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.

Web 2.0

Oh my gosh. I can't get web 2.0 out of my brain. It is plaguing my mind. Every website I go on to now, I think, "hey, this is web 2.0!" It's driving me crazy. But at least I understand what it is now. I went online a couple of weeks ago to get a recipe for making rolls for break the fast. When I found a recipe, I realized that the website (allrecipes.com) was totally a web 2.0 site. People would post their recipes and other people would rate the recipe and comment about how good it was, how bad it was, or what they did to alter the recipe. It's pretty cool to be able to alter websites because of web 2.0. Just don't make a website and let others alter it if you're afraid of negativity. So there you have it. Web 2.0.

filming teaching

I think that filming myself teach and reviewing the film could definitely help me become a better teacher. Why? Well because the camera picks up on little mistakes I make that I wouldn't realize otherwise. I can pick out the mistakes, and try to not make those same mistakes, like saying "you guys". However, it can also be used for good. So far after each time I've taught, I've felt like I'm a terrible teacher. But upon watching my videos, I felt a lot better about myself afterwards because it didn't look as bad as I had perceived it being in my mind. It has been good reinforcement by helping me review my mistakes, see my improvement, and learning to not repeat my mistakes.

imovie

There are so many activities that could be enhanced by using imovie. For example, as a track coach, I could use a video editing program to show my athletes clips of events. By doing this, I could more accurately teach the events in track. So although this process of learning imovie was not fun, I realize that this really is a very useful tool to use even as a PE teacher/coach. I hope I can use my knowledge of the process of technology more so than the product or final outcome.

imovie

Hmmmm how do I feel about imovie? Well I'm not the biggest apple fan around, so it was a little difficult to figure out some stuff. However, it is a useful tool. Plus a lot of schools now are going the direction of having a lot more apple products so it will be good to know. I really hope I can get the hang of using imovie because it usually takes me a little longer than most to start adapting to something new that I'm not used to. I would also like to learn how to take a still from a movie and turn it into a picture because there are some awesome stills that could be turned into pictures. Well, I guess this has been a pretty boring post so far. Maybe the next one will be better!

Internet safety

So I researched internet safety online and shared the information I learned with my little brother. I found a website called ikeepsafe that has good information not only for kids, but for parents and teachers as well. I really liked that on the website it is very kid-friendly. There was even a cute little cartoon (made by BYU) about a cat named fauxpaw that gets into trouble on the internet through online chat rooms. I would recommend watching it.
Well like I said, I shared the basic information of internet safety with my brother (who is 9). I went over basic issues regarding what information NOT to share with others online (personal information). Basically I told him that there are online bullies and predators who are out to get you and steal your information so they can pretend to be you and sign up for credit cards and other bad things. I also told him that he should be careful online because there are people who will take advantage of you (through chat rooms by pretending to be someone/something they aren't). Overall, I learned some pretty good information regarding how to be safe, and how to teach kids to be internet safe.
This is important stuff to know as our society is becoming more corrupt. It is important to know how to protect your identity, not only for safety, but also for your future. So many jobs will google you to see what information is online about you. So not only is it important to be wary with personal information, but also what you say. I know someone who applied for a job and didnt get the job because the company said that she didn't seem like a very happy person and they wanted to hire people who would be happy for their job. All they would have had to do to find this out was to look up stuff about her online. So it's very important to be careful what you do and say online. It can make or break your potential career!

Copyright laws...

I totally understand the point of copyright laws. I started ranting about it, then deleted it, cuz I decided that copyright laws do make sense. I wouldn't want someone to use my pictures and claim them as their own or take my music for free and not pay me. So I guess in theory, yeah all of this stuff is important. I just am a little confused with the picture policy. I know that some pictures have to be cited, but how am I supposed to know which ones? In my brain, if it's accessible, why do I have to cite it? Cuz I know of websites where pictures are locked and are not able to be accessed without a password. So therefore, if I can access it easily, I feel like it's free game. But then again, having thought about it a little more, I realize that if I put up pictures for other people to use, I would want them to at least give me credit for it....whoa now my blog is going in circles. I think it's time to stop writing.

Technology Links

Well I really liked the technology links that Grad student Dan showed us in class last week, HOWEVER, I am not liking the fact that some of the websites can only be used if you have firefox (which I don't).
As far as Diigo goes, that seems like an awesome idea. However, once again I am old school and like to physically highlight things and put sticky notes everywhere!
***For those of you who don't have firefox, but would like to have a bibliography done for you, check out www.easybib.com
I love easybib.com and it doesn't require firefox to use it. My teacher at my previous college introduced our class to it, and I've been using it ever since! No more confusion with how to do a bibliography. All you have to do is type in the information for the type of source you are using and easybib will set up the rest and put it in alphabetical order and indent for you and everything!!

PLE Reflection #1

So i guess we're supposed to write down "reflections" from this class....well here it goes.
I basically SUCK at technology. So needless to say, this might break the camel's back. Haha just kidding....kind of. But anyways I really hope this class helps me to be better aqainted with this stuff even though I'm just gonna be super duper frustrated the entire time. So I raise my glass to Dan Randall, the teacher/grad student, because I'm probably going to make his life difficult during every class cuz I won't know what to do....EVER!