FINAL REFLECTION

At the close of the semester, I just took my final assessment of the class. I thought back on the answers of the pre-assessment which I took at the beginning of the year. Almost every single one of those early answers were "not confident" or "very very not confident." I started the course with the attitude of basically avoiding technology for the most part in my classroom because I didn't even know where to start with it. However, many of my answers on the post-assessment were "fairly confident" or higher. I may not be an expert on technologies, but I know enough about different aspects that I can think of ideas to apply them to my classroom and go search and learn about them specifically.


Learning how to do movies is one thing I would like to implement in my own classroom. It'll help me make more effective videos, but I also think I could utilize it as an assignment for my students. For example, maybe I'll have my students make videos on the laundry unit. I can use the knowledge I have about iMovie and help my students use it to understand the concepts we learn in class. For other design or interiors lessons I'll also be able to use technology to enhance the lesson that way. I will definitely create a class website. I think that is a great way to connect with parents and students and it's a method I can control myself.

Internet Safety

After I learned a little bit about internet safety, I decided to "teach" my husband about it. However, my husband works as a computer tech at an elementary school and therefore has learned through classes and experience about internet safety. So it ended up being more of an internet safety discussion, which was good. I didn't realize that my information was so easily accessible to anyone else. We googled each of our names and to our surprise, the first five hits on my name were direct links to actual information about me. We found that our blog is much easier to find than we thought. Honestly, I thought my blog was really only easy to find if someone followed the trail of blog lists of family and friends- not so. If you type my name into google it pulls up the most recent blog posts I've put up as well as the recent posts of friends and family. I realized from this that I need to be more careful about what I post on my blog. Before now, I've posted anything and everything we do, and the things I post would give a stranger a really good idea of our lives. Another thing we found on the google search was my name on another person's facebook list. This person is really not a respectable person, but just because I'm on her friend list, I came up. I deleted my facebook page after this. It wasn't a big deal or a rash move; it's just a page on the internet that gives more information about me than I want people to know, and it links me to people I don't want to be associated with. In the end, my husband and I decided many people just don't realize how accessible they really are, and we all would do well to use a little more caution in what information we put out.

Research Fair

I went to the research fair on Tuesday. I walked in feeling really out of place- I didn't know what I was supposed to do, did people really want to waste their time telling me about the research they're doing? It's not like I can do anything for them but listen anyway. So I tried to stay invisible and just observe for most of it. However, I found one display that really interested me. It was about using picture books to increase the comprehension of children with Asperger's Syndrome. That caught my eye because this term in English I wrote a technical report about Asperger's and various teaching methods. Since I knew a little bit about it, I decided to go talk with the presenter. Her theory was very interesting. Since children with AS can't usually read social cues, facial expressions, or body language, they fall behind in communication skills. However, since picture books have exaggerated features and still images,children are better able to clue into the expression and understand what it means. The fair was better than I expected, that's my review.

Conservation Video

Ideas for my VIDEO

In a few of my classes I've watched a video of the same experiment. The concept for this experiment is Piaget's theory of conservation. This is commonly demonstrated by two beakers of water, same size and shape, and same amount of water. An adult asks a child (around age 4) which one has more water. They answer, "they have the same." Then the adult pours one beaker of water into another beaker, taller and skinnier. When asked which has more, the child thinks the taller beaker has more water. Thus showing their inability to conserve. There's a few more mini experiments that show this too. All the videos I've seen are pretty outdated so I thought it would be nice to remake the video and modernize it. I'm going to use my little sister to videotape the experiment. I'll do the beaker experiment and one more involving pennies. Then I'll use iMovie to edit the content and make it professional- hopefully.

Videos in the Classroom

My subject is Family and Consumer Science and when I think of the videos I watched in my home ec classes all I can remember are boring instructional videos thirty years old. I think I could utilize videos better in my own classroom. For example, I could show clips of how fashion and home economics is relatable to my students. To give my old teachers credit, instructional videos would be very helpful to show a cooking class or a sewing class. But instead of using the old cooking shows, I could show something more modern that would interest my students more.

I think videos are fun and helpful in the classroom but you have to use them right- and put them with the right assignment to make it beneficial.

Of Course it Can't Be Easy

When I started working on my project I began to explore Photoshop to try and create shapes, rearrange, change colors, etc. However, the layers just got in the way. I couldn't create a basic floorplan (that students wouldn't alter) and then add shapes which could be manipulated for the assignment. (NOTE: I recognize that there is probably a way around this but I feel like that would be more complicated than the lesson is worth.) My dad suggested that I try the Pages program on Mac. He said it's a little more simple and you can manipulate objects fairly easy. Since I'm such a beginner with technology I think it's probably best to start learning with the basics of Pages and then progress to Photoshop. Problem avoided.

However, I've been working in Pages and have run into a few glitches. One of these is that I'm trying to draw a door symbol on my floorplan and it's not working out. This is a symbol used in design so it's not one of the basic shapes to choose from. It's essentially a triangle with one rounded edge and I can't seem to figure out how to get it looking right. I'm trying a few different things I've found and have gotten it a little closer but it still looks a little homemade.

Ideas...

For my project I think I want to do the old "box house" assignment. When I was in middle school we were given a cardboard box and were told to make it a layout (decorated with fabric, paper, or whatever else to make it look like a home) of a house. I think it'd be neat to take this project and put it on the computer- technologize it :) I'm going to try and learn programs like google sketch or other online programs to allow me to do this. So far the ones I've found cost money but I'm hoping to find one that's free that I can use. That's my idea; that's really all it is right now- I'll build on it in the coming weeks.

MY WEBSITE

The address to my website is:
https://sites.google.com/site/lambournekels/

FAILURE

I can't figure it out!!! It's ten minutes until class starts and I have literally made no progress. My calendar is still seemingly blank and now in addition my slideshow won't play. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I hope I have time to ask before class because I've googled phrases that would hopefully lead me to an answer, I've tried clicking around at settings and options, but I'm just clueless. I don't know how to fix it. Cross your fingers on a quick fix in class!

More Problems

This is going to be a dual-post week. Here's my problem. I keep trying to make my calendar public, but when I go to my blog to try and view things, nothing shows up! If anybody does happen to come across this blog, HELP! (The other half of this post will come when I figure it out.)

Reflection: Problems

Last week I really wanted to use some of the fonts I found on "dafont.com" for some projects I'm currently working on. I sat down to use them and I couldn't figure out how to get the new fonts into my font folder. I asked about it in class and was able to figure it out. On windows you go to control panel and the font folder is there. You push download and once the icon is on your desktop, you double click and then click on "unembed all files" and after you do that you can pull the font into the font folder. It's easier on a mac- you just download the file and doubleclick. Then you click on "install font" and you're set.
I guess if we're talking about problems, the whole website assignment is daunting to me but I haven't found a particular problem yet. (I'm not very far into the assignment, maybe that's why.)

Helpful Resources

My favorite resource we talked about today was "dafont.com." Since I'm going into Family and Consumer Science which is basically home ec, cooking, sewing, and family life classes, I really won't use the citing resources, or other reference resources as much as a history teacher would. (However those will be extremely helpful while I'm still a student at the very least.) In my line of teaching I expect to make several instruction sheets and probably some worksheets and posters for my class. Having a wide selection of fonts will help me produce professional and eye-catching work. This week I tried to download and begin using some of the fonts but I haven't been able to figure it out just yet. So I do need to further my learning as to how to actually use the resources I have. Like I said, the works cited site looks really neat and I know it'd be useful to me right now. I have to admit I haven't grasped the concept and would like to look into it further so I'll really be able to understand and utilize it.

My Experience with Technology

This will be a short post. My experience with technology is a minimum. I know how to work the basics of a computer, I can add songs to an iPod, I know how to text, I can load my pictures to a computer, and that's about it. So basically I can say I'm more technologically savvy than my grandma, but not much else. I took a multimedia design class in high school but I couldn't tell you a darn thing about it. My dad uses technology a lot for work- he's in public relations and does presentations and videos all the time. I guess I relied a bit too much on him throughout school because I never mastered it for myself. I have a younger sister who is into it too. She can whip out a video presentation just like I can whip out a batch of chocolate chip cookies. We all have our strengths. However, looking over the syllabus I can see the benefit of using technology in the teaching world. I always appreciate the organization of a class website, etc and it'll be nice to offer those same things to my students. The bottom line is I have a lot to learn this semester.