Final Thoughts

I had a lot fun taking this class. I had a great group to work with that was always supportive and gave great advice. I learned a lot about technology that I can use later in the library and pass it onto teachers at my school. The thing I enjoyed the most was creating the website. I had a lot of fun doing it and look foward to creating more. It was also nice to do A webquest and learn what they were. I never had any experienec with them before and I think they can be very useful for lesson for students. The thing that I hated the most was the podcast, but I also would like to do other work with it so I know how to use it. I would also like to learn how to add video and sound together. I also had a lot of fun blogging, it was good to write things down to get them off your mind about the week. It was also nice to read other group members blogs and comment on them. I hope the school allows be to use a blog for my book club. If not at least allow me to use a Wiki for the club.

Overall, all the things in the class were great to learn and use and I am looking forward to using them in the future. That's one thing about taking classes, you hope you gain some kind of knowledge that you can use and I definately can say I did with this class. As I get back into taking more classes I hope I learn more. The next class starts Monday! I should of not taking anymore classes this summer. I need a break, Oh well it will be one less class I have to take. I will remember next summer not to take four classes.

Nice meeting everyone! Enjoy the rest of your summer!!!

Well I think I got threw the hardest part of the class which was podcasting. Don't ask me why it was so hard. It stressed me out the most though. Recording the lesson was the easiest part, once you liked your right recording. My problem though was uploading it to this blog and I still didn't figure it out. Last semster I did it and it was easy, I don't know what the difference was this time. Gabcast gives you directions on how to do it and I followed them to a T. In the process I somehow erased my best recording that had the clearest quality in my voice and music. Anyways at least its done and I'm tired of talking about it.

My podcast delt with bullying, which I think is a huge problem in schools. I used to teach a lesson on bullying the second day of class, so that the kids knew I wasn't going to put up with it and knew where I stood on the subject. A lot of students used to respond well to the lesson. Even though kids know they are hurting people when they are making fun of somebody, I really don't think they realize how bad it hurts them and the effects you could have from bullying. When you put the students in the shoes of the person being bullied though, I think they start to understand. Let them see and understand what it feels like.

Week Four

Well week four is almost over, only one more major assignment to do and it is the one I am worried about the most. I have no clue how to do a podcast. I also have no clue what I am going to do this podcast on. Everything else I have had an idea on what I wanted to do not this one. Plus I know for a podcats to be successful it has to be interesting and to the point to keep the students interest and motivate them. Otherwise whoever is listening to it is just going to turn it off and lose interest. Some people have mention doing a quiz on the podcast because students have to listen to it because their grade depends on it.

I also know that I must add a few more things to the Wiki. I always forget to add things to it even though I come across interesting websites that can be put on the wiki. How much are we suppose to add to the wiki to get credit for doing it? If anybody knows please let me know, I would appreciate it. I felt this week went pretty smooth, even with all the 4th of July parties. Plus no one in my family got hurt lighting off fireworks this year.

Hey everyone have a great weekend!

Instructional Website

Man that was really time consuming and the more I got into creating the website the more I wanted to add. It amazing there is so much that you can do with websites and instruction in your class. You can add so much more to your subject that you can't get across in a 45 minute lesson in class. Thats why this websites are so benifitional to each of your students. Plus these sites may give them extra help with their homework or just plain other resources to help them understand your subject more. The thing is to that websites are easy to do. I would like to take a website design class to learn how to make the website look better and jazz it up a little. The design of mine is ok, but I know that there is a lot more you can do with websites.

Well hopefully everybody had a great 4th of July, it was great for me because I finaly got to spend some quality time with my wife and our new born son.