How to make a Google Presentation

For Project #8 I chose to teach my Fiance' how to create a Google Presentation.

1st You go to http://www.google.com/

Once you get to the site you click the tab that is titled Gmail. Then a screen will come up and you will have the option "Create Account" (you have to have a gmail account to create a presentation). Then you fill in your information. Click and Agree with their terms of use and now you have your gmail account.

2nd Now that you have your Gmail account, Log in and Click The Documents tab at the top.

Once you get to your documents click the tab "Create New" at the top left. When it drops down Click the Presentation option. You are now ready to start creating your presentation.

3rd Put your presentation Title and your name on the first slide.

4th To add another slide click the "slide" tab then "new slide" and choose the type of slide you like.

5th To change the fonts color, style, or even to add a picture look at the tool bar across the top and choose what you want to do. Then repeat step 4 until you have created as many slides as you want.

After you have created your presentation save it. After you click save it will remain in your google docs until you choose to use it or eventually remove it.

Oh yeah it is completely FREE and you can make as many as you want. FOR FREE!

Substantive Presentation: How to use Timetoast!

I did my Substantive Presentation on how to make timelines on Timeline Toast.

April 25th Blog Assignment

Personal Learning Environment

The first thing you notice when you watch this video is how it is set up. I loved how organized everything was and how it was all set up on one big screen. It just seemed like it made everything so much easier to access and easier to use. It also allows so much detail. I think having PLE's and PLN's set up this way would help tremendously as far as technology is concerned.

TWO QUESTIONS

I absolutely loved this video! Even though it was short it was so inspiring! Especially to someone who is an education major that will be working with kids. I thought the question "Whats My Scentence?" was such an awesome concept. It really makes you think about what kind of impression you want to make. You want to leave a legacy for people to remember you ny for forever and that is a big deal! The second question was awesome as well. It was "Am I better today than yesterday?" and that alone speaks volumes. everyday is a new clean slate and you make it based on how you react. Im so glad I got the chance to see this video it really does just inspire and reminds us to strive for better.

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Interview

Interview

I did my interview with Mr. James Moody who is a teacher in the Mobile County School System. Before the interview I told Mr. Moody this was an interview about technology in the school systems and what his opinion of this subject is. Some of the Questions I covered included:

1)What does being a technology literate teacher mean to you?

He answered: Being a technology literate teacher is when you use and take advantage of the technology available to you, and you make it work for you in the classroom. It also helps to encourage your student to be more technology literate and it makes learning more fun and easy.

2) Is it important to be a technology literate teacher?

He Replied: Yes, I would say that it is important.as prominent as technology is, and is becoming in this day in age it is very crucial. If you don't know how to use the technology that your students are using then how would you expect to teach them with it.

3) What should a technology literate teacher know?

His Response: A technology literate teacher should know everything the student knows. Everything a student is expected to learn, and MORE! The teacher should always know and thing=k a level above the students. How would a student learn from someone who only knows as much as they themselves know.

4) What are some ways you use technology in your classroom?

He answered: One of the main ways I use technology is through google presentations. I create google presentations to present lessons and also allow my students to create their work in this style. Any project I assign my students, they are given the choice of making it it google presentations.

PLN Final

I am an active member and user of Facebook

Podcast I Subscribe to include:

Middle School Matters

SMARTboard Lessons

ED Tech Weekley

World News for Children

Stories for Kids

Teaching with SMARTboard

The Teachers Podcast

Blogs that I follow include:

The Follis Files - Candace Follis

Nebraska Change Agent - Beth Still

Keeping Kids First- Kelly Hines

April 18th Blog Assignment

VOCAROO!

For this weeks blog assignment we got to choose one of the tools we have learned about and like in EDM 310. The one I choose is Vocaroo! I just think it is so awesome you can go and record whatever you want and on top of that its free. There are so many different ways you could use it, personal or in the classroom. You could use it to leave yourself voice reminders, or leave voice messages quickly to a friend, family member, or co-worker or anything of that nature quick and easily. You could use it in the classroom to get your children to have a recorded journal or their work, you could make lessons with instructions for the children on assignments and many other things. It is just amazing the things we could do with Vocaroo.

Comments4Teachers Part 3 (weeks 13 and 14)

Backchannel Gone Right (Week 13)

In this blog Beth is a prime example of how technology in our schools can help tremendously. She blogs about how she used Skype to have another educator present in the classroom. The good part about this blog is that she didn't even mean for it to happen the way it did. She was simply using skype to personally talk with the other educator and then realized she was up for her annual teaching observation. Even though she was worried about something going wrong or what the principal would think, she left the skype up anyway. The outcome was awesome! The students communicated and were helped by someone who wasn't even in the classroom. Beth says it was like having an assistant to help her out. She also states that the principal loved this idea and everything turned out wonderful.

My First Workshop (Week 14)

In this post Beth is talking about how excited/nervous she is to be in charge of her first workshop. Her audience is a group of teachers from Nebraska whom want to learn how to stay connected with each other. They also want to know ways to make their lessons more easily accessed, shared, and web enhanced. She talks about teaching them about all the wonderful tools offered by Google. Programs such as spreadsheet, and power point, basically the same ones we use in this class. I really liked reading this post because it sheds light on the fact that everyone is starting to see the big picture. For students that are in school now, they are learning about these tools as they go and for the teachers who are older and do thing the old way, well they are learning it too. It really goes to show how much technology is growing!

Google Form/Survey

Google Earth Tour

Places I want to go!

Vocaroo

TimeToast Timeline

Timetoast Timeline Project

I did my Time Line on my favorite band Incubus. On my timeline I have their albums and the date they came out. There is also a list of the songs on each cd.

SKYPE!

Im still really new to Skype but I think I have it figured out for the most part. I mostly only use it for a few different things. I use it to talk to my Best friend Megan. Me and Megan have been best friends since the 8th grade but we don't really have time to hangout anymore because we are both so busy with school so it makes it super easy to keep in touch with her.

Also I use Skype to communicate back and forth with my little cousin Elizabeth. She just recently moved to Tuscaloosa for college and it is a really nice way to just check in on her and make sure everything is good her way.

Last but not least I use Skype to communicate with my friends who live really far away. I have a friend that lives in Texas who I never get to see. Literally the only time I get to talk to her is when I am using Skype in fact it has been probably over a year since I have seen her any other way than Skype I also use skype to talk to my friend who lives in France named Clement. He is my Best friends Boyfriend and we skype with him all the time just to say hello and see hat is going on over in France.

Comments4Kids #10

ANAHERA'S CAMP THOUGHTS

This week my comments for kids was a video post by a girl named Anahera. In the video she is talking about a camp she is getting ready to go to and she tells about all the activities she will be doing there. She also says that she is really excited and thankful to get to go on this camp trip!

April 11th Blog Assignment

DR. SUESS- THE ZAX

I loved this video! It describes the school system almost exactly in my opinion. Or some teachers rather. I mean what some don't realize or just don't want to accept is that things are different now than they were 10 years ago. Things are way different than 50 years ago. Why should we still be doing the same things we were doing then? The world has changed and school systems should too. Our culture these days is so complex and advanced so why shouldn't our learning be? There are so many ways technology can work with our school systems to make learning more fun and more advanced. When you have all this technology helping you it makes everything faster and if everything is faster there is more time to learn more things that maybe we didn't have time to learn before. We need to take advantage of our resources because we are so lucky to have them.

ANOTHER PS22 VIDEO

This video was amazing! It was so touching and I absolutely loved it! It really speaks to us to see children coming together like this and making things work, especially when it is a video like this one. You could just see on their faces how important this was to them and just how much it meant. I love the song they were singing but I had never though about it being tied to the learning system. It is so right though, people these days are so afraid of changing even when it is for the best. They are so set in their ways because thats how they learned it and thats how they think it should be done that there isn't any room for new stuff.

I believe for a child to blog about or post their work is very important. It gives educators around the world a look through the eyes of the children. You get the chance to read what the kids write hear what they think and even see and read how they see things. This is so awesome to me. Every child is different and to see all the differences through blogging is a wonderful opportunity that teachers these days should take advantage of.

Some examples include pictures where the child made art on the computer that goes along with the assignment they were given. For instance all the blogs we see in our comments for kids. There are also the videos made by children recording what they are doing in science and they record their data and learn from trial and error in a lab setting. This helps because children and teachers in the future can go back and see these experiments and what did and didn't work. Last but not least teachers can make videos to help teach their students. By using a recording or video a teacher can remember things or projects that went well and their outcome, when teaching new students they can use past students videos to teach them how to do the projects also.

Comments4Kids #9

NIBBLE NIBBLE

My comments 4 kids assignment this week was by a boy named Henry. He drew a picture of a turtle eating vegetables. He said that the turtle loves eating foods like this. The picture was so cute and I really enjoyed seeing it!

Comments4Teachers Part 2 (Weeks 10 and 12)

OPERATION MULLIGAN (Week 10)

I completely LOVED this post! Kelly Hines did an amazing job at looking at things a whole different way. She somewhat "reset" her and her students mind set and I thought that idea was so neat! It's like even though everything was the same as before time wise and the students were literally only gone a day, by redoing the class room and playing the role of a whole new class the students actually gave in to this mind set too. The reason I really liked this is because it makes me think of how I feel as a student. Everyone is so tired of doing the same old stuff over and over again, week in and week out. I mean think about it the first few days or even weeks of school its very exciting. New classes, new teachers, new people, new material and so on and so forth. Then about half way through you just feel completely burned out and don't even want to really listen to it anymore. I believe this is one factor of kids dropping out of school. It isn't fun for them anymore, they feel like its nothing new so why even put up with it? I believe if there were more teachers who took Mrs. Hines out look there would be many improvements in students attitudes. I really feel like this post helped me and showed me to stay fresh! If you are getting tired of class then chances are your students were long before it got to you, then its too late.

TEACHER LEADERSHIP: OSTRICH SYNDROME (Week 12)

This post by Kelly really just talks about how as teachers we shouldn't be afraid to take risk in leadership positions. She uses the analogy of an Ostrich. An Ostrich sticks it head in the ground when it is scared or intimidated, leaving its whole body and neck exposed. This is ridiculous if you think about it! As teachers we shouldn't be like this. When given opportunities we should either admit that we aren't ready and respectfully decline or if we do take the challenge we shouldn't be scared to lead and make decisions because as teachers that is what we are suppose to do, lead. Kelly even left a helpful outline that I believe hits it right on the head when being in a teacher leadership role. First she says is Determine an area of need. Here she explains that when taking on something so big to start with the smaller ideas that you know more about and move on as you learn. Next is Asses yourself, we should check and make sure we are doing what is right and we should know what we can handle and how to handle it. Otherwise don't take on something you can't do. Third, Gather information and sources. Know your area! How can you possibly work on or with something you know nothing about? Here Kelly encourages us to know everything we can before tackling a project were there can be no element of surprise that might hinder your goals. Next Make a plan, pretty self explanatory. Find something, know about it, do it! Last but not least, Stick your neck out. After you have done everything you can with your idea present it. Take the risk. This post was so inspiring and uplifting to a future teacher. It helps not to worry or be afraid to take risks.

April 4th Blog Assignment

DEAR KAIA

I thought everything in Dear Kaia was so true. So often people just glance at something and either like it or not without even looking more into it! I think we need to slow down a bit these days. Why rush? There is so much to enjoy and I'm sure there is so much we are missing because we would rather rush than figure things out. I mean don't get me wrong I find myself rushing through things all the time, we all do, but in some instances to rush is only to rob yourself of life's benefits and extras.

These post also opened my eyes to how much we really do take advantage of and miss use technology. We, these days, have so many tools and resources readily available to us there is no reason why we shouldn't put them to use. Even in the miss use of these tools is ridiculous. It's like we like doing things the hard way just so we wont have to work with something new! I myself am guilty of doing something in a basic way, when I could do extra and make it better. I think everyone has done it before. After reviewing these post though it really makes me as a future teacher want to learn all I can and teach all I can. When I have my own classroom I am going to take advantage of all the resources I have because I feel I would be cheating the students otherwise.