Final Reflection

I actually have learned a lot in this class. When I first signed up for it, I thought "Oh great, now I have to learn about stupid technology." I know, kind of a bad attitude to have. However, I was surprised to find that although I hate the idea of learning new things that involve technology, it actually wasn't that bad. It was nice to also have a very encouraging teacher who helped me to realize that even tech guys don't know everything about technology. It's okay to not know everything about technology. It isn't about what you know, it's about the process of knowing.
Now that I feel more confident in knowing the process of learning, I think I would be able to better use technology in my teaching. Even the little things we learned like how to make a power point have helped me. I remember when I was younger, my teacher wanted us all to make a power point presentation. We were never clearly instructed on how to do it, and it was also back in the day when the only kids who had powerpoint available to them were the rich kids that could afford it. It's so nice now to have those little things accesible to use. It's also nice to have learned how to use imovie. Honestly, I never thought I would be able to make a video on my own. But now I have confidence because it's about the process of learning technology. I feel like I am better equiped with the knowledge to not only use technology in my teaching, but help younger children learn the process. This was a great class overall. It was very helpful:)

youtube

So I know that everyone already knows what youtube is, but it really would be a useful tool for teaching. I went on to youtube just for fun and searched how to polevault. It actually had a lot of videos. This would help aid me in my coaching because instead of just trying to explain how to polevault to a beginner, I could also show them a video on youtube of the proper technique. I could even make a video and post it on youtube for how to teach something. I had at least 5 classes this semester that integrated a youtube video somewhere into the curriculum to teach something. I know that youtube is a very effective tool for teaching.

PE Central

Dr. Pennington told us about a really cool website that he helped create. It is pecentral.com. So I decided to check it out. And what did I find? Well, I found a ton of PE lesson plans, games, and activities for students of all ages and classes of all sizes. It is a fantastic website where PE teachers can post the different things they are teaching and using for their classes. I found it very useful and I'm sure I will find it so much more useful when I am a teacher and looking for new activities to play with my students.

mayoclinic

Alright so I know I'm not planning on becoming a doctor or anything, but mayoclinic.com is definitely a website I can see myself using in my future teaching/coaching career. Mayoclinic has virtually every sort of illness/injury/disease out there. It would be so useful to look up shin splints for example to help my athletes treat the problem. Mayoclinic has a list of symptoms and home remedies and medicines that can be used to treat the problem. I think it is a super cool website to go to and learn about fixing people who are injured or sick. Yesterday I was told that my uncle has sciatica. So I went on to Mayoclinic and searched it. It told me why it was caused, about how long it takes to go away, what to do to treat it, and how to prevent it. It also said when a person should seek professional medical help. I thought that was neat. It also said that in order to prevent sciatica, one needs to exercise and not be sedentary. I really liked that. Pretty much a lot of health-related issues can be solved purely by exercising. Even when I start to get sick, I make sure to go running for at least 20 min per day and my sickness never gets worse :) Anyways, mayoclinic.com is a useful online tool for me now and will be in the future as a teacher.

search engines

Okay so I'm not retarded and I do know how to use search engines. But I realized just how useful they can be. Yesterday I was studying for my kinesiology final and was very frustrated because I didn't know what the letters in the equations stood for. I searched them on yahoo and was surprised at the ease of finding the information I needed. I even found links to websites that broke down the equations so they were easy to understand. I can't believe I didn't think to do this earlier in the semester when I would try to study for kinesiology but didn't know how. Search engines are definitely one of the most useful tools on the internet. They can find you links to virtually anything you search for. It truly is amazing.

Studiocode

Wow. I am so lame. I can't believe it took me so long to finally make time to do my studiocode project. Well I guess that's what happens when someone is a procrastinator... Anyways, I finally did it and it wasn't even bad at all. The packet of steps for studiocode made it a lot easier to do. I feel like now I could probably do studiocode more easily without the fear of the unknown. Studiocode is a useful tool for identifying and learning from one's teaching mistakes. It is also a good way to see what we're doing correctly. All in all, studiocode was not as bad as I was expecting.

Creating a website

Hmmm I don't know if we were supposed to or not, but apparently I never wrote about my feelings regarding creating a website. I honestly did not like making a website. I feel like although it was dumbed down on google sites, it ought to be dumbed down even more. I felt so frustrated when I was creating my website. I bet I would have a hard time going back and trying to make a new website all over again. I feel like it was easier to learn how to use imovie than it was to learn to make a website. Maybe I'm just biased because I didn't have any help to make my website, whereas I did with imovie. Oh well. I guess it is important to know how to do for one day when I decide that I should make a website for whatever reason.