1. List the software/applications you experimented with this semester
Some software/applications I experimented with this semester were Wisdomap, Delicious, Wordle, Twitter, Rubistar, Audacity, Stumble upon, Diigo, Newsvine, Flickr, Google Docs, Concept mapping, Social Bookmarking, Blogs, and RSS. Many of these software/applications I can you in a professional/personal manner and will be beneficial for me after this technology class is over.
2. List the instructional strategies you learned about in this class.
Instructional strategies I learned about in this class were identifying similarities and differences, Reinforcing effort and providing recognition, Nonlinguistic representations, Homework and practice, Cooperative learning, lecture, discussion, individual and group work, experiential learning, student presentations, and computer lab activities.
3. How does technology aid in communication?
Technology aid in communication in many aspects technology allows sharing and exchange of ideas among many groups of people. By using technology, communication is not limited to face to face interaction and people are able to conveniently interact no matter where they are located. Technology aids in communication with people who come from different backgrounds and speak different languages. Technology help people to communicate all over the world.
4. How can technology assist you as a teacher?
Technology can assist me in many ways as a teacher it can act as a visual aid, a teaching strategy, a way of communication, and a tool when I teach a lesson. Technology will allow me as a teacher to reach out to all of my students who are all different and have unique learning styles. Technology will act as my aid when I become a teacher.
5. What did you learn about yourself as a presenter?
When I presented I learned that I can activitly work well with others doing a live presentation for a class. I learned how creative I can make a presentation. I also learned it is important to keep your audience involved, engaged, and their attention.
6. What did you learn about Internet safety?
I learned you have to be careful when teaching what type of sites to use when reaching out to certain students. I also learned this is a growing issue that the government is concerned with. I learned teen can sometimes be there own worst enemies.
7. What did you learn about assessing students’ learning?
I learned that it is important to assess students learning in a variety of different ways. I learned all students doing learn the same and as a teacher one should incorporate all learning styles into a lesson to help and better aid my students. I learned I can assess students learning in many ways like, test, portfolios, blogs, group projects, oral presentations, and assessments.
8. Why should we teach kids to be media literate?
We should teach kids to be media literate because we as people are becoming so dependent on technology that we need to keep up with the jones’s and our kids need to be as well. Also media literate is beginning to be incorporated into the education curriculum so why not teach the kids now.
9. What’s the most important thing you learned in this class?
I have learned so many important things from this class, two vital things I learned were the lesson plans and the e-portfolio. I feel like both of these things will help me to better and further my career and they both opened my eyes to becoming a teacher.
10. How can I improve this course?
I believe everything that was incorporated into the course was needed and I don’t believe I could do anything to improve the course. The only thing I can think of was there was so much to do in so little time even in and out of class so I wish maybe we would have been able to work on things more in class.

What did you learn about yourself?
I learned some new things about myself I didn’t know how much music consumes my life on a daily basis. According to the multiple intelligence test I am more on an intrapersonal person rather than interpersonal and I’m also less Kinesthetic than interpersonal. I know I am not the most social able person and I would rather have time to myself than be around a bunch of people but I would have thought I was less social able than kinesthetic. I also thought that I was more of a visual and auditory learner but I’m less auditory than I believed.

Did the surveys tell you something new or reaffirm what you already knew?
The surveys did both for me it told me something new like I learned more TACTILE-KINESTHETIC than auditory. For years I always thought I was a visual and audio learner. The multiple intelligence test on the other hand reaffirmed things I already new I am more of an intrapersonal person than interpersonal.

How would knowing their learning style benefit or hinder students?
I believe if students knew what their learning style was it could benefit them in the long run. If a student knew they were very visual and the teacher only lecture with out notes a student being able to know how they learn best could go to their teacher and explain to them I learn my best when I am able to look at notes and other visual objects is there any way you can help me so I can succeed in your class. Know how you learn helps students understand what works best for them when it comes to learning knew material and it also helps students to succeed if they know the type of learning that expounds upon their best potential.
I don’t believe a student knowing their learning style can really hinder them, I only feel maybe a student could use it as an excuse as to their failure in a class. I feel knowing how you learn best can only help you not hinder you.

7. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
This essential instructional strategy would be useful when using blog sites. Teachers can provide or set a specific objective of what they what students to do or types of questions they would like them to answer. After students establish blog sites and respond to questions their teacher, fellow classmates, and the World Wide Web could give them some feedback.
4. Homework and Practice
This essential learning strategy could be useful using wiki spaces. Teachers could assign homework online and all their students could have access to the site to upload and post their homework assignments up. By using a wiki space it gives students practice on using the internet for educational purpose it also could help students organize their on wiki space if they needed to collaborate for a group project.
5. Nonlinguistic Representations
A type of technology program that could be used best for this essential instructional strategy is mind mapping and wordle which both use nonlinguistic. Mind maps incorporate words and images using symbols to represent relationships. Research shows use of nonlinguistic representation has proven to not only stimulate but also increase brain activity. Both of these technology programs seem to fulfill the requirements of nonlinguistic and I would recommend them both for educational technology.

After watching the video by Stuart Brown on play and understanding how vital it is to play I learned play is not a bad thing in the workplace, at home or school. I understand it is good to incorporate play into our daily lives just as we do work. When I first thought about play I felt it was something we did as kids but as we matured and grew as adults we stopped playing. After seeing this video I understand that play is something we need in our lives no matter how old we are as we get older our play may change which is fine but we do need play like we need to eat. Thinking back to when I was younger I used to have an imaginative play. I always like to play with Barbie’s, from dressing them up to make believe cooking and decorating their house. Growing up as a child I realized Barbie’s were toys I always played with and they helped me to develop my imagination and to think more about the adult world. As I try to connect my playful experience and how it has helped me today it allows me to imagine more about the future and how I would like my life to be. It connected me on how I want my family life to be once a start one and have a career. Play has helped to make me more innovative and discover more of life. Play is not only important to do when you have free time but I think we as people need to learn how to incorporate play into our daily lives, in work and education. Play can be the missing piece to the puzzle for enjoyment in what we do on a daily basis. Play I believe can help enhance education because it will allow people to have fun, enjoy, and explore possibilities.

Dear Parents,
I would like to take the time out to formally introduce myself, Ms. Barrow as your child’s teacher for this up and coming school year. I look forward to getting to know each and everyone of my students as well as their parents on a much personal level. I am excited to learn and grow with each of my students this year and I hope you all will be excited for us as well. During this up and coming school year I plan to incorporate technology into our curriculum, and I am making a promise to each and every student’s parent I will make sure your child is safe on the internet. We will only use secure sites where no chatting will be allowed. I want to introduce your children to blogs and wiki-spaces so they will be able to express their feeling as well as collaborate as a group with their fellow classmates. The blogs will be used as a writing resource so each student will be able to express themselves the site will not be open to the public to share no one will have access to view their blog but other students in the class and myself. The wiki-space will be created for students to use when they have to do group projects and need to come together as a team and may not all be able to meet at once. The wiki-space will only be able to be accessed by students in the class. I want all my students to feel safe and I want all my parents to be confident their child is safe in this learning environment. Please if you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me and I will be happy to sit down and discuss any concerns you may have.
Sincerely,
Ms. Barrow

1. Who are we making safe? The question who are we making safe brings up a great discussion in the videos. It seems we are trying to make young children safe while surfing the internet and keep them away from predators. Then if you looked at the videos from a different perspective we may say we are trying to make teenagers safe from uninvited solicitation and unsafe situation they tend to want to engage in. Most online predation occurs on teenagers rather than young children from a study mentioned in the videos.
2. What are we making safe? We are trying to make the Internet a much safer place to use. We are trying to keep online sites safe and make surfing the internet a much safer and fun environment.
3. What are the consequences of such decisions? Consequences on that may arise from try to make the internet safe and protect teens is adolescence is already a difficult time and teen are trying to figure out themselves and where they belong by putting regulation on the internet and site may make they rebel even more. Teens may feel they have no control over their lived or the personal time spent online which may cause them to get involved into danger on purpose so they can prove a point. Like Danah Boyd mentions, “the tendency is to blame the technology rather than realizing that there’s a much broader, deeper problem or situation to actually address.” With that said parents and officials like to blame technology for such situation when the problem lies deeper then technology, if parents were teaching the children how to use the internet and monitoring their use online we might not be in such a situation. Being teens majority of the time are stubborn and like to figure out things on their own they may be like not to come to officials and parents for help or to seek advice.

1. I have learned many things about technology and it ways it can be used to help teaching in the 21^st century. Some applications and tools I have learned to use is blogs, creating and using delicious, wiki spaces, and so many more. I really enjoyed using the blog site because it allows me to express my feelings in words and it could be posted anonymous. I really think this is also a great tool to use when teaching students and it can be a very resourceful tool as well.
2. Teaching strategies I have learned is never use technology as a replacement of teaching but to use it as a tool. I learned you have to learn with technology and it can do so many great things if you apply it. I have also learned not to just teach students but to guide them and show them how to apply things they learned to everyday life and the real world.
3. I would like to learn more tools to use that would be beneficial when becoming a teacher. I would also like to become more established when using technology.

With the above picture I see it as so many tools you can use to teach technology with. As a teacher and students can both grow from these tools and use certian ones as educational tools. It also shows me how far we have come with technology and how far we still are going. It is true technolgy can teach us and we can also teach and learn from techonlogy.

1. Wiki spaces

2. I chose the tool wiki spaces because it is a tool that can be used in many aspects. It can be used to keep people connected without individuals being in the same area.

3. A wiki space can provide me with many opportunities and it can give students that may be in my classroom with many opportunities as well. A wiki space can keep students connected if they had a group project and needed to trade information with each other. I could use a wiki space to teach as well as stay connected with other teachers. I actually use a wiki space now for school and organization purposes.

4. Some potential barriers that may be involved with using a wiki space is some wiki’s are not free. Also if you allow too many people access or not the wrong people someone could edit something without permission.

1. Word press

2. I chose word press as a tool because it is a site that can be used for blogging, which can allow people to express their feeling in words to the world.

3. Some opportunities word press has provided me is the ability to express my thoughts about assignments I have done in class and it allows me to share my writing with the world. Students in the classroom could use word press blogging cite to write short assignments. It could also give students who generally don’t like to write or express their feelings to people a chance to write anonymously.

4. A potential barrier is word press can be visible to the entire World Wide Web which could be harmful if people do not know how to correctly use it.

1. Survey Monkey

2. I chose survey monkey as a tool because it seems like a good tool to use when you may want to get feedback about and event or assignment.

3. Survey Monkey can provide me with many opportunities now and in the future if I chose to become an educator. I can use it now to get feedback on event that I put on with in my organizations. I could also use it in the future by getting students opinions on assignments or exams without them being afraid to give their honest opinion. Students could use this site to get feedback from their fellow classmates on presentations or activities they do.

4. A potential barrier is not all survey monkey surveys are free so one would need to make sure they are using the right survey.    

1. Describe what you liked about your lesson plan and what you weren’t so keen on.

I really enjoyed writing my lesson plan and imagining being a teacher and working with kindergarten students. I was excited planning the mathematical lesson with skittles. I was not so keen on creating a concept map and I am not sure if I created it correctly still.

2.Describe how your lesson plan was active and authentic.

My lesson plan was active because the children will be able to engage with each other when counting their skittles and sorting the colors. I feel it was authentic because I do not believe students learn about graphing in kindergarten or are allowed to eat candy when learning about math.

3.If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? If you wouldn’t change anything, explain why.

If I had to do it again I would try to see may be how I might have made the lesson more challenging but on a K-grade level. I would have also liked to incorporate more subjects.

4. Was your lesson plan safe or risky? Explain your answer.

I think it was a little of both safe and risky I played it safe by coming up with a simple lesson plan teaching kindergarten students basic math sorting out colors and counting. I believe where I took a risk was incorporating a graph since I was teaching kindergarten.

5. What biases, hidden or in plain site, did your lesson contain? If you feel there were no biases, explain why there were none.

I do not feel my lesson plan had any bias involved if feel every kindergarten student in the United States should be able count and sort colors.

1. the name of the lesson plan: Buy Low, Sell High
2. the lesson plan link:  http://www.microsoft.com/Education/buylow.mpsx
3. the subject area: Math Econimics
4. The Grade level: High School
5. General Description of the lesson: This lesson will teach students how to invest in corporate stocks by creating investment “portfolios.” Step-by-step instructions will enable students to develop worksheets that track their portfolio’s performance over a specified time period and report the results to the class.
6. Educational Goals: To introduce students to the stock market, design a worksheet that calculates profit (or loss) for any given investment, and generate line graphs representing stock performance
7. How the lesson will be assessed or graded:  Whether students successfully completed the lesson.
8. I liked how in high school they are incorporating stock market activities and also the lesson over laps two subject areas.
9. I do not like the lesson will take six weeks or 3 months
10. I would actually like to learn more about the stock market and actually try and do the lesson

1.The name of the lesson plan: World Pizza

2. http://www.microsoft.com/education/WorldPizza.mspx

3. Social Studies/ Geography

4. grades 5-8

5. In the twenty-first century, we all live in two worlds: the international world connected by media and trade, and the local world of our immediate environment and customs. In this project, students embrace the best of both worlds by first imagining a global pizza with ingredients from all over, and then developing a savvy, sensitive plan to market the product in a very particular place.

7. The lesson plan will be graded on who gets the most pizza’s and completes the task.

8. I like how the lesson gives students a business aspect on life i also like how it also combines to subject areas.

9. I dont really have dislikes about this lesson

10. I would like to know why it called World Pizza and I would actually like to try this lesson as well.

1.Create a family history totem pole

2. http://www.microsoft.com/Education/totempole.mspx

3.social studies

4.Grades K-6

5. Students are to research their family history, they will use symbols to represent historic details in their history, and incorporate it using Office PowerPoint.

6.  Students are introduced to the concept of symbol. Students learn about Native American totem poles.Students use technology to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.

7. They will be graded on if the complete the assignment and put accurate information about their family history.

8.  I liked how the lesson gives students a chance to learn about their family history and make them want to ask their parents about the people before them.

9. I do not believe the lesson will take 4 periods I think there should be more planning.

10. I would actually like to do this as a lesson if I was a teacher because it gives the teacher and students a chance to get to know each other.