Wanting more instruction

When I thought about this class I thought that we would be learning and practicing lots of new tools and software during class time. I looked forward to practicing with the guidance of the professor. While we talk about some new tools, I do not really feel like I am learning a lot of new things. For example, the professor wants our PowerPoint presentation to be better than anything we have ever done. However, we have not practiced anything new to be able to enhance our presentation. I could probably figure out some things by myself, but I want to learn the intricacies of the programs and be efficient as possible. I think this class is extremely applicable to our future careers and I hope that we will take the time in class to practice more and to learn new tools. We write about tools we do not know, but we do not actually practice using them in class. For me, it is important to actually practice the steps it takes to get to a certain result. If I need to use a certain tool in the future, but I have not used it in a while, I would hope that I have enough background to remember the steps to get there.

powerpoint

So after thinking about this powerpoint project a lot, I have gotten rather stuck. I know we will be doing stuff in class tomorrow, however, I feel a little uneasy about doing a powerpoint presentation for a math class. I am unsure of the specific content area I want to cover and how to actually tie into a class so that it isn't just straight notes on the powerpoint. At this point, I feel that if I was to just do a presentation for notes, I would rather do it on a whiteboard or chalkboard. I like to add things in as a I teach, as well as having the flexibility to change or add as the class goes on, especially when students want more examples.

I can see the benefits of doing some things with powerpoint, especially when lecturing to a large number of people, but for a small classroom, one that is trying to be more interactive, I have my doubts. I know that powerpoint can be a great asset to an English classroom or maybe even a Spanish classroom, but I have trouble seeing it for a math classroom. I could just not be seeing the creativity, which is quite possible, but I hope to be able to change my mind about powerpoint as we continue with these projects.

AH! EXCEL!

From reading everyone else's blog, it makes me feel better to know that most are as equally stressed as I am. I have to say that my range of Excel knowledge was minimal to begin with, and fiddling with a couple of tools this past week has helped very little. I am also having a hard time finding practical uses for Excel in an English classroom. I do think that Excel has great gradebook functions, as well as attendance and homework possibilities, but with my lesson plans, I feel that I would use Word moreso than Excel. I was unbelievably frustrated when creating graphs this week, and I guess I am somewhat more familiar in creating them. Listening to teachertube and the tutorials was helpful at points, but in general, I'm staying away from Excel if I can help it.

I was also more familiar with the Psychology programs for gathering and organizing data, so Excel was apparently too much for me to handle this week. =/

Powerpoint Handouts

I just read an article on powerpoint handouts and I found it very interesting. The author discussed making copies of a powerpoint slide and handing them out in class to help his students follow along in the lesson. I think this is a very useful and beneficial strategy becuase it allows students to keep up with the lesson and a base for note taking. It is fair assumption to think that some students have trouble focusing on various lessons and keeping/taking good notes. By providing a good note base and providing yet another means for viewing/taking part in the lesson, a teacher can help even more students grasp material that is difficult or not easily understood.

Excel Spreadsheets

I am very glad that we are spending time to learn about the different functions in Excel. I feel like through out school I have become fairly comfortable with Word and PowerPoint, but not Excel. Given that Spreadsheets can be very useful in math I appreciate the opportunity to practice using the tools that will be relevant to my future classroom.
My project for Tuesday deals with interactive graphs. I can definitely see that function being helpful to further my students understanding of the effects slope and intercept have on the visual representation. Graphs are extremely important and if students do not understand how they are formed then they will not get the full concept. I know there are plenty more tools like interactive graphs that Excel has to offer. I hope we go over some more in class on Tuesday.

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.