ITGold 09 has benefited me in different ways. I am more computer literate. I enjoy making power points and look forward to designing lessons using them. I have already notified my principal and she has already commented on my web site. I feel that I have a lot more knowledge in all the areas that were covered.
I still have difficulty in Excel. My problem comes from having to decide formulas. I like Excel and have already been using it within the past two weeks, organizing my collection of children’s books. I can make the top line freeze, and I am going to alphabetize by author’s last name when I’m through.
The other programs like PowerPoint, Publisher and Word I am using almost every day. I am going to redesign my brochure for the first day of school. I have already decided to use PowerPoint in my lesson planning, especially for Science and Social Studies.
The Web program is awesome. In hindsight, I wish I had gone back each day, reread the notes and had practice from top to bottom. I do enjoy working updating, and changing my web site to benefit my students. I am in the process of redoing my blog page to “match” my web page.
The Soft Skills portion was great too. I found the personality test to be very beneficial. The skills for working in groups and with different students I will use when I teach this fall. I am putting my class into groups. So I will be teaching a few tips using your power points to illustrate the way groups should work.
A special thank you to our instructors -Catherine Lowry, David Luneau, and Thomas Wallace. Thank you for your patience. To my classmates – I enjoyed meeting you and working beside you these past weeks. Keep in touch.
The article that I read on stress emphasized the importance of diet and exercise. My friends and I have started watching what we eat and we are exercising. I have experienced more calmness in dealing with crisis and I definatel sleep better. I also seem to be clearer in my thinking, except when it comes to Excel, lol. I want to continue to exercise and get a better hold of my diet. I am also going to try relaxation music in my classroom this fall to see if it changes the stress level that the students experience. My theory is less stress, less behavior problems. If you would like to read the article, here is the web site,www.mindtools.com/smpage.html
The most useful in-service that I have attended was last summer. The in-service was a week of Arkansas Reading First. Top “dogs” of Reading First were present, and were featured speakers of the week. We had pullout sessions that were led by Arkansas Reading First Literacy Coaches. Most of the presentations were very beneficial, and gave me several ideas for managing my Reading First Block each day. The most impressive was a Literacy Coach from Little Rock School District and Fort Smith School District. They discussed classroom management and time management ideas to help you as the teacher deal with the restless student’s that you may have during center times. I went back a week later when school started, and set my centers up just as they suggested and they were much more productive than in the years past.
Teacher’s of all grades: This is an interesting website with helpful hints from other teachers. The website is called Proteacher proteacher.net
This is one of my favorite web sites.
Listening !!! I have a hard time listening in a room with more than 3 to 4 people. I hear every noise made. In class I can hear people typing, talking, even when someone gets a piece of candy out, I can hear the wrapper. When I hear the noise, it takes me off task for a few seconds until my brain can tell me what the noise is….well by then I’ve missed something that the coach has told me. Unfortunately, today in Excel it was hard, because I hate Math. I don’t like doing anything with numbers. But I did think of some workbook pages that I could design to help me be better organized at school.
Today we are to define “self initiated”, what it means to us. I think “self initiated” is something that we dive into and learn. We have the will power, desire, but it is something we haven’t had very much success in…or practice. That’s what I think it means:)
Today was a real test of skills, or the lack of….lol We attempted to learn Fireworks, graphic design program. I think most of it will make better sense when we get to designing out web pages.
Today I learned a lot about the techinical vocabulary of cyber world. Some of the vocabulary came back to me from my college days; but a lot is very new due to updated technology. I am very excited about the possibilities that are ahead in this class.