Excel Week 4

     Spreadsheet is and interesting program but I don't think I would use it much in my class. I think I would rather much use the Inspiration software to get my my graphs and maps. Don't get me wrong it is a great way to keep organized, and keep track of your students grades with the assignments and grades made on the assignment. While also helping you keep  track of what you sell and how much, in the case  of having a fund raiser. You could use the columns to name the items and its prices, then use the  rows to write down the name of the purchaser and how items he bought. So it could be a useful program but I really don't think I would use it much other then what I mention here.

     We use spreadsheets in our class room to keep organized and keep records of our students grades example the grade book. We simply write in the assignment in the cells beginning the columns, then in the first cells beginning the rows we put the students name and then whatever grade they make for whatever assignment we put in the grade in the row and column that it goes in. This is a huge advantage over a calculator because you can easily add up the average with just typing in a formula instead of having to go and punch in the grades into the calculator and coming up the with average. Plus if you want to see your students progress over each six weeks you could make a graph over it and see if the student has improved or not improved.

 The three primary functions of a spreadsheet is to store, calculate, and present information. This pretty much covers what a spreadsheat does. By storing you keep records of assingments and keep them organized, by calculating you find the average out of your students grades or for whatever other purpose you want to use it, and by presenting it you use the graphs to present the work of whatever it is you want to present.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Inspiration

Wow the inspiration program is incredible,I was amazed at all you can do on it, and how it will be very helpful in the classroom. The programs comes with diagrams, maps, outlines, and presentation manager its really a handing program to have around. I was really amazed on how you could brainstorms ideas on the diagram and as your doing that add ideas to your main idea and add extra ideas to your ideas, while at the same time as your doing all the it's making an outline for you on its own. Then after you are done with everything on your diagram you could switch all your info over to the presentation manager and present it to the class. 

Being a Spanish teacher in the future I'm probably going to have my students doing a lot of presentations in Spanish so my students would defiantly be using the Microsoft Power Point and Inspiration Presentation Manager to present the assignments. They could use the maps or the diagrams on the Inspiration site to help the brain storm and organize papers and presentations for the assignments from my class. For the papers of course Microsoft Word would be the best way for the students to turn in their written assignments to me. I  also could have a contest to see who writes the best paper and the winner would be able to  publish their writings on Kidscripe. "Recent research has shown that student-to-student feedback may be more effective in helping students improve in their writing than the "expert" feedback they may receive from teachers". Therefore; the best way for students to help themselves during writing would probably be Blog. Students could then post their papers up on blog and fellow classmates could comment on the post and give ideas and opinions about the paper. They could also use SWoRD a web based reciprocal peer review system to get feed back over their work. This way it could take a burden off my hands being as I won't always have the time to give feed back to all my students over their work. As a teacher sometimes we are going to get topics we will not know as well as others but you may find out that as you go through and continue to teach on the topic you become aware that the more and more you teach it the better and more informed of the topic you become. As was the situation with me when I was teaching a friend of mine a workout routine that I had barely stated the week before I didn't really know much about it at the beginning but as I went on continuing the workout and teaching him as well. I became more aware of what I was doing while also at the same time  learn more about it and was better prepare to teach it next time.

It seems technology is helping a lot these days not only in the classrooms but in the world itself, I'm excited to start using some of these programs in my curriculum, and apply them to my everyday life as well. I believe technology will make my teaching career a little easier and it will also provide me with a lot of fun ways to get my lecture out to the students. 

Inspiration Videos and Webcasts for Using Visual Learning In Your Classroom. (2010). Retrieved September 13, 2010, from Inspiration Software, Inc.: http://www.inspiration.com/videos/Inspiration

Jonassen, D. H. (2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology (Third Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Blogs

Well to begin with I am still getting use to working a blog. I see it kind of as another Myspace or Facebook but used for more education purposes then how facebook and myspace is used. I think it's a useful way to get in touch with students and teachers in case the student wasn't able to make it to class or, a way for the student to check up on what he or she might of missed in class. It could help a student get a hold of the teacher  in case there was a question about the assignment or if not the teacher a fellow classmate.. "Blogs can provide the means to connect and communicate with others sharing the same interests" If a student is interested in a subject they could get on blog and find others that are interested in that same subject.  I think blog is great use in the classroom it's an "instructional tool" that benefits both the students and the teachers. Its a great way for teachers to post up the assignments, and keep in touch with students that didn't make it class. While also its a good way for students who are usually shy inside the classroom, to be able to communicate with the rest of the class without being shy about it. It a great way to post up videos and music clips, and also it would allow classmates to help out one other, share information, respond, and discuss about what was done in class.  

Blog would most defiantly be a big help in my curriculum I could post up assignments and give my students work that would have to apply some of the concepts that they learned in class in order to do the assignment. This would help them communicate more for when I gave them group assignments, and they could post out ideas about what they think would be good way to start off a group project when assigned that. I would defiantly take advantage of the (KidLink, the International Education and Resource Network, (iEARN)).This program would help me out a lot especially in my Spanish class I could use the program to get my students to interact with kids for Spanish speaking countries this way they could practice there Spanish, meet new friends, and learn about different cultures and traditions

Jonasse D., Howland J., Marra R. M., & Crismond D. (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Salvador Mejia

umm im tired