June 12, 2012 Web Conference

Today, I was going to attend the July 8th web conference at 5:00pm, but I had connection problems and was not able to get on the web conference until 5:20. By that time the conference was already over. Therefore, I am going to reflect on the June 12, 2012 web conference. This conference was about the week 2 podcast assignments. Dr. Abernathy clarified the assignment for everyone. There was some question to whether or not the podcast tutorial had to be over a program that was already being used in the school we teach at or not. Dr. Abernathy informed everyone that it just had to be a podcast on how to get started with the software of your choice. If we wanted to use one that our district already uses that would be fine, or if we wanted to use a free one from open source that would be fine too. This web conference was a reminder to make a "quick start" tutorial and to make sure that you were in a group for weeks 3, 4, and 5.

The web conferences for EDLD 5363 were very helpful in explaining assignments since we are not in an actual classroom setting. I am very thankful for the use of web conferences. Thank God for TECHNOLOGY!!!

Web Conference July 2, 2012

Yesterday I attended my second web conference for EDLD 5363. In this web conference we discussed some of the confusion about the different assignments for week 5. Dr. Abernathy let us know that one of the assignments was wrong in our assignments tab and she had uploaded the correct assignment to our announcements tab. Also, we discussed the different parts of the 5.9 assignment. Dr. Abernathy told us that we are to report on our progress of our internship and the progress of our action research plan. The purpose of this activity is to help us check where we are so far, so that we don't come to the end and try to shove everything into our last few weeks of school.

In this web conference I asked what we were suppose to do on our course embedded assignments. I have had course embedded assignments in other classes and was not sure of what I was suppose to write up about them. Dr. Abernathy clarified this for me. She let me know that I just need to write a reflection about what I already knew about the subject, what I learned about the subject, and how I will apply what I learned to my school or district.

This was a great web conference and I believe that Dr. Abernathy really cleared up some of the confusion/misunderstanding for all of us. A great thank you goes out to Dr. Abernathy! :)

Web Conference July 1, 2012

Yesterday, I attended a web conference for EDLD 5363 at 5:00pm. When I first logged on to the web conference, I was unsure of how to get my camera to work because I was using someone else's computer since my personal computer crashed. I was able to navigate the web conference web page very easily and quickly found the button to turn on my camera.



In this web conference Dr. Abernathy answered questions about our video projects and reminded us to keep working hard. She also gave us lots of words of encouragement and let us know that we did not have to submit our video and audio files until week 5. My team thought that we had to submit everything in week 4, so we already have our video and audio files ready for our week 5 assignments. This conference was very informational about our weekly assignments. Dr. Abernathy let us know that the week 5 assignments are basically the same as the week 4 assignments. We will just need to add any changes that we make to our project and update our Google Document collaboration page with who is doing each part of the assignment.



During the web conference, I somehow lost connection and had to wait on my computer to reconnect. By the time I rejoined the web conference, Dr. Abernathy was telling everyone bye. I hope that I didn't miss anything that I needed to hear, but I have learned that sometimes things like that just happen.  

Please click the link below to listen to my Windows Live Movie Maker Tutorial. When you get on the page, click on the mp3 file at the bottom of the page.

https://sites.google.com/site/mentionsfrommeza/podcast-tutorial

 

Windows Live Movie Maker Quick Start Tutorial by Alicia Meza is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Making a Digital Photo Story

For my class EDLD 5363 I had to create a digital photo story. I created a digital story over a time when my whole family plus a couple of friends surprised my sister for her 24th birthday in Chicago, Illinois. I really enjoyed creating this product. I did have a little trouble getting the audio to work correctly, but then I realized I had to narrate each picture individually. This activity was very engaging and I really enjoyed making my first ever movie. I can't wait to show my sister! I think she will be so proud!!!

Synchronous Aspect of Web Conference

In course EDLD 5364, Teaching with Technology, there were many opportunities to participate in optional web conferences. During this course, I did not choose to participate in a web conference. However, I have participated in web conferences in my other courses at Lamar University. The whole idea, that everyone can be "meeting" together, without physically "meeting" together, is so intriguing to me. Technology has really made communication so much easier. I believe that web conferences provide a form of convenience in communication. It is not convenient to drive several hours to go to a meeting, but with web conferences, you can sit in your own home and meet with others from long distances away. For me, the idea that so many people can be connected all at once is remarkable. Where would we be without technology today? I have truly found web conferences very beneficial and I hope to learn how to create a web conference one day.

Reflections From EDLD 5306

As I began my Master's program, I was very excited to learn more about technology since I do not have a lot of experience in this area. The main outcome that I envisioned for this course was to learn more technology applications that I could implement into my general education classroom. I wanted to learn how to become more technology savvy. I was able to achieve these outcomes by learning some new technology applications.

 A few things I learned about are; blogs, Wikis, and online videos. I learned how to create and design a blog. I also learned how to paste and edit text on my blog. I feel that this will be beneficial to me because it is something that I can use with my students to engage them in online learning. Another thing I learned was how to create a Wiki. I had never heard about a Wiki before this class. I learned how to create a Wiki and how to make changes to my Wiki. This can be useful to me by allowing my students to collaborate online and thus learn from each other. The next thing I learned was how to create an online video. This was one of the most interesting things I learned; probably because I am a visual learner and enjoy teaching with visuals as well. I believe this application can be a great way for me to have students "publish" their work online. These course outcomes were exactly what I had envisioned. I have not implemented the new technology applications I have learned in my classroom yet, but hopefully, I will be able to in the near future.

The more I think about what I have learned, the more relevant I realize these applications are to my work as a 4th grade general education teacher. I can apply the three technology applications that I have learned to my Math, Spelling, Science, and Social Studies lessons that I already have and teach. The new things that I have learned will be helpful to me now because I can start making my classroom a better technological environment as I implement my new findings into my class lessons. They will also be helpful to me in the future as I learn more about technology because I will be able to add more to what I already know and expand my knowledge about technology. This will make me better at improving my technology use and make me a better teacher for today's 21st Century learners.

Throughout this course, I was able to achieve all of the outcomes that I had for myself. Considering that my main goal was to learn new technology to use in my classroom, I know that I accomplished that. As an educator, I want to keep up with what students are interested in and be able to challenge them as well. I believe I will be able to do that by using the things I have learned from this course. I am extremely excited to implement the new technology that I have gained an understanding about.

As I look back at the past five weeks, I believe that I was able to successfully achieve these outcomes because the assignment directions were stated in a way that was easy to follow. I also had help from my professor, through web conferences. I received assistance from my instructional assistant through questions and answers via email and I attained help from my colleagues by questions and answers on the discussion board. All of these, helped to make me a successful student.

Each week I was successful in carrying out all of the course assignments. However, there is one main challenge that I faced. I had to get an extension on my week two assignment. This was because I could not get a copy of our school technology plan. At my campus, the only person who can access the technology plan is our technology administrator that works at the administration office. I contacted him to get the information I needed but did not receive the school technology plan until the Monday after my assignment was due. When I knew that I was not going to be able to complete my assignment in time, I contacted my course professor and she allowed me three more days to complete my assignment. This was an answer to prayer! I was able to complete my assignment on Tuesday, one day before it was due. I was successful at carrying out all of the tasks for the week two assignment; it just took me a few extra days. I learned from this experience to always ask well in advance for any and all information that I may need for my assignments.

During this course, I feel that I learned a great deal of information. I keep conveying this information to others that ask me about my schooling. I feel that I have been somewhat of a sponge just soaking in all this new information. One thing I learned about myself is that I am not implementing enough technology into my class lessons. I realize that this is partly due to the fact that I do not have a large variety of technology instruments to use at my campus, but I need to learn to make what I do have useful. As a 21st Century educator, I should be implementing more technology into my class lessons because, my students are digital learners. I will be able to do this by implementing the things I have learned from this course into my classroom instruction. Since I have not had a lot of experience with technology leadership, I feel that I need to improve these skills as well. I will be able to do this by collaborating with the principal and computer teacher at my campus during my Internship.

Though I know the next 18 months may be full of rigor, I feel that my attitudes about technology are great. I am eager to learn about Educational Technology and how to implement more technology into my classroom. I also have the motivation to make it happen.