Jounral for 10/31

First of all, I would like to say that I missed last week's class because I had either a bad case of food poisoning or some other bad bug that cause me to feel really sick. With that said, this journal is going to be a combination of the last two weeks because I was not able to attend last week's class and could not type a journal at that time.

Anyways, from what I remember two weeks ago, we talked about making brochures for the project that I believe will be for a project due a week from today. Knowing how to make a brochure as a teacher is an important skill to know because you can have your students create brochures themselves about the content that they are learning. Also, you can show them an example of what a "good" brochure looks like by making one yourself. However, I would not necessarily say I learned this great skill from this class because I have already dealt with making brochures on a number of occassions during my academic career, so this was not new to me.

The other thing about two weeks ago is that I presented my web 2.0 project to the class during the first week of presentations for this assignment. After doing the research and making the powerpoint presentation about my site, Wikispaces, I feel that I have become somewhat of an expert on the program. Additionally, I feel that I did at least fairly well on my presentation. I have to admit I was a little nervous and wanted to "just get it over with already" prior to my presentation, but once I got up there, the presentation just seemed to flow naturally. I think I "sold the product" to the audience by giving them a basic idea of Wikispaces so I feel that it went pretty good.

I am guessing that we spent a large part of last week's class on the Google sites assignment that is due today. I myself have completed most of the assignment but I have run into an issue over the part about "inserting a calendar". I have been tried emailing you, toying with it in many different times and different ways, and watching youtube videos, but I am not sure if the issue I am dealing with is an easy, quick fix. I guess I will just have to ask you prior to our class in 45 minutes. The point is I wish was able to make it to class last week so that I would not have this problem about how to insert a calendar into my Google site.

Journal for 10/17/11

Last week, we began discussing the web 2.0 project, and I choose to present mine in this first week later on today. I just finished my Power Point presentation on Wikispaces, and now I feel confident to stand in front of my class and give a 10-15 minute speech about what the program is. Since I have done a countless number of Power Points in my academic career before, this was much simpler for me to do than the spreadsheet assignment. Most of the time I spent on this project had to do with research for Wikispaces rather than the construction of the Power Point presentation. As for the Wikispaces application, I have learned that this a simply a collaborative tool in which students can greatly benefit from as most students today are digital natives. What I am really looking forward to is hearing some of the other student's presentations because I am unfamiliar with many of these other web 2.0 programs

Journal Due 10/10

Last week, we basically wrapped up any loose ends about the spreadsheet assignment that my peers may or may not have had. Additionally, we came together as a class to discuss how we felt about this assignment (specifically what we got out of it). For me, I thought this was a great assignment because it allowed me to become familiar with a program that is going to have such a big impact on my future teaching career. By doing this assignment, I now know shortcuts that will make working with this program to records grades in the future much more faster, easier, and efficient overall.

Unless I am mistaken, concluding this spreadsheet assignment was the only thing we discussed for last weeks class, and, once again, I felt it was a great assignment.

Journal Due 10/3

Last week, we dealt with microsoft excel for the spreadsheet assignment that I just finished for tonight's class. I learned a great deal about using this program between when we first began talking about excel 2 weeks ago, working with it last week, and using it for the spreadsheet assignment. I definitely feel a lot more comfortable using this program in the future for my teaching career ahead.

As for the spreadsheet assignment itself, it is was a lot easier and took less time than I thought. I guess that was because I felt overwhelmed at first while learning how to use the program but once I got started, things ran smoothly. Its not that hard of a program to work with and when you get the hang of it, it is a piece of cake.   I learned a great deal upon analyzing the results of the assignment but I will not go into that as I have already written about that in my "reflection" aspect of the assignment. Overall, I think this was a great assignment for me and my peers in getting familiar with the microsoft excel program.