Week Six

We spent another week on Word. One week longer than expected. This week showed that as a teacher you have to be able to accommodate for your students when it comes to getting through the material. Sometimes you really have to improvise because it may take the students way longer than you expected to get done with the material or they may just fly through it. It is important to know the pace your students are comfortable with and to challenge them from there.

Also I found that giving assessment is harder than it looks. My partner and I got through the second section of Excel each and it is difficult trying to find a good way of wording things and being able to help the student when they are having trouble without giving away the answer or doing it for them.

Week Five Blog

This was another week geared towards Word assessments and starting to look on to Excel. Instead of Evan doing the assessment we are not going to start to write our own. I wrote and presented my first one with my partner today. Its a fun process building questions for a student to answer and then seeing them show what they have learned. It helps to have a template to go by and great resources in our book. This is my first time doing real assessments like this so this learning experience is very important for my future because it is what I will actually be doing with my students.

Week Four: Work Work Work

Week four we had a lot of time to ourselves to work on learning Word 2007. While we were working on the online assessments and going through the book Evan took groups of eight or less into another room for his in class assignments. Most everybody is almost through section 2 by now. My best bet is we will be finishing up with assessments next week and then move on to the Excel portion.

This week showed me that is to good to give your students time to work on things on their own and learn things at their own pace. This way you as a teacher will have a better time helping individual students with questions. Instead of teaching a lesson and have to stop your lesson to help someone letting your students move at their own pace seems like a much more practical and effective method when teaching this curriculum.

Week Three Blog

Week three in Media 365! First Tuesday we went over team contracts and did some other housekeeping business. I really like the idea of having a team contract and think that this tool could be beneficial in my own classroom someday. Also Tuesday was kind of a introduction to Unit Four which includes our integration project for the semester. Also quizzes were made available and we were encouraged to start working through the first projects of Word. I really like the work at your own pace that is being set up. We have about a week to get through these assessments and I enjoy being able to work at my own pace. Since a classroom will be filled with many different students, its important to allow them to work at their own speed and give them the freedom to do some independent learning.

Thursday started off with more house keeping business and then right into the Outlook demonstration. This was such an awesome demonstration. I learned the coolest things about Outlook. We learned how to create calendars and share our schedules with others on the same exchange server. I plan on using this in my everyday life and with my sorority. I plan on demonstrating my teaching abilities and sharing my knowledge with my sorority sisters and teaching them how to use this software. With all of the emails we send back and forth and try to work around scheduling conflicts this seems like the answer to our prayers! This is a great organizational and communication tool and I am really glad that I have this new skill!