Learning to Love Excel

Hey! My name is Autumn Garza. I am a sophomore at Boise State University and am in my 4th semester. I plan to teach 1st grade but have back up plans if, for some reason, there are no teaching jobs available.When I began this class and had to get on excel I got really frustrated and worried I wasn't going to be able to do it. I can do anything on Word or the internet but excel is a program I used to stay away from. I was amazed, this far, at how much we are able to do with excel! I never knew! I want to continue making assignments and notes with excel for my students. You have a lot more creativity available to you with excel, and you can make the assignments a lot more fun when it comes to looks and colors & other things that 1st graders will actually enjoy doing or looking at. :)I love the idea of using excel to do assignments that students can do online, like in the library where I am there for help.

ESL Students and Blogs

Here is an awesome video about how blogs are helping ESL (English as a Second Language) students integrate into an English-speaking society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cncW5tzMvP0

Technology in the Classroom

Hello there.

My name is Shane Corbell. I'm an English Education major at Boise State, and I'm looking forward to teaching English Literature and Creative Writing in the near future. Technology is an invaluable tool for teachers, with English instructors being no exception. Word processing applications are vital for effective writing. They allow authors to proofread and edit their work much more freely and easily than they would using the old-fashioned pen and paper method. In addition, English teachers are able to utilize technology to bring new writing techniques into the classroom, check for plagiarism, and gain access hundreds of millions of written works with the click of a mouse.

Microsoft Excel is a tool that I have learned to use with much more flexibility than I did in the past. I always thought of Excel as a number crunching tool, but through the Educational Technology class at BSU I have come to realize how invaluable the application is. Even for an English teacher, Excel is vital for keeping an accurate gradebook. I encourage all Education students to independently research Excel to learn about the many ways it can be helpful to their future careers.

This blog "thing" is very new to me; I have never blogged as a blogger in the blogosphere before. I will say one thing: blogs sure have created a fun situation for Linguistics professors. Even after a short glance, I can readily see how blogs can be utilized in the classroom. They allow each member to post their thoughts and comments on the contents of the blog, post relevant media to the blog's subject, and basically get everyone involved in the discussion.

Feedback on Technology in the Classroom

This video is really interesting. I really appreciated being able to hear the feedback from students about the use of technology in their classrooms which, in this case, is a blog.

Whole Brain Teaching: 4th Grade Critical Thinking

Granted not every technique works for every teacher or every class! What I like about blogs is the ability to share what does work and to see it in action. Like everyone else in education I am always reviewing classroom management approaches and techniques. Using the blog environment as a impromptue webinar provides me the opportunity to slip in new information in small time slots. During prep periods, while dinner is cooking, as I am grading papers, all those tiny chunks of time offer me places where I can touch base with other educators. As I said at the beginning of my post, not every thing works for everyone, but this works for me and I am excited to see this resource grow and bloom.

Now since I have edited this comment, the video clip has vanished. So, I will repost the video clip with comments. Sorry about the double posting under the same title folks. If anyone know why this happens I'd love to hear about it.

The Good and Evil

We have to also be careful about what technology we are bringing into the classroom. Things can be easily abused such as cellphones and computers. We need to also know the signs of people using things for what they are supposed to or if they are abusing the system.

Excel in the Classroom

Something that I have become reacquainted with this semester is Excel. Excel is one of those things that learn how to use, and then you forget about it till you need it again. At that point you have forgotten everything you used to know!! It has been nice getting back to Excel again and using it with some practical education might actually make it stick this time. I think that for anyone who is using Excel for the first time or getting back into it, I would have to stress to use it for the simple things in life; make lists, organize and plan your days or just play around with it. Just try to maintain the skill!!

Technology or Bust.

Hi, my name is Chad Collings. I just recently changed my major from chemical engineering to secondary education. I have yet to decide what i want to teach or where I want to teach it, but I do know that regardless of what decision I make that technology will play a valuable role in the classroom. There are so many people these days that just don't have the slightest clue of what is going on around them technologically. And if you do not keep up with what is the "new thing" then you are going to continuously fall behind. Even things as simple as we are learning in our Edtech class, where it may seem simple to us, are very crucial for the upcoming teacher to know. If the new teachers coming into the industry do not know how to convey information to students, or worse don't know how to communicate with the students as they may have a better understanding of the technology than the teachers do themselves, then how are we supposed to grow the minds of young individuals? I think that a constant refresher coarse needs to be offered and required to anyone and everyone in the education world. I consider myself to be pretty technologically savvy, but there are still many things I have to learn and will have to continue to learn as the years go on.

Blogs

I am just getting accustomed to blogs and blogging. Learning in to use this format for classroom technology is interesting and challenging. I like the concept of classroom webpages done in this format rather than "webpage format" but I worry about the ability to keep it out of the public domain and control the commentary placed on it by students.

User friendly is a huge plus with any form of technology. Litigation free is a huge worry for any teacher. I can see blogs as being a good tool to reach out to students, show casing student accomplishments and informing parents of student assignments. I am leary of the lack of control over the content students might post. I don't know if there are software blocking that can be placed on these platforms but I would probably check before I opened it up to student contribution. I would also be certain of parent approval before I allowed student contribution or involvement.

I really like the idea of using blogs as a commumity forum for educators. The ability to share ideas, comment on techniques and celebrate each others successes is a powerful tool, that I hope becomes common in the future. Some of the best ideas for classrooom management that I have collected for my own classroom have come from public forums such as Facebook and YouTube. One example of that would be Power Teaching, films by Chris Biffle. I'll attach the clip and the URL here. I hope you will take the time to review it and leave some feedback. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTwjFHorQhk or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTwjFHorQhk&feature=related

Technology Tools, Word Processing

These days word processing has become as much a part of our lives as telephones and TV. I think that we overlook the importance of this tool in our classrooms. I think this is one of the most vital tools we have in our toolbox.

For many of our students word processing is the light at the end of the tunnel. So many students struggle with subtle learning disabilities that are not diagnosed. Spelling patterns elude them their entire life, handwriting is a physical effort that never becomes natural and effortless. I think that we need to rethink our attitudes towards word processing. By incorporating keyboarding skills into language arts we provide levels of success for students that are struggling in more traditional methods.

I'd like to see more opportunity for lower the grades 2nd and 3rd to create documents with word processing. Once auto correct and spell checker are blocked these original artifacts also become reinforcements for spelling and grammar. ADHD students struggling to create rough drafts, corrected copy, and final copy would see instance production with word processing.

I know that changes in my attitude towards using technology in the classroom has helped me become a better teacher. Hopefully, better software will continue to meet market demand and our students will benefit as well. I know that I couldn't survive without word processing!

Joining In

Hi everyone,

My name is Vickie Doty and I am one of the non-traditional students in Boise State University's College of Education. I want to teach in the elementary grades. I have been in classrooms from Kindergarten - 5th grade and truthfully I love them all. I had the opportunity to teach in a private school for three years; it was that experience which confirmed for me that education was my calling, so here I am!

The classroom is a dynamic environment and I believe that technology is a natural fit regardless of age or grade level, most of the students in our classrooms couldn't even envision a world without it! Teaching students to how to use these resources, how to create tools that enhance their own learning, is where I want to focus my instruction.

Plato wrote, "Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul" and I believe that learning occurs in each student the same way. As teachers we provide the curriculum and instruction but what our students take from it, is as unique and different as each student. For me, teaching students how to use technology is teaching them one more way to to craft wings for their dreams.

Blogs

I think that blogs can be useful for teachers and students in the classroom setting. They can allow communication outside of the classroom and I think that they can be very valuable in that way. The discussion board aspect of Blackboard, as is used by Boise State University is a great example of a blog used in a classroom. I find them very helpful in communicating with other students as well as the professor regarding class assignments and any questions I may have.

For a Spanish class, they can be helpful for students to practice conversing in Spanish outside of the classroom. Especially if given a specific assignment, students can converse online, and work with different parts of grammar and vocabulary either as a part of regular classroom work or as part of homework. It would be very valuable for my students to utilize a class blog in order to keep in touch with each other as well as with me and to practice Spanish conversation. I would also use the class blog to evaluate student performance in speaking through requiring my students to post audio files of oral assignments that they had recorded. This would save class time for lessons and questions rather than taking up that valuable time to evaluate each student one-on-one.

One New Tool

Working with Excel in many different exercises this semester, I have learned that Excel has many purposes and can be very valuable to a teacher who chooses to utilize it. Not only can Excel be used to keep track of student grades/attendance, create schedules, but it can also be used as a form of assessment for students on the information they need to know. Excel is a great resource in these ways, but it is also a program which students can use to conduct experiments and create project spreadsheets for themselves. The multiple functions, like creating a chart and feedback cells, give the user a wide array of opportunities for presentation and understanding of the data. I give this program 5 out of 5 stars because it is so versatile in its applications for both teachers and students.

Carrie Bloom

Hi there!

As you can see, my name is Carrie Bloom. I am a third year student at Boise State University majoring in Spanish. I plan to teach either a middle or high school, probably here in Idaho. I will use technology in a lot of ways in my classroom including presentation-style lessons via powerpoint, student assignments that require internet research and online assignments. The internet is such a valuable resource to help Spanish students because there are multiple translation helps, conjugation charts and tutorial videos available to them. I will be utilizing many of these resources to help my students.