Presentation Programs

Presentation programs are programs meant to allow the teacher to create an effective, yet meaninful presentation that engages students to learn the intended concept(s). Technology has come a long way and with these advances, come programs that not only enhance student learning but also a teacher's ability to teach.

Programs such as power point give teaches such a wide range of presentation in which to produce which could certainly be overwhelming, however, I believe that coming up with objectives and making a plan prior to producing the power point or presentation is key. With so many options given to you when creating a presentation it is so important to know what your goal of the presentation is.

Once the outline is in place use the text features to simply get the desired text onto the slides prior to adding graphics, music, animations, etc. This can help you stay focused and to make sure the text is in the right place prior to adding the other aspects.

Power point presentations are often though of slides simply with text, however, in order to make an effective product especially for the younger students, productivity tools such as graphics, images, colored text, and animation certainly could enhance the presentation and allow the students to become more engaged and to touch on each of the 7 learning types. It is possible, however, to overdo these tools in one given presentation.

Key points are to keep it brief, concise, simple, be consistant, and follow your plan.

I have created multiple slideshows using images and I would like to start getting more in depth with the presentation by using it in my everyday lesson plans. The ways in which I would like to see the presentation program used are creating class projects, group projects, math and word problems, and possibly multi-media projects.

This year, I am going to be teaching not only math but language arts as well. Seeing as how this is the first time I will teach LA, the possiblities for incorporating these programs are essentially endless and I am looking forward to it!

WP/DTP

Creating documents for students and parents is large part of a teachers job. Because this is true, a good deal of time is spent creating visually yet meaningful documents to present to them. While this seems like an easy task, it however, is not so simple.

As a middle school teacher I have learned that students of this age respond better to visually stimulating documents. For instance, when I create a simple worksheet using a word processor I always change the font and put a little graphic somewhere on the worksheet. Believe it or not, students respond well to these simple, yet meaningful changes. They, at the ages of 11, 12, and 13, are not always concerned right away with the text that is on a document, however, if you can grab their attention right away, there is a better chance their response to the assignment will be a more positive one.

While students need to be visually stimulated, you also do not want to take away from what the meaning of the assignment is. As I stated above, I make small changes that will grab their attention but I am careful not to make it too busy as to distract to the desirable outcome.

In terms of creating items for parents such as newsletters, I tend to some of the same things such as insert graphics, change font, etc. Depending on the purpose of the assignment I may include more graphics and pictures if the document were a monthly newsletter. If it were a document such as a permission form or some kind of reminder, I would most likely change the font as this would be a document that were straight forward.

When making items such as those for parents, however, it is important not to get carried away as there is always meaning in the reason for sending a document you create home. One thing that might distract from the meaning of a report home or a permission slip is to change the layout and make it more "fun" when the goal is to get a signature or whatnot. If creating a newsletter or something fun, I believe a distraction is too much information in one area and this is where using a desktop publishing is most important. You also want to make sure you use readable font as some guardians of students may be their grandparents. It is crucial that all documents are legible.

Creating documents is an everyday task for a teacher and dependent on the desired result it is important that things such as font, graphics, and layout are taken into account and used properly so that your result is a positive one.

Spreadsheets and Databases

After reading and reviewing all of the provided websites regarding spreadsheets and databases as well as the ones I discovered on my own, it is amazing to me how many ways these two items can be implemented in any classroom . There are many ways in which to utilize these technologies and perhaps some teachers might have the want to product such items but may not even realize the capabilities that are available to make that happen. This is where it is not only unfair to the teacher that these technologies are not available or unheard of but also for the student.

Spreadsheets are most commonly used for rosters, inventories (i.e. classroom materials), charts, tracking and analyzing data and creating budgets. I believe spreadsheets are extremely beneficial when using them to creat a master roster as well as individual rosters, attendance rosters, sports rosters, material inventories for the beginning and end of the year and thing along those lines.

I personally use spreadsheets for just about every kind of list that I make throughout the school year as I am a list making kind of person to begin with. I also use it to create seating charts and basketball rosters.

Databases are used for organizing and tracking data for generating a multitude of reports and/or graphs.

I most commonly use databases to show test scores amongsh my students whether I am comparing boys and girls or free and reduced lunch children against the buyers. These are aspects that we are asked to look at daily while using the CATS calculator in referring to common assessments. While I never show the students the results from the free and reduced and buyers, I often times show them graphs and charts between their results as a class and compare/contrast them to other classes or even boys versus girls.

Spreadsheets: http://www.amphi.com/~psteffen/excel.html

The website above gives tutorials, lesson plans, activitiy and lesson plan ideas, and other useful information in terms of creating and implementing spreadsheets in the classroom.

I am most surprised at how far some of the activities dig into spreadsheets as I always assumed that spreadsheets might be difficult for students in elementary and middle school, however, it is relatively easy to creat, maintain, manipulate, and analyze if given useful information in order to it with.

I have used spreadsheets for the students to analyze a variety of data and I suppose I never thought about allowing them to use their own data to create spreadsheets themselves. I am excited to get back into the classroom and give this responsibility to the students as I know they will accept the challenge and end up learning so much more about how the information and data relate.

Technology Literacy

After reading the articles and watching the videos, I have decided that technology is certainly not implemented in my school district as it probably should be. However, after reading the articles and watching the videos it is also apparent to me that my school district is not the only one.

I have learned that technology is not mandated by law as it should be. I believe that technology is such a wonderful opportunity to allow yourself, as an educator, learn but also educate the students in not only the subject being taught but also but being involved in technology education.

The steps that I will take to further implement technology are to use this blog to become more familiar with it's capabilities in terms of bringing it into my classroom as a tool for teaching math and language arts. I will also explore on the web to research different sites that might be used to create blogs and/or web pages so that I can choose a site where it is middle school age friendly. I want learning to be fun and not overwhelming. I believe it is important to make certain aspects of learning exciting and I believe this is that opportunity for students to show their skills on the computer but also explore themselves and learn about their peers in a school setting.

Challenges regarding the implementation of blogs and web pages are the fact that my student computers have been taken out of my classroom to use for a school-wide reading program so it might be difficult for all students to have the opportunity to create their own blog as I would like. I may choose to have them go to the library lab once a month in order for all students to be able to participate if they are not given the tools at home.

My school is extremely diverse when it comes to financial grounds. They range from close to homeless to wealthy. Simply because students are not given the tools, resources, or support at home certainly does not mean that they do not deserve equal opportunities to learn, grow, and succeed. I need to make sure that these students do not feel left out, therefore, I plan to make it a strictly school assignment where students are free to work on it outside of class if they choose, however, I will provide time to all students granted that some students will not have the support at home.

Even though technology is an area that is observed in observation, I find it ironic that we are not given any training on this topic besides gradebook capabilities. The times are changing and I believe teachers play a vital role in teaching and showing students how useful and meaningful these tools can be; not only in a classroom setting, however, but for their roles in the real-world.

My 1st Post

Hello all! This is the first blog on my page and the first blog I have EVER written. I'm looking forward to using this as a useful tool in corresponding with you, my classmates. Hope everyone has a great Summer term.