A little frustrated

I have just finished up my project for Tuesday, however I am a little frustrated. I took the time to watch the Teacher Tube tutorials and tried to apply the IF function to my project and can not for the life of me get it to work. I do not think that Excel is recognizing the Spanish words that I have entered into the function or maybe I am just completing the task incorrectly. I have tried many different approaches to making this tool work and can not seem to figure it out. Becoming frustrated and impatient with technology has always been a downfall of mine, which is one of the reasons I chose to take this class. I am hoping that over the course of the semester that with my increased knowledge of the computer I will be able to eliminate my frustrations.

grade books

In class on Tuesday we discussed different grade books. As I was grading papers and entering them into an Excel spreadsheet as my own grade book, I began thinking. I was thinking about which one I would like the best or at least which one I trust the most. I decided that I didn't trust the internet based ones. I know that there is a lot of security on the specific site so that it is secure, but that doesn't really help me. With each new generation comes new skills. These generations have been built on computers and technology. There are so many ways to get around securities and to hack into something. I don't really know if I trust the ones online. I would prefer to use a software based grade book because it will only be able to be obtained on my specific computer. I feel like it is more secure than having it out on the internet. Like it has been said before, nothing on the internet is really private anymore. Everything is public. This brings me ot my next point...
So at my high school at home, the district went to putting all grades online so that parents can check them whenever. I have mixed feelings about it. I think it is a great way for parents to be involved in a child's education, however, I feel like some respect or trust was lost between the teacher and student. I feel like too many parents will become "addicted" to checking up on their children instead of letting them try to get through high school on their own. My mom is checking my brother's grades to make sure he is doing well and it just makes me think. Like I said, I have mixed feelings on the idea.

So much stuff to do . . .

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel a bit overwhelmed by this class right now. I like the fact that we're working on projects that are specific to the subject that we are preparing to teach, but I just feel very flustered because we have to do so much other stuff on top of it and I feel like I don't have enough time to devote to working on my project in order to make it the best it can be. Rather than working on my project, I have spent a great deal of time trying to find an article about using PowerPoint to teach mathematics, exploring the different tools on excel, and watching tutorial videos. I feel that this time could be better spent focusing on my project. In observing this idea, I am going keep this blog post short and get to work on my project.

Picking the Tool...

I know right now we are doing many tutorials having to do with expanding our use of technology in the classroom, however I find it really difficult having the tool and then picking a subject mattter in the curriculum that we can use with that tool. For example, I found it difficult applying a subject matter to the use of spreadsheet just because we had the tool, but we hadn't been studying anything in context with the tool. It was hard to pick a subject matter to fit the tool design. I think it will be much easier and beneficial when you know the subject you wish to teach then you can find the best form of technology that will really enhance the lesson.

However, learning about all these forms of Word is beneficial because knowing and understanding the product, you can then decide which program will benefit what you wish to teach. I had never really used Excel before and I enjoyed the interactive choices to have students involved in the lesson. I don't know if I was the only one, but it had been a while since I had learned anything about Excel and it is always nice to have a refreshing view of programs.

I was talking to my mom about my friend student teaching right now. My friend mentioned that many of the teachers she went to high school with didn't enjoy student teachers. My mom was shocked (being a fellow educator) and said that she loved having student teachers in her classroom because it is refreshing and keeps lessons from becoming stagnant. She especially looks forward to learning new ways to incorporate technology because it has advanced so much at universities compared to public high schools. I didn't really ever think that the tools we learn in college not only benefit our ability to incorporate technology in the classroom but maybe help teach new uses of technology to our cooperating teachers in the field. With such a rapid increase in the use of technical based projects, it is good to always be refreshed in the field.

More with Excel

Coming into this class, I felt as though I knew a good amount about the program of excel and a variety of ways to use it. However, it was not until we started to work on our first project that I learned even more ways I could use this program and find something that I could incorporate into my future career. For my project I have done a calendar that will allow for the patients I will be working with to plan out their meetings based on the surgery date and then plan for their follow up meetings as well. It gives the kid a visual for the next couple of months they have ahead in their life. I had been so used to using this program for the same things over and over that I never really tried to find other options to use it for but this class has helped me to do that. I think with the more time I spend with the program, I will learn even more about excel and the different features it has. I also think I will be able to discover ways for me to incorporate it into being a child life specialist and find projects for the patients I am going to be working with to do that will also meet the learning standards that the state of Illinois has set for children. I thnk this class has been very useful and will continue to be as I spend more time learning about it.

Teacher Tube

I just watched the videos that were linked from our course page and I am really excited about watching others. While some of the videos move too slow and some move too fast, in general, you can learn a lot from them. Watching the videos gave me some new ideas on how to implement technology in the classroom. The videos also save me time so that I do not have to figure out how to do certain things, I can just learn from people that already know how to do it. This is such a comprehensive site that brings together any teacher that has an idea. It is a great way to learn from one another. These videos could also be useful for students who are assigned a project that must use technology and must be creative. I think that this site is a really good resource and I'm really glad I was told about it.

Excel

To be perfectly honest, I was apprehensive of Excel when we first started it in class this week. I felt like it didn't pertain to me as much as it did to others, like math majors. I was interested to see what it did have to offer me. There is a lot more to the excel program than just spreadsheets. I've realized that it's a great program to make worksheets such as timelines with. I have also learned that the "help" tool is a great asset because there are a lot of templates available and the help tool makes those templates accessible. For my project I started making a timeline which I was pretty unhappy with because I didn't think it looked clean or professional, then I learned that there were templates that would help organize me and outline my timeline and I was thrilled, thanks Tim! I thought it was really interesting that you could make interactive assessments using Excel as well. I had no idea such a feature existed, and such a feature could be relevant to any subject matter, which is great. I hope to learn even more about Excel that will help me in the classroom. I think the more information I learn the more of an asset I can be to my future students. And in the end that's the most important think to me.