Reflection #3 - Google Part 2 and Video

What?

This week's class was again, very informative. There is so much that I am learning in such a short time. I am really excited about it and how these tools that I'm learning about can help me now and in the future. We learned about some more of the tools that are offered through Google such as Google Spreadsheets, Google Forms and Google Presentations.

Google is amazing! I really had no idea how many things are offered for free. In class on Thursday we learned how to use Google Spreadsheets which is very similar to Excel. It is very easy to use and has many applications for teaching such as keeping track of grades, attendance and can even be used to make seating charts which is what Doc Waters does for our class.

Google Forms is another thing that we learned about in class. I always wondered how questionaires are done and now I know how to do it and even posted one on here as a trial. Forms can be used for many things such as class surveys, parent questionaires, testing and even for making permission forms. You can create forms with multiple choice, fill in the blank, fill in the bubble and you can rate something. This is great to get parents involved in the classroom and to get them onto the class website/blog. I also liked that once a form has been completed on the blog, a notification is sent to you. That way I will be able to keep track of who has filled it out and who hasn't.

Google Presentations is similar to Power Point. It is easy to use and is very useful for class presentations and team meetings. Our assignment for the week is to create a presentation with our team about class rules. I am excited to work on it some more and learn about all of the ways that we can share different ideas with the class. We have to have a picture as well as a rule on ten slides. I look forward to learning something new that will benefit my classroom!

So What?

So what does this all mean to me as a teacher, student, colleague today? Well, as a teacher it will help me to be more prepared and will ultimately save me a lot of time in the end. For example, with the spreadsheet, it can calculate percentages for grades which is very helpful since math is not a stong point for me. The forms tool will save a lot of paper if I post it on my classroom blog/website rather than making copies and having to send it home to be filled out. Then when they are returned, I would have to enter it all into the computer or onto another paper to keep track of the answers and who turned it in. The presentations are pretty self explanitory. I will use it to present lessons to my students and I can teach them and add fun pictures to get them excited about the subject. As a colleague, it will help me to be more organized for meetings because I can keep all of my information in one place or in one document. I can use the presentation tool for meetings to teach a concept to the team or to share ideas. We can do surveys with the forms tool and compare our answers between the classes. As a student, the spreadsheet can help me keep track of books that I am reading for my literature class or assignments and the grades that I get on them. The presentation tool is helpful because we are often asked to present ideas or projects to the class and it is so much more professional to do it in a slide show. It shows that I have taken the time to get the information and it can be presented in a very creative way that will keep the attention of the class.

I know that I can definitely use the spreadsheet tool in my personal life. Some of the ways that I plan on using it are by creating a chore chart for my kids, keeping track of the books that I own because I lend them out to friends and sometimes forget who has them and I can use it to keep track of my budget. It will help me to be more organized at home and will help me to feel less overwhelmed. Maybe my kids will actually start helping me around the house!

Now What?

This technology is going to make for an organized teacher who can devote more time to each individual. It will also allow me as the teacher to be more creative than if I were just in front of the class lecturing. I am excited about the presentation tool because it will involve getting the attention of the students by using fun colorful pictures and colorful slides. I can even have the students make their own presentations or have them do it as a group. They can do reports on it or projects and then they can share it with the class. It will allow them to be creative and keep them from just standing in front of the class and reading their paper. We can use the forms tool for math by having the students create a questionaire and then tallying the answers and figuring out averages and we can create story problems that they can relate to. Since all of these Google tools allow collaboration, I can assign some of these things as homework and they can work on it at home too and with a partner who is at his/her own home.

I can work with my department or team to collaborate on presentations. For example, if the second grade team has to present an idea to the rest of our colleagues, we can work on the slides together as a team or we can indivually work on it from our homes and get ideas by sharing our ideas for the presentation when we are not physically together. We can also pass the ideas/information on to the principal to review if we add him/her as a collaborator and then we can get his/her feedback. I think from what I have learned so far, the presentation tool seems to be the best one at collaborating with my colleagues. We are all busy and these tools allow us to work on things when we are able to. There is not as much pressure because it can be done from the comfort of our own homes if we don't get a chance to work on it in school.

I think that what we learned this week will help me to be a better teacher, mother and student because it will help me to be more organized. I can have all of the information that I need right in my computer rather than carrying around a gradebook or wasting paper on more handouts. My goal is to be really organized so that I can focus on other things and I also want to be able to be creative and catch the students attention which I believe these tools will allow me to do. It also brings in more technology and less lecture time and more visuals. I want to try to focus on each student's learning style.


VIDEO

I am impressed with the enthusiasm of the young man in the video. He is smart and has things figured out. The key to making your goals in life a reality is by getting an education. He said that by focusing on our education and working really hard, we can become whatever we want. Decide what your passion is and go for it. Don't waste the opportunity that we have to better ourselves and become what we want by valuing our education. It's important that we decide where we want to be and do what it takes to get there. He used the names of some famous directors and said that they didn't just become directors over night, they had to take the proper steps to become directors by going to schools that offered that kind of training. It was only through hard work and determination that they were able to accomplish their goals. Education is the key to reaching our highest potential!