many things go on in a school such as assemblies and other important events that parents sometimes miss out on. The flip cam would be a great tool for those situations. What a fun and amazing tool to use in the school.

Saturday - Pod Cast

I found the podcast easy and fun to use. I feel like it can be a great tool to use as an administrator. I would primarily use it as a tool to put on the schools website that would allow announcements, concerns, or other important information that would be communicated better verbally. It would also be benificial to show the teachers how to use it and they can use the podcast for students that are absent or for instructions to homework on their classroom websites. The more I work with podcasting, the more I will feel comfortable with it and use it. It is a great tool for schools.

Sunday - The Last Class

WOW! This class (518) was amazing! So much to learn and so little time to learn it in. This class forced me to jump into Blogs, Wiki's and Podcasts, all of which will come in handy, I'm sure, one day down the road. I have to admit that at first I was intimidated by the list of assignments for this class. By completing some of them in class, my tension was eased and I learned so much. The multimedia presentation was a really neat way for us to use so much of what we learned and put it together as a useful presentation. Thanks for a great learning experience.

Saturday

Today I helped to create my first podcast. Frustrating as it was, it was a learning experience that I enjoyed. I can see how purposeful they can be. I plan on using them in my classroom. Now, when I assign a podcast in my social studies classes, I can help them if they run into the same issues that my group came up against. I am looking forward to experimenting with many of the features attached to Audacity. However, I would also like to visit Garageband to check out the differences.

Final Class

I enjoyed taking this class. One of the major reasons was because of how much of what we learned was applicable to us not only in the future as administrators, but also now as teachers. I consider myself fairly comfortable using technology; however, I can say that prior to this class I didn’t know how to make a podcast, blog, or wiki page. These are all things I can use in the future and am glad I learned. I’ve also realized that it is important to be patient when technology doesn’t work, or at the least, not lose your patience in front of your students or staff. They will look to us as a leader and our frustration isn’t likely to do them any good. If we keep our cool and work at solving problems, there is a good chance we can figure things out. Thanks Dr. Closen for sending me the reminder e-mail about posting, not getting frustrated, and showing us how to use the technology.

Saturday April 18

I can see where pod casts could be a very useful tool for an administrator to use. This type of communication would be accessible for everyone. Being a special education teacher I always think about those adults who can't read and all the "paper" we send home with students. Principals could use a pod cast that was downloaded on to an mp3 player for students who have illiterate parents. This would help with communication. It took me about two hours to find information about our topic and write it out. Our group took about two more hours to record the pod cast and another 30 minutes to send it to Dr. Closen. Hence: It was time consuming. I believe with practice, this could be perfected in a much shorter time frame.

Podcasts

I’ll admit, my group had some trouble doing our podcast initially and it was a little frustrating. At one point I sounded like some sort of a dying, underwater robot. We were eventually able to get our podcast done successfully. I’m glad we learned how to do so, because I think that podcasts have many practical applications as an administrator. If you think about it, a couple hours figuring it out isn’t that high of a price to pay for a practical skill that should stick with us for a while.

Sunday's Class

I really feel like I've learned more about useful technology! For instance, I'm thinking Powerpoint is a little outdated now that Movie Maker is the hot thing!! I really liked the presentations that were done using Movie Maker! I am going to have to start converting mine over!! It was great having class with everyone - I'm sure for those who aren't done - I'll be seeing you around!!!

?

i think in all the hoop-la i forgot to post my reflection from the last class... so here it goes - i learned so much from this class it would take quite a while to post it all. this last sunday when Dr. Closen said something about not getting upset when technology does not work because a student will be less likely to try it again really made a lot of sense to me. i thought the web sites we looked at about the various organizations in IL that have to do with education was informative and i see how some will/can be used during the internship process - thanks Gretchen.... overall perhaps the class that had the most information that i will be able to put to use immediately... Thanks Dr. Closen.

Final farewell--Sanders

Okay, my farewell isn't as final as some of you, as I have just begun the program, but at least this is the last post for this class. Like Jake, I find it pretty amazing how much I've learned over 3 weekends. I knew I wasn't the most computer-savvy person walking into the classroom, but now I really feel like the exposure I've had over the past month and a half has given me skills and confidence in the technology area. I have particularly welcomed the Excel stuff, as I am expected to use it more and more for school data. Plus also, now my husband doesn't make fun of my ineptitude as much. Thanks to all for your help this semester. Good luck to those of you moving on.....and to the rest--see you soon!

Sanders - Last Saturday

Since I'm slow to post, I'll reflect on how I remember feeling after Saturday's class. I haven't felt so technologically frustrated and inept in quite some time. The first 10 attempts at audacity for the podcast were painful, and although I was irritated on Saturday, that frustration ultimately led to experimentation on Sunday that helped us be successful. I sometimes forget that just like anything else, you have to give yourself time to just mess around with the technology to gain familiarity and self-trust. I still don't think I'll do much podcasting, but at least now I can do the basics if I want/need to and can enhance my skills from there, if desired.

Final Reflection

Thinking back to the beginning of this class I am absolutely amazed how many new things I have learned. I knew what blogs, wikis, and podcasts were but never would have taken the time to create one without this class. Now I am hooked, I check a few blogs everyday and have added a ton of podcasts to my iTunes. Our society is becoming more digital each year, and I believe many of these technology tools will become necessities very shortly for administrators, principals, and teachers. Thanks to everyone for all the treats, too! (ESPECIALLY THE BREAKFAST BURRITOS)

Final Class 4/19

This class was very beneficial, but like others have said it would have been nice to have had it earlier in the program. I also feel that more topics could have been covered given the amount of down time we had during each meeting time. It seemed like Saturday we got all of our information and then Sunday was more like a catch up day for those that didn't get it or needed more time to work on things. This was very frustrating to some of us that knew what was going on or that had everything finished. If the class continues to run like this, I would make Sundays optional so those that don't need the extra help don't have to make the long drive.

April 18th class

I know what a podcast is! I had heard this term so many times, but never knew exactly what it was or how to create one. I was really nervous about this project, but thanks to my group members I am much more aware of how the process works and we ended up turning in a successful podcast in the correct format. Yeah group! I think this is a fun project for the class and would continue to do it with future classes.

Final Class 4/19

Learning about the moviemaker project was something I found that I would like using for administrative meetings as well as helpful in the classroom. I had difficulty with some of the features but I was more adept at using it than some of the other technology items. When working with technology, I find it frustrating to troubleshoot when you don't have a broad knowledge base of what to try. I have learned some useful applications from this class but I have such a long way to go. It is just so time consuming to work on projects and redo them when they don't function properly. I enjoyed getting to know some of the people in this class. Collaboring and sharing experiences and ideas is part of what helps for clearer understanding from these grad classes.

Sat. 4/18/09

I found the podcasting very confusing. I think having a demonstration beforehand would have been helpful to putting it all together. Having little knowledge of this technology made if difficult to put it altogether. I still know nothing about using audacity. It seems difficult to me and I would have to play around with it for quite awhile before it is clear to me. I would like to see the difference in using garageband. After Dr. Closen explained the use of the teacher using the Podcast with his class, I would like to explore the use of podcasting. Maybe by the time I get around to exploring it, there will be an easier way to podcast.

Sunday

Sorry about my last blog, I hit the wrong button. I can easily say that I have learned how to do a lot of different things using technology that I had no clue how to use before this class. All of these things can be very useful to use in presentations in my classroom. It was also very helpful to be able to work in groups in this class. Different people in the class had different specialties and that allowed for everyone in the class to learn from other peoples' strengths. I really enjoyed learning how to use movie maker. After working out the minor details of movie maker, I was able to produce something that I could present to my principal and other staff members.

Sun\

I can definitely say I learned a lot of new things in this class. Movie Maker was one of my favorite new learns. There are so many ways to use this to improve communication between different parties. I also learned through this class that I don't know very much about technology. So much to learn, so little time. Great job to all on their projects. I was impressed with many of the multimedia presentations.

Third Weekend - Sunday

I am very excited to get to play around with Movie Maker a little bit and see what I can do with it. Overall, I can definitely see myself using the blogspot page to create blogs to use for my classes in school. It would be an easy way to extend my classroom onto the internet. Too bad my district has not adopted WebCT or anything yet, blogspot will do for now.

Last Sunday

It was great seeing all of the different multimedia projects today. I never seem to be as creative as other people can be. I guess that is why I am more of a math teacher than an art teacher. These would be a great project to work on with my students. They could really creates some interesting projects. It was a great class, I learned a lot!

Last Class- April 19th

Wow....what a class!! I learned so much information and how to use so many different technology tools, and I am looking forward to incorporating them into my classroom. I would make the recommendation that this class be one of the core classes required at the beginning of the EDL program.

Sun April 19

Today, we learned how we were supposed to save our podcast....so...we rerecorded it. It wasn't as great as our first one, but it is turned in and I will forever remember how to appropriately save a podcast from audacity! I loved watching all of the different multimedia projects, we certainly have some techies in this class. Great job everyone!

Sat. April 18

On Saturday's class, I was glad to learn how to make an exel gradebook. I think this will be a great way to post progress toward student IEP Goals. I thought that our podcast went well, and was much easier than I expected it to be! (Even w/ Derek's slip up- needless to say we learned to edit! LOL!)

The last Sunday

I thought it was interesting seeing the different multimedia presentations. I would have liked to had the chance to talk maybe in groups with others to see how they set their's up. The multimedia project is probably the most useful to use with high school kids. I think I would try to stay away from wikis and blogs with basic social studies students.

3rd Sunday

It was nice watching all of the presentations! I have really enjoyed taking this class and have learned a lot! Creating the blog and the wiki was very interesting and learning about the many, many, many educational websites out there were very helpful. Thanks Rose...the burritos were sooooo good!

Multimedia presentations

Very well done class. So many varied interests and commitments. I know I worked a long time on mine, and I can imagine other worked even longer than I did looking at the quality of work. Sometimes working on these new (well new to many of us anyway) technologies like movie maker and audacity can be extremely tedious and frustrating at times. All the technologies we worked on in this class, I will use in the future. From excel to blogs to movie maker, all of it is good for us to show our kids as well as our peers.

Good Luck to all of you in the future.

Weekend Three - Saturday

I am fascinated by the technology involved with using the Flip. The podcast was fun and interesting as it really helped me be aware of my delivery (slow enough voice to pronounce my words, not over-doing my plosive sounds - like P-words).

Last Weekend

I did not think I would get through this class. I only wish I had more time to spend on each one of these projects. Now that I am done with school I will have time to mess around with learning more on how to do the wiki and movie maker. I really liked and found those valuable.
Rose H.

Podcasts

I knew the podcast was an assignment in the class but I really had no understanding of how useful it could be. After reviewing websites and seeing the multiple uses of poscasts it intrigued me. I think this is something that I hope I choose to utilize. They can be very useful. My plan is to use these now as a learning process so when it comes time to use them regularly it won't be lost and frustrated. We will have to see how that works out.

Attitide Changes

I have gone through a multiutude of attitude changes during this class. I started out scared to death and wondering if I would be able to pass the class. I then thought hmmmmm.... I think I can so this. After yesterday I am back to hoping I can pass the class. I wonder how long one would need to study to be able to use all of todays technology. I don't think there is enough time in the day to learn it all.

Last weekend, last day for my master's degree, hurray!!!

This is my last weekend, the last day, for completion of my master's degree. I must admit I am glad to be done. The experience has been great, the people I have met through the program have been wonderful.
My goal now is to get an interview or two this year and then next year really look hard for a job as a principal or as an athletic director. Teaching at the college is also an option I would look into.
The final class was doing last minute finishing touches on the Pod cast project. The Pod cast is a great tool however it is frustrating when you don't have the knowledge to do it right. The multi media project was great. I could have done a PP however I am somewhat familiar with that so I forced myself to do I Movies. I have learned a lot doing this.
I am done!!!!!!!!!

Time Warp

This is the last weekend of class and I felt like I was in some type of time warp. At times during class today I felt like I was standing still and “technology” was passing me by. As frustration built, I had a decision to make. I could continue to resist or creatively meander though the pod cast and Excel activity. I need to know this stuff and I DO find a value in it, but it isn’t easy! As this class is almost over, I have found that with technology it is more a trial and error adventure. Dr. Closen could tell me and even show me how to incorporate, develop and where to find technology, but the information doesn’t stick unless I do it. This type of learning isn’t always the easiest, (hands on) but it has proven to be the most valuable! Thus, I’m telling my peers I’ve been though Dr. Closen’s School of Hard Knocks Tech Class. His class was one of the most valuable classes I’ve had this far. As a future instructional leader, it’s my duty to staff and students to hone my skills in this area.

As frustrating as working with the Podcast was, once we were able to attach music and finally get it together, it was a great accomplishment! I can see me using this with my 6th graders when we finish novels. I did a very similar project with 8th graders and the book The Outsiders, except we went to the local radio station (it was still in operation) and had the kids voiceover a summary of a chapter with music as background. This was also when Napster was big and, as illegal as it was, we downloaded the music they needed to fit their character summary. It was an awesome project and the kids loved it! This will be a lot easier now that I know how to use it!!

Last Sunday

The multi-media presentations were interesting to watch. They gave me some ideas for some future presentations. I need to make time to create more for classroom use. My students are visual learners so using this type of presentation would be beneficial.

oops

I meant relieved.

4/18/09

I thought the class on Saturday was really frustrating. Our podcast was uncooperative. We couldn't get the voices to record or the music to transfer. In fact, we couldn't get the music to play in order to see if we liked it. Having talked to teachers from Geneseo, I was interested to hear how much they use podcasts in their district. I'm still not exactly sure how you could apply it given the fact that it was impossible to record.

podcasts

It was very interesting to find out how to make a podcasts. I didn't have any experience working with it before this class. It actually wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. It definitely could be used as an effective way of giving instruction. The websites could be very helpful because it allows you to check your endorsements. I will have to use these websites because I have to go from my initial certificate to my standard certificate.

3rd Saturday

I am so glad we had time to work on our group assignments! Check! I am releived that I finally figured out the tech. problems with my multi-media presentation. Check! It's always helpful when learning about educational websites that are out there! Check!

April 19th

Doing the pod cast was fun. I am going to incorporate a pod cast into one of my lessons this week. I have a smart board and I know that the kids will think it is cool if they hear me speaking on the screen while they are working on their daily geography questions at the beginning of class. I am usually in the hallway during this time and students try to mess around until I actually get into the room. Using the pod cast will be good way to get them moving while I am on hallway duty.

Last Saturday

Thanks for making us create a podcast. I receive these frequently from the superintendent, but never tried making one before. Mike was definitely a benefit to have in the group! I hope that I can recreate one myself later.

April 18th

I found the Illinois educational web sites that we looked at to be very informative.I made sure that I saved them on my favorites and will use them as a tool in the future.

Websites

I really enjoyed taking the time to review some of the websites in class today. I was unaware podcasts and webinars were offered as professional development for principals and administrators. I thought it was a really good idea to download the podcasts and listen to them while commuting to and from class. Not only would I be staying awake while I am driving, I would also be learning relevant material about being a principal.

It feels so good to know we are almost there. This class has had some very challanging moments. I know I can walk away tomorrow having learned multiple new technology tools. The podcast today was fascinating. I was so thankful for teammate Mike though as he was our expert podcaster. I am also very pleased and excited about the multimedia presentation that Julie and I made. I had never used MovieMaker before but love the result we created. I admit, at times, I was quite overwhelmed and not sure I was going to figure everything out. But, with time and patience, all my projects did get completed and I learned so much at the same time.

Last Saturday!

the excel review was good - i know there were/are still shortcuts. the more i use it the more i'll remember... the pod cast was "fun" but all you folks without garage band have no idea how easy it can be - i imagine the same is true if you don't have movie maker... i can see the use for the web sites we looked at this afternoon... i gotta go and bake a few cookies and strudel bites for the morning :-)

Third Saturday

We had another productive day today. The excel project provided a good way to review material that we previously covered. I enjoyed working with my teammates on the pod cast project. The use of the wiki page to collaborate provided a way for us to communicate without ever meeting. It is not my favorite way of communicating, but could be useful in a classroom. The pod cast worked well and I learned some new tricks to make a good presentation.

April 18, 2009

Today seemed like everything was finally all coming together. It was like I had an ah ha moment!!!

weekend 3 day 1

This class is sure challenging for someone who doesn't understand technology very well. However, I will come away having a better understanding on how to use excel and I movie. My goal was to learn something and I met that goal.
The IASB website was very interesting. This is a helpful site for educators to learn about school law, evaluations, etc.
I appreciate Dr. Closen's knowledge and patience. Hopefully day 2 I will have my multi media project completed.

EXCEL fun!!

The gradebook exercise is an illustration for the frustration of learning new things, especially with technology. BUT, once you have these skills, Excel is an extremely useful in regards to data management. Once you learn the basics of the formulas and moving data from page to page, holding data positions, etc., you can really crunch numbers at a high rate of speed and ease.

I had an Excel gradebook from 1998-2005 that I developed until we got Skyward in 2005. But I did not know several of the shortcuts that we have been exposed to in this class. The old program worked for me bakc then, but I sould have cut my time working in half by using what we have been shown over the past few weekends. Thank you Dr. Closen!

Error When Posting?

I've had a hard time posting this time. Every time I try to view the blog, it tells me there is an error and doesn't let me view. Is that happening to anyone else? Hopefully this post makes it on the blog. Our last weekend of class seems like a long time ago...I remember being a little "Exceled" out after that weekend. I did enjoy reviewing the websites and going over them with each other. It was much better than reviewing them all myself. I am a little nervous about our upcoming podcast project...is anyone else?

Movie Maker

I liked learning about the movie maker for personal use. I'm not sure how much I would use it from an administrative stand point. That piece of technology is something that is more my "speed." I was left frustrated on Sunday because I played with the Wiki forever and got nowhere. For whatever reason, my laptop doesn't allow the google gadgets and after I spent forever trying to make it work, Dr. Closen tried helping and we still didn't get anywhere. So, I still have to figure out the wiki. I took the frustration of that situation and applied it to how students feel when they just don't get a lesson that is being taught. After awhile I just gave up because I wasn't being successful and others around me were. I felt too far behind. I can relate to how students get frustrated and quit trying.