Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Technology Standards - Working in Problem Solving

My 3rd Blog on Technology Standards is about creating PowerPoint presentations. I found a very kid-friendly website, www.actden.com/pp/. This website is interactive and gives very good instructions on not only creating a basic power point presentation but instructions on how to ‘tweak.’ It shows how to add sound, motion, charts and images. It gives pointers for timing and rehearsing and tells how to save the document and be able to take it somewhere. This site is very informative and quizzes the viewers as they maneuver through the steps. I think this is an excellent website to show students how to build and polish a presentation but also shows different options for publishing it.

Another site that would be useful in adding additional graphics and other options to your power point presentation is www.presentationhelper.co.uk/kids_activity.htm. This site has an abundance of free templates and other things to use to add variety to presentations.

Microsoft Office Online also has a great deal of valuable information. They have templates, help and how- to, downloads, examples and tons of other information for all of the Microsoft Office products. http://office.microsoft.com

I am positive there are many more sites available to help with presentations but the websites I stated above really stood out to me. If I have the opportunity, I will definitely use them in my classes with my students in order to help them create a power point presentation.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Assignment 8 - Chapter 1 - Comparison

In comparing my school to the school I read about in the textbook, I do not find many similarities. Our district has recently upgraded our website and webpages. We also have online grade books and do attendance online. We implemented this last school year. We are piloting the parent portal for the grade book currently with students of employees. We will be up and running with our parent portal during the next school year. We have a technology team at each campus but our technology coordinator is located at the high school campus and she serves all campuses. There is a contact at each campus but that contact also is responsible for teaching as well.
We are also in the process of implementing a databank for our school secretary in order for her to be able to call substitutes for teachers when they are going to be out of their classroom.
At the elementary level, I am sure there are several teachers who integrate technology into their lessons. I personally use a few things daily – but not to the extent I wish that I could. I have 2 computers in my classroom, 1 designated student computer. The students are able to take AR tests on this computer and do other things as needed. We have a lab that is available at times but because of travel time and changing classes, it is not always feasible to go to the lab to do projects.
We are a small district without an over abundance of funding. We are slowly but surely trying to get just a few steps behind instead of miles behind the times. We have technology training every year, although it is not always what one would wish for. There are things that we have learned that would be interesting to do but we do not have the proper equipment in order to use it in our classrooms.
The district talked about in the text seems to be a dream situation as far as technology is concerned. There is always room for improvement because it seems that technology improves and/or changes at lightning speed these days. With the emphasis there is on technology in the workforce today, I see the future of all schools to be getting closer to where they need to be but the missing part is generally funding.