Powerpoint Blog

What? We are learning about powerpoint activities and presentations.  We are learning how to create powerpoint activities and how to be able to teach that to our students so that they will know how to do that themselves.

So What?As a teacher I don't think that I will be spending all this time creating this activity because I want my students to learn to be active and learn sports by doing.  As a student right now it is an assignment that is really overwhelming to me right now.  I have a hard time with thinking how this can apply to me as a PE teacher. I'm not really sure why we are doing this, maybe so that we can broaden our knowledge about technology so that we can teach it to our students. This information may be a little hard to apply to me today as a student and as a future PE teacher.  I think that it is useful to know just for kicks but I have a hard time thinking I will use this in my classroom. I think it is cool that there are all these types of resources and ways to create projects and ideas and putting them all together but I also think it takes a lot of my time which I don't have a whole lot of right now.  To my colleagues it is a way to collaborate with each other. 

Now What?
I don't really think this means much to me right now.  I am having a hard time with this class in trying to figure out ways to incorporate this into a physical education class.  Videos and visual aids can be helpful to some students but I think real learning can take place when they actually participate and demonstrate the actions themselves. We are doing this so we can learn how to bring technology into the classroom and broaden our resources. I think this can only help me by trying to figure out ways to teach differently and mix things up in my lesson plans but I don't think sitting at a computer is beneficial in teaching physical education. Technology is important and ever growing and it is important as teachers to be involved and to expand their ideas and a good way to do that is through technology and through other colleagues.

Digital Cameras and Picasa

What? This week we learned about Picasa and how to manipulate images using this program.  We also used these images and put them into a power point presentation and then we put these two things onto our classroom website.
So What?To me as a student right now it doesn't really mean much to me except a grade and it was time consuming.  The scavenger hunt was fun, and manipulating the pictures was fun and I think in the future I would use this program, but putting these onto a website was hard for me.  I understand that it could be helpful in the future in helping me to know how to import and link it to other websites. We are doing this to help us to get a feel for technology and learning how to be able to share ideas with other people and collaborate with others. In my other classes it probably wont help me at all.  Most of my classes don't deal with the technology but deal with physical activity. This technology is good to know but I don't think I will ever use it as much as I did in this class and I thought that it was a pain to link it to other websites. To my colleagues it is beneficial to know so that we can collaborate together and share ideas.

Now What? To my future students I think it will be a lot of work. I don't know if I would ever assign this much computer work to my PE class.? This helped me with my current schema just by showing me that they are tons of resources and good free programs out there that can enhance my lessons. I don't think this will change the type of teacher I will be in the future because I will be focusing more on making sure my students are being active and participating in exercise activities. I still am trying to figure out how I would assign projects that use these types of programs so that learn how to better use technology while learning how to be active and learning the basic concepts and cues of sports. This knowledge of programs may help in enhancing my lesson but a lot of my lessons are going to be direct instruction and the students wont be sitting down and watching power points. This information may help me be a better colleague because it will help me to find ways to keep in touch with other teachers and it will help me to try and find different ways to better teach my students and searching for advice from my fellow teachers. This may change the type of collaboration by us trying to help each other find other programs and ideas for our class and we could be able to share our ideas with each other without having to meet together and we can communicate through pictures and email and other forms of communication.

Internet Safety

What? We are learning about internet safety and how to make sure we are getting reliable information. We are reading about internet safety and how to find information that is correct, useful and accurate. We are also looking at websites and reading articles that can help us know what to look for when we are researching and looking up information on the internet.

So What?Knowing all this information will help me to make sure that my students are finding correct and accurate information on the internet.  It will also help me know whether are not my students are giving credit to those that need it when they are using their information.  We are doing this to further our knowledge on internet safety and how to protect our future students.  It can help me to be able to pick out correct information on the internet and it will help me to obey the rules and laws of the internet. This technology is important to me because it is important to know what to keep protected and how to stay safe while finding good information.  This should help me and my colleagues by both of us collaborating together to know whether or not our students are doing what they are supposed to while finding information on the internet and allowing us to keep ourselves and our students safe.

Now What? For my future students it will be important for them to know the ethics of the internet especially as they grow older and are having to do more research. As technology continues to grow they will need to know how to keep themselves protected. It won't really change much, I know that if I do give my students an assignment where they have to use the internet, I will need to make sure they know the rules of plagarism and that they make sure they know what to look for concerning correct information and how they can keep their information safe. It wont change my type of teaching but it will make me more aware of what is going on and what to look for when I may give an assignment where they have to use the internet.  Research projects on health and fitness is a good assignment that I may be able to use in my future classroom.  This will help me as a teacher become more aware of the internet rules and laws and making sure my students are safe.