Week 4 - Google Docs versus Microsoft Word

If my school district were thinking about switching from Microsoft to Google Docs and the Principal was looking for input, I would pick sticking with Microsoft.  I personally find Microsoft easier to use.  I also believe that there are more features in Microsoft Office that are useful in the classroom.
Most people are familiar with Microsoft and know how to use the basic features.  However, if you wanted students to create a presentation, write a paper or record data in a spreadsheet, the teacher could teach the students how to use some of the other features offered. 
While Google Docs has the share feature and does not require students to attach documents to an email before sharing with the teacher, I believe that Microsoft is easier to use.  It is simpler to format and make tables, as well as offers features such as word art and clip art that students could use for different activities.
I also believe that excel allows students to make more attractive graphs and has more features to make imputing, recording, and reading data simpler.
Microsoft PowerPoint also has many simple features to make presentations.  It also allows you to record which makes for a more interactive and fun presentation. 
For these reasons I would stick with Microsoft Office and not switch to Google Docs.

Week 4 - Using Excel in the Classroom

5 Ways of incorporating excel into classroom curriculum:

1) Excel could be incorporated into the social studies curriculum.  For example, when learning about different battles, students could use a spreadsheet to chart the battles, including where and when they occurred.  This would be a good study technique, for example.  It may help students organize information better and help them remember important dates and events in History. Students could also use graphs to determine how many battles, including percentage, occurred in each state etc.  Spreadsheets could also be used to to record timelines.
2) Excel could be incorporated into math, as well.  One example would be when learning about probability.  For example, students could be broken up into groups and toss a coin to determine the probability of getting heads versus tails.  The data could be recorded in a spreadsheet and formulas could be used to figure out the average, etc.  Graphs could also be used to show a visual image of the percentages. 
3) Another math lesson that could incorporate excel is when learning about area.  Excel would allow the students to see a shape and figure out the area by using the cells.  Each cell could equal one unit.  The students would have to count the cells in the shapes to determine the area.  Students could also create their own shapes with a pre-determined area.  This would be a good exercise for students to practice what they know about area.
4) Excel could also be incorporated into science curriculum.  For example, when learning about global warming, students could graph the data and predict future trends.  Excel spreadsheets could also be used to chart the effect of earthquakes.  Spreadsheets would give students a better understanding of how these concepts work, as well as give them a visual to based the information on.
5)  As for language arts, students could use excel spreadsheets to examine things such as character traits.  Students could list the characters and the traits they posses and compare and contrast the data. 

These activities are some examples I would present.  They offer ideas on how to incorporate excel into each content area.  I believe they are a good starting point and would give other teachers ideas on how to incorporate Excel into their classroom.

Week 3 - Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking allows you to save websites that you use often, or that contain valuable and relevent information that you may need to access in the future.  It makes finding these websites easy.  Social bookmarking is also public so it allows you to find the websites from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection.  Because it is public other people can also look at you websites.  The websites are organized by tags, or key words.  These tags help you, and otheres, find specific websites or topics.  Regular booking marking is helpful, however; bookmarking only saves the website to one computer.  Therefore, it is not as easy to access.  In my opinion, social bookmarking is a useful tool to help organize and share information. 
As a student I could use social bookmarking to share websites with my friends.  I could also use it to save important websites for a project or assignment.  As a teacher social boomarking would be useful to share my websites with other teachers.  I can also access other teachers' websites and gain more knowledge about a particular subject, as well as find useful and relevant information for my classroom.  Also, some people may find websites that I may not, so by using common tags I could gain access to this information.  Not only could I share my websites with other teachers, but I could also share them with my students.  If my class has a project to do I could give them the web address to my social bookmarking site and they could search through my tags to find helpful and reliable websites for their assignment.  Overall, from what we have read and discussed, social bookmarking seems like a very useful and simple tool.  It is helpful now that I am a student and it will continue to be helpful when I am a teacher.

Week 2 - Google Docs

I found Google Docs difficult to use. While it is a simpler version of Microsoft Word, it was hard to cut and paste the differnt webpages that I found.  It would paste in an entire table and when I tried to delete the unnecessary information it would delete everything. I also had trouble trying to enter new information after I pasted.  It would put the cursor in one place on the page but it would type in another location. I eventually had to do my entire project in Word and copy and paste it into Google Docs.  Other than that issue, I think Google Docs is a good tool.  It is more convenient to share documents from there rather than attach a document to an email.  It also saves paper where as a hard copy wastes it.  I think that this would be a good tool to use with my students to hand in homework and other such things.  I would only use it for simple assignments, however.  I do not think I would require my students to use Google Docs for any project like this one that involved copying and pasting.  It just caused too many problems for me.  Overall, Google Docs is a useful tool.  I think I will need to work with it and get more used to it before I introduce it to my students, however.

Week 2 - Perspective Continued

I use my computer mainly to complete class work, as well as research.  During free time I also use my computer to communicate and stay in touch with friends and family.  Students also use computers for school work, however; I feel as though they use the Internet for communication purposes more so than I do.  They always have their buddy list open, and more and more young people are logging on to Facebook and other networking websites.  While online communication is easy, I prefer face-to-face intereactions.  It is simple to e-mail a professor if I have a question or something I need assistance with, however; in most cases I would rather talk to a professor in person to get full clarification.  This is the same with my friends.  My best friend lives back home and I prefer to talk to her in person rather than online or through text messages.  Most "life things" are too complicated and detailed to communicate through an IM or e-mail.  This is another reason I feel as though I perceive things differently than students today.  While my language is similar to their's, I do communicate differently.

Week 2 - "Language" and Perspective on Today's Technology

From my perspective, the "language" that students speak today is similar to my own.  Having grown up in the Net Gen. myself, I have been surrounded by most of the same technology and have learned most of the same "language."  However, having grown up in the early part of the Net Gen. I have a slightly different perspective than many students today.  Also, my perspective is different in that my parents' influence has changed my outlook on technology.  My parents were born in the early part of the Baby Boomer generation.  While they experienced many changes and events in their lives, they are not as educated on the current technologies.  Although my parents have become more knowledgable about email and computers through their jobs, they are still not as well-informed about other technologies, such as text messaging.  Only as a recent as a few years ago did my parents get "up-to-date" cell phones.  However, they do not have cameras, or any other of the "fancy" things that phones have now a days.  They only use these phones for "emergencies."  As a matter of fact, my mother only sent a text once in her life, and that was to me while I was in the same room.  They still have trouble with some basic computer skills, as well, and depend on me and my brother to explain things to them. 
As a child, my family did not own a computer until I was 12 years old.  I did not get a cell phone until I was in high school.  Children now own cell phones as young as 8 years old.  Some even have their own computers.  These children are exposed to medias that I never experienced when I was their age. In my opinion the games and movies kids watch now are inappropriate for their age.  This is probably why there is so much violence and behavioral problems in schools.  While I have been exposed to most of the same technologies as these children, I have expereinced them differently - at an older age, and with different parental involvement.  Based on this, my perspectives are slightly different than children's today. 

Week 1- Digital natives vs the Net generation

From this weeks readings I believe that the digital natives and the Net gen. or the 21st century learner learn in the same way.  The digital natives and the Net gen. are both surrounded by technology.  As chapter 2 in Educating the Net Generation states, most children are using computers by the ages of 5 and 8.  College aged people, much like myself, depend on technology, as well.  We are constantly connected through our lap tops and cell phones.  Children of the Net generation need social interactions and hands-on experiences to learn. However, these interactions should be enforced with technology.  As Educating the Net Generation states, teachers should use more than just PowerPoint presentations to get their points across.  While PowerPoints can be effective there are other tools that can help students learn more effectively.  According to Digital Natives teachers have to learn to communicate with students in their language.  While teachers should not give up their thinking skills, they should move at a faster pace and include more technology. 
While these concepts may seem radical to Baby Boomers and Matures, they are not so difficult for me to understand.  As a part of the Net Gen. I can see the constant changes and race to keep up with the "newest, coolest gadget." Children now a days have more knowledge of computers and technology than their parents and teachers, in many cases.  Teachers should have at least some knowledge of the current technology and how to use it in order to communicate with their students and help them learn more effectively.  These concepts make sense to me and I hope to improve my skills in technology to be able to better teach my students.

Practice Post

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