Projectors

http://technabob.com/blog/2006/09/15/sony-pearl-sxrd-projector-officially-announced/

Projectors are very simple ways of integrating technology into a classroom or lesson. They have a wide range of uses such as movies to just lessons. The non overhead ones are nice because they do not get in the way of the student's view. They do not block and obstruct the view. They are also a cool way to present in a different way and have many uses. When I often think of technology, I think about bigger things or websites, but this is still a simple way to use technology in your classroom:) the little things can make a big difference!

Audio Books

http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=9925


Audio books are a great way to read books for many ranges of students. They can be used for all types of students. They can be used for struggling readers which cannot read very well or do not enjoy it. They can also be used for students which have disabilities. Using audio books also helps because instead of using the skill of reading, you are using the skill of listening which is also very important to language acquisition and to comprehension. These are great resources for teachers which are not used enough but I have had experience with these in a classroom.

Skype

http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=9925


Skype is something which has become increasingly more popular in the past few years and one of my college professors used it this year. She was not always available on campus to have office hours and she said that if we needed to talk to her that we could have office hours over skype and she would conference us that way. This is a very easy way to meet with a teacher or if you have a quick question than you could call your teacher and instantly get an answer and explain your issue over skype. This is an effective way of communicating and I think that it would be cool to have more teachers that had skype as office hours. What do you think?

AOL AIM in the class?

http://www.intelligentmag.com/aim-express/


I had a friend who told me that he used AOL and AIM in his classroom and I was confused how this could be used for educational uses at first. He told me that his teacher had a screen name and students would contact the teacher if they had questions and it would give them an instant answer back. I thought this was really cool and since AIM is something many people have, it would be pretty accessible to students. This is just one example of teachers getting a social network or id that students have and making themselves accessible to students in that way. This is something I hope to be able to do for my students:)

Jeopardy!

http://jeopardy.edogo.com/

All throughout the years of schooling, when we were reviewing for tests, we would use little buzzers to answer whether it was teams or individual and I loved it! It was such a fun way of learning and reviewing and I actually remembered a lot from it. I think that the buzzers are a great way to integrate technology into reviewing and the classroom and it is enjoyable! This is something that can be used for all grade levels:)

Podcasts

http://www.vegansoapbox.com/vegan-soapbox-podcast-vegan-cookie-monster/

This was a very interesting and new kind of technology that I just learned about. I had heard about it before but I never looked into it and the significance. Podcasts can be both audio and video recordings. The church that I attend uses them and they are really cool! If i miss it or am looking for something to reference, I can click on it and watch it as if I was there. I think that teachers could use something like this in the classroom because it would be beneficial to students and teachers too! Students can look back to help study by referencing and remembering specific incidents which they used to remember a topic and teachers can benefit since they will not have to repeat themselves or reteach a topic. This could be very helpful in a classroom and I think this would be great in a classroom like a lecture! They should try it in my classes:)

Realizing the use of Educational DVDS

http://musiclab.atu.edu/

Before this year, I had not realized how important educational dvds were to me. I did not see any point in them most of the time they were very boring and dull. I hated watching them, but this year I had a professor which taught me a lot from them. They were related to my class and topic and they made sense. They were very specific and I was learning from them because they were actual examples of how things should look and they were very interesting to me. I am hoping one day to use more of these in my classroom but to make sure that they are actually relevent to what I am teaching and not just for fun and no meaning.

My Child Study Student

One of my lessons which I made for this class about suffixes turned out to be very useful! I got to see how technology really could be used and it was great to see it play out! She was very receptive to it and she seemed to understand it and enjoy it! This was further proof to me that I should plan on using technology in my classroom because sometimes I worry that my students will not understand or it will be too advanced for them and they will be confused and get frustrated, but this showed me to not underestimate my students and to try to integrate as much technology as I can, even if it is just a little bit!

Mimeo

http://www.rtc.edu/AboutUs/DSDPGrant/MultiModal/

Mimeo is a new technology to me that I had heard about from a peer which I thought was really interesting and hope to be able to try out and use one day in my own classroom. This is where you write on a board with a special marker and then it basically gets translated into a pdf file which you can use later. This could be great for both teachers and students. Teachers would not have to type up their notes or complain that they cannot put notes up online because they dont want to type them and students can reference the exact notes the teacher used in order to study better. It appears to be a win-win! I think this is a neat technology and maybe one day they will make these for individuals so that when they write notes down then they can have a printed neatly and organized version to use to study off of! How cool!

Labtops

http://www.havenvideo.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40484

I have a lot of teachers who do not like labtops in their classrooms, but some are fine. I see the problems that could exist with students having them because they could get side tracked and not pay attention and perform poorly and not learn anything but at the same time, there is just as large of a positive aspect. I know a lot of people who learn better by having typed notes because they are organized and they can reference them later a lot easier than trying to figure out their written notes and messy handwriting. I get upset at teachers who do not let students decide for themselves, but have a suggestion. I know that sometimes if someone has a computer than they can be distracting for me sitting behind them or next to them but maybe they can have a side of the room in a lecture which is for people that have labtops so they are not distracting. Any ideas to this solution? I think overall though that they can be a great resource for students and they can also look up information in class so you could do class activities which involve research without having to take the time and move to a computer lab. There are pros and cons and I think the pros outweigh the cons in this case. What do you think?

Second Life

At first I had a hard time finding reasons why this website could be of any use in education because it came across to me at first as a video game which I did not want to even look further into but when I did I was surprised. You can pick different areas of the world which you wanna click on and visit, for example, when I visited the website, it talked about how you could use this to show colleges from far away and see them virtually. Also, it talked about businesses having meetings over this website and I was very surprised. If meetings can be had over this, then you could have class or discussions or office hours over this website as well. I think this website could have many uses and has proven itself since major corporations are investing and having meetings over this website.

http://megschmidt.weebly.com/

Twitter

http://technorati.com/blogging/article/trouble-deciding-who-to-follow-on/

Twitter seems very foreign at first, especially to me, but reflecting back on the semester, I am realizing more uses for it than I first did when I first joined Twitter. Students could use Twitter to help one another and respond to another student's tweet. Also, teachers could have students follow blogs and share with one another and the classroom which could be used for things such as research projects. This would be something students could do when they are on their own at home playing around on Twitter and doing homework. It integrates both parts of Twitter since it can be very educational but can be just enjoyable. This is a resource which is not utilized enough but should be explored more.

BlackBoard

https://barry.blackboard.com/webapps/login/

When I first heard about BlackBoard, I thought it was the board which you wrote on in a classroom, but then I found out that it is a network that is similar to ANGEL which a peer of mine used in high school. It is a large and popular network that is commonly used. You can have discussions, can post assignments, answer posts to discuss and compare, teachers can put rubrics up, and teachers can post a page of frequently asked questions so they don't have to answer them over and over again. This would be a really great thing to set up in a classroom because it will keep your classroom more organized and if they are missing from class you could put assignments up and they could get them instead of being late because they did not have the paper. In addition, if you lose an assignment or rubric, you can print if off again so you can work on your project without having to wait to get it from a friend or the teacher the next day. Just like ANGEL, this program could have many beneficial uses for both teachers and students!

YouTube

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/07/04/youtube-hacked-justin-bieber-videos-targeted/

In one of my language classes, we really used YouTube as a way to teach because we were studying child language acquisition and so we would watch these videos of a little girl whose parents video tape her numerous times and post them for people to watch. They display so much about child language acquisition and when I think back to the class and what I learned, most of the strong connections I made were from those videos. It stuck with me and I could find them again if I needed to. Using something as simple as YouTube could be a great teaching tool for teachers in the same way that my teacher used it for our college classroom!! Plus, YouTube is also entertaining so it makes learning more enjoyable which keeps them more engaged which helps them learn better by making stronger connections.

Facebook

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/facebook

I think that through this class, I have come to realize that you can use most technologies for teaching, you just have to be creative about it. Even Facebook can be used to teach. Most people have a Facebook and they understand how to use it well, and even in our class we used Facebook as a way to communicate with each other and share information. It was the easiest for us because it is something that we always check and we understand so its easy for us to reply or make events for a study group. You can also use Facebook to find other things such as blogs that people keep linked to their Facebook. In general, I have been just thinking of all the ways which technology can be used in the classroom, and while some have more obvious and large use than others, you can be creative and utilize almost anything.

Pageflakes

I chose to look at this site for a new technology. There is so much you can do with this website! You can link your facebook, twitter to this site. It has things like music and weather too! Some really cool things are that you can save your favorite websites and send them to your friends and also you can search your friends tags of favorite websites. It can be made very personal and individual based on the person and you are able to put everything you like in one spot. It looks like a mix between facebook and your email home page and igoogle. Its pretty sweet! It is really easy to see everything at once, and it is not confusing at all. You can search from your pageflake as well. You can include things also like ESPN, stocks, or magazines. You can make different tabs like tabs about blogs for educational blogs or technology and you can just look at it briefly on the the single page and then click on a link if you think it looks interesting. You can have a calendar, music, google, dictionary, clock, or even news on different tabs which are called "flakes". It is really easy to add a page which you can add different links, it is easily editable. You can hook up your email as well. There is a lot that you can do with this website. It can be organized however you want it to and you can easily search through your page quickly. You can make the individual pages as public or as private as you want it to be.
As an educator, this is a great way to have everything you look for in one spot. You can have your blogs you follow in an easy and quick way and additionally you can check your email on the same page. There are so many reasons for a teacher to use this. There is a special edition for teachers which includes a online grade tracker, task lists, and a writing tutor. A teacher could also make a blog for their students on this and they could communicate about a topic this way.
I think in the classroom this could be very useful. I think the class could make a pageflake together, in groups, or individually and they could communicate through this. They could use this to research or to do current event updates. Using this integrates technology which is a little more complex, I wish I had learned about these kind of websites earlier so I would understand and be comfortable organizing them and I think it would be a great thing for students to have at a younger age, aka before college.
This website can be use in numerous ways! Check it out!:)

ps. the website is down for a little but I learned this through research about it and the classroom

Starting to wrap up the semester

http://www.cnq.ca/Page.asp?PageID=2065&SiteNodeID=206

It is finally the end of the semester! Crazy how fast it approached, but also crazy to think back on how much I have learned. I have enjoyed learning about all the different types of technology and different resources I have to make my teaching enjoyable for students. I think that is the most important thing I have learned. I learned that yes, there is a very traditional way which things are taught and they do work, but why not try something a little different using technology? Chances are that it will be more fun and motivating for your students, plus, it brings them into the technology century and combines it with school. It integrates more with their normal daily lives and that is awesome! We should take advantage of the resources we have and use them to help teach. There are SO many options and I never realized it before. I knew basics, but nothing like wikis or blogs. These things can be applicable for all sorts of things and I hope that one day as a teacher, I can integrate these. I want to make learning fun and be unique. I want my students to remember what I am teaching them, and hopefully it will be more effective. I hope to make my class more interesting so maybe students will be more interested and motivated! That would be great:) I just hope that I can keep playing around with these resources so that I can become proficient in them in order to use them the best way in my classroom. I would love to find more things like wikis that students can access and is very easy. I have so many options, I just need to keep searching. I cant wait! Its going to be great!!

Elmo

http://macsi.org/shop/elmo-machine/

I recently observed in a classroom at an elementary school and I was curious what kind of technology the teacher would use in her everyday classroom and she used an elmo. I have always liked elmos because they can be used at all ages and they are an easy way for the student to see just what the teacher is trying to show. Instead of wasting time passing around a book for the whole class to see one image, you can flip open and have the class look at it together in a much larger picture when projected. I think these are great ways to integrate technology into a lesson, even if it is something small like an elmo. This observation reminded me that you do not always have to have something large planned to use technology, it can be tiny little things daily.

Wiki's

http://www.ikiw.org/category/wiki-adoption-strategies/


I have used both wikispace and weebly at this point and I like wikispace better. I find it easier to organize and there are a lot of options to make it your own. It also seems very user friendly with new people which weebly took time for me to get used to. In addition, I like that you can invite people to come and edit and be members but anyone can view, with weebly you cannot have members. Lastly, I began using weebly for a large project and had a hard time with keeping formatting and inserting scanned items which I grew frustrated with and disliked. The wikispace seems much easier to use and connect other sites to it. I think overall, wikispaces are just easier to use.
In your classroom, you could have students reference a wiki that you make with helpful information for a project, or depending on the age, you could have them create a wiki instead of a project. Research papers seem awful and boring and there is nothing you can do to visually differentiate yours from others and if you chose to have them format their paper in a wiki, they may enjoy the process of doing it on a computer web page and being able to customize it. They can organize the page as they wish in ways that may make more sense to them. They can add images to this and such which would also possibly make the project more enjoyable for the students. These could also be a great way for a group of students to work together on a project since it is something that they can all access easily. I think this would be a great tool for the classroom if the kids are at appropriate ages.

Smartboards

http://hoofbeat20.edublogs.org/

I have never been in a classroom which used a smart board before but I had heard a lot about them and most of it was all good. My prior knowledge about smart boards is that they are great ways to have student interact and resources for the teacher. The example that comes to mind in which they could be very beneficial is in physics. If you are drawing an diagram of a ball that would hypothetically fall off of the ledge because of the angle, then you could demonstrate that and put the object in motion using the smart board. This would have been very beneficial for me as a student since I struggle to visualize things unless I can physically see it, I am a visual learner and if I am not shown, I have a hard time imagining it. In addition, students can write on the board which would be a great way for students to practice handwriting or cursive in younger classrooms. There are many ways in which these boards can be utilized to help to make an efficient classroom and help maximize students learning. Although there are many positives, there are also down sides. Many older teachers are not proficient in technology like younger generations and they may now know how to use it which is a problem. Trying to figure out technical problems can take up valuable classroom time. Also, it is a relatively new technology and so there could still be new problems with it. I also researched and found out that it takes time to learn to write on the boards since it can be very sensitive to writing, just like learning how to write on a chalkboard. In my opinion, I would love to have a smart board in my classroom one day and I think it could be very beneficial to the students and to help me teach more effectively to my students. Technology is advancing so quickly, I cant wait to see what they come up with next! I just hope I can keep up!

Second Language Learning and Technology

http://www.dantemiami.org/


I observed in a second language classroom which the L2 language was Italian and the L1 was English. I got to see how a real classroom with younger children used technology and how effective it was. It was a great experience! The students were elementary aged and the teacher used a powerpoint to teach vocabulary on different parts of the house and food. The part I liked best about the technology was that it gave students a visual to go along with the word! When they said "bagel" or something then a picture of a bagel would appear before the word was shown. This was a great way to activate background knowledge and associate a visual for the words which was shown to be effective later when they were able to recall most of the vocabulary.

Search Engines

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/09/invisible-browser.html

I cannot count the number of times a day that I use a search engine to find out information. It could be as simple as finding a picture or definition to looking up articles for a research paper. I think that this is a really important skill for students to learn. I think that it needs to be taught to them when they are learning to use the internet, which is pretty early these days. I think that there are a lot of people who know how to use it but not correctly and efficiently which needs to be taught. Once they know this skill, search engines can be a great resource for teachers and can provide many activities to keep the students involved. You could have them find something with a search engine which goes along with the topic which makes individual responses which could be very unique since they are doing it individually. There are some problems with search engines though. Students may get side tracked, but most websites such as facebook can be blocked in elementary schools. In addition, people make websites which are not really related to a topic and tag it anyways so it shows up and then you have to search harder for what you are really looking for. I think overall that it could be a great resource to integrate technology into your lesson and that students would really love it since they are familiar with the internet anyways and it will keep them involved!!

Google Docs

Some great uses for google doc is that I love how it saves everything together regardless of if it is a powerpoint or word document. If you had your class have an account together and then they could save their papers in there or presentations in there, it would be a great way to keep everything together and organized and since it is saved by date, it would be easily accessible to everyone and to you for future reference. I also found it really simple to use, and with prior knowledge of Microsoft Word, most people would know how to do it. I just really love how you can save it all together and access it through one single place. It makes everything more convenient!
This would be great for projects and as a general library of information for people to access. I also love that you can grant some people access to see it and some cannot which makes it so that other classmates could refer to yours at any time but yet they cannot change it if they are not a trusted person who can revise it!

Megschmidtsuffix

Check out this SlideShare Presentation I made! It is a presentation with audio that does a smaller version of a lesson plan on suffixes. This is targeted towards children in elementary school when just learning about parts of speech.

Megschmidtsuffix

View more webinars from schmi389.

Cellphones in the classroom?.....

http://caise07.idi.ntnu.no/practical_info.php

In my experiences, teachers have always said no to cellphones and ipods in class. ANY other technology that might be at all distracting. We took a poll in class about how many students had cellphones in the past year-ish and 90%ish had cellphones in high school and above half of elementary students had cellphones. This statistic shows that most students have phones. Although the problem is that this statistic does not show the statistics for students in lower income schools. These districts may be lacking in cellphones for all students, which makes cell phones unusable for teaching. The other point that is positive which I want to point out from the poll is that younger students do have cellphones. You can use cellphones, if all students have them, at almost any age where students know how to spell and can understand what you are asking. It depends on the individual class but in general, I would say starting middle school would for sure be an age when you could use cellphones as a classroom tool.
Students would really enjoy it because it is technology they are familiar with. It would also score points for you as a teacher using "cool" technology. Another thing to consider is that not all schools have the money to have the technology to allow cell phones to be used, if the students do have cell phones.
They can be used for anonymous polls or answering in predicting on a story or movie. You could use it in math to enter an answer, or even use it as a prequiz to see what students know and dont know, honestly. That would give you an idea if you have been teaching it well and what to strengthen them on before their quiz. In science, you could use cellphones to have them send picture of things they see for homework and then share the images as a class.
There are so many opportunities to use cellphones and although it may not be the easiest way to do it for you, for your students it may be the most interesting and engaging for them to learn. Leave an open mind and think about it:)

PLN

Personal Learning Networks.
It has been a lot of work and is kind of overwhelming so far but it could have so many benefits if used correctly. It is great that by signing into one account you can find tons of information from multiple sources in seconds but it is overwhelming to me at the same time. I think that its been great to get to know the different networks and belong to them but I think when I start teaching I will probably pick one and become proficient at that before starting a second one. Since I am not quite proficient in all of them I have an account for so far, I am not organized or have not found the best way to organize it which frustrates me because I like to be very organized. I cant wait until I am proficient because it is a really great way to follow educators, companies, and even fellow teachers that you may or may not know for ideas to become a better teacher. More to come with more time haha!

My Zen Presentation

We learned to make our presentations more basic but more effective. Here is a small sample of one about suffixes. It has a single example but is very effective. Check it out!

Busy Week!

I have had so many exams this week and one of my favorite midterms was my technology class midterm. I am learning to develop my own personal website for when I graduate and begin to teach one day. If you wanna check it out feel free!
my website is www.megschmidt.weebly.com

Image Loop

I chose to tell a story about someone getting lost in New York City because although it did not happen, it could happen. I wanted to make an example of the literacy genre Realistic Fiction to introduce the idea to students. It would give them man idea of what it is and we could discuss the video after to talk about why it is Realistic Fiction. If they had access to computers, I could have them make their own stories and present them to the class. I would probably look into another website, but I used Image Loop. Image Loop was very straight foward to use and had a decent amount of choices but I could not find where to add text so I used Picknik to add text and then uploaded the photos. Overall, it was easy and fast to use and I am pleased with how it turned out.

Can cellphones be used in teaching???

The church I attend has been having us use our cellphones to give our opinions recently and it made me wonder about using cell phones in our own classrooms one day. I mean, everybody is going to have on soon if they dont at this point, many young kids have them when I got mine in high school, its crazy! Although I dont think that cell phones have a place in every situation, I think that they could be effective and useful in some situations. Just like in church, they can be very useful in giving and opinion on something and it can be fully anonymous. I was trying to look for other ways to use cellphones in a classroom and when I was researching, I found that people had been using them as resources like calculators, dictionaries, cameras and using the internet as a tool! Even though we could say that is a problem and distraction, it can also be very useful when some schools are not able to have them in their classrooms. You can have a group research something and not have to go to the computer lab, although activities including the cellphones would have to be planned thoroughly, it could be of a great use of a resource to teachers! Think about it! Its a new generation and even more new technology...how can we use it to our advantage??

iClickers

iClickers are relatively new to me. I have used them in two of my classes being here at Michigan State. I really liked using them but it had some major disadvantages as far as using them for learning goes in my classes they were used in. My first class was a lecture for an astronomy class and the questions were very hard and so you were just seeing what the majority of people were saying, and not worried about if you understood it or not, you just wanted to be right. They were not participation points, they were graded so you were more concerned about if you were right for your grade instead of why the answer was what it was. So that made a lot of cheating and guessing which did not enrich my learning of that class. In addition, students did not come to class because they would just give the iClicker to their friends and they were rotate just so that someone could click in their answers for them, you did not have to be present in class which does not enrich or help learning at all.
I understand that its good to grade the responses for iClickers because then that gives them incentive to guess right but at the same time, it can make students more concentrated on the grade then the material.
In my second class I used them in, they were used in groups and we could discuss with our group and then we would click in our responses and they were not graded but were instead participation points. This was a lab so showing up for class meant that you would also have to do the lab which had to be turned into the teacher at the end, so skipping class was not really an option. We did use them but not a ton, but I really liked that they could use the responses and then show us to see how the others compared. The step that this teacher took that my other one did not was that they would ask each group what they picked and their reasons for picking it before they would say the right answer so each group really spent time thinking about it instead of guessing, even though it was only for participation points.
I think that if you plan out the best way to use the iClickers, like my second class professor did, then they can be great tools for teaching effectively. As for the grade, I think that most ages can use these because kids are much better at using technology than we were and they continue to get better every year.
-when I was in fifth grade we did a similar thing in a math lesson and we would click in the right answer with little buzzers using a multiple choice question and so I think that upper elementary and so forth would benefit from using these if they are well thought out and organized.

I love baking

I love baking and was trying to think of ways in which to incorporate baking into teaching. Do you think that is a good idea with kids having different food allergies or do you think it could be a really good idea? I love doing things that are interactive and along with technology, I wanted to do things that are hands on that kids would also love doing because of the outcome. If it is food, they would be really inspired to actually do the project or work because food would be the outcome.
thoughts?

So Cluttered

As I am trying to keep my hold on all of the new technologies and web pages and blogs and search places, I am realizing how cluttered and un-organized all of places are. I would love to get the chance to organize all of it, because I cant stand when things are un-organized and so the fact that all my organization online does not exist is almost stressful for me. I am trying to figure out the best way for me to organize it all...

Trouble with technology

Speaking of technology, I really struggled with figuring out Photoshop...I could not figure out how to embed my slide show into my blog post. I think that I generally think things are much harder than they actually are and after some help from my friend, I realized how easy it actually is. I learned you have to go to share and then publish and its pretty simple from there on out. It is really cool to be able to use this blogger to share much information in many different ways. I cant wait till I am going to get to use all of this technology in my teaching some day to make my teaching the most efficient as possible.

Photoshop.com Album: My photos

Learning how to use Photoshop

I have had previous experience with Picnik but never any other photo editing site, but I recently learned how to use Photoshop in my class. It took me a while to figure it out, but I love a challenge:) This is a slide show which consists of three landmarks in my developing understanding of technology. The first picture is from Macinaw City and I took it and copyrighted it (as shown in an earlier post). The other two pictures are my screen shots I learned to take. The black and white one is me using Picnik to edit it. Hope you enjoy!
(featured above)

Feelings about copyright

I think that copyright is very important but very misunderstood. I think it is confusing to a lot of people and there are many different ways or terms depending on the person who posted. I think it is a huge deal if you take people's work without giving them credit.

I licensed something!

This is an image that I licensed this image through creative commons and uploaded it to flickr!

here is the website its on :)








CC-ND Photo by: Meg Schmidt

Learning to use Creative Commons

Today in class we are learning about using Creative Commons and using images off of it and how we are supposed to properly cite it. I think this is a great skill to have and can be used for project or presentations in a classroom one day. Although it took a lot of time to learn, I think it would be great for my students and I to be able to use this feature.

Photo Attribution:
Original image "Classroom"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/editor/72550972/sizes/l/
By: Editor B

Figuring out all these new accounts!

In my CEP 416 class, I have been learning about all kinds of resources that can help my teaching and will be great for me to find resources. Although it is really exciting, I am beginning to become overwhelmed. Organizing and keeping track of all of these websites is tiring. It is really exciting seeing all the resources that I can draw from though! I can't wait until I understand this much better :)

New Technology!

Last week in class we learned about an ireader by google and that was completely new to me! This week we then learned about making a "delicious" which was similar, in my opinion to that. I like that all of the information will be in one spot and the fact that there are places which you can just see updates from everything you need in one spot instead of checking all these other outlets. I think I am already starting to get the hang out this and I am really enjoying it!

A new year:)

I am now a junior at Michigan State and I am in a new course about teaching and technology. I have so many awesome classes this year and I am so excited to learn things that will be forming what I know and the teacher I will become. I have used some technology like this blog in previous classes, but they are still pretty new to me. I love to play around with new technology, its like a toy for me haha. I would say I have become pretty good at using the computer and figuring out how to run most things or use programs. I am so excited to learn about technology in a different sense, like how to apply it to maximize my students learning. I want to learn to use things like a smart board, etc. I also want to learn how to apply what I know to my teaching some day. I cant wait!:)