Making a poster using Excel

This is a cool way to make posters in a cost efficient way using Excel. It is easy and hardly takes any time or money at all. This would be a handy tool once we all are teachers and need posters to hang around the room.

PSA on Scheduling

For this project my group made a video on scheduling. We showed different scenarios that we all know happen around campus around the time of scheduling. When making this video I think we all had fun and it shows. Some of the pros to this activity were that we learned how to use the camera and also how to edit the movie so it made sense and flowed well.  One con was that the camera did not have a zoom and in order to get a close up effect we had to have the camera close.

I can see myself using videos in my classroom. I think by making the video themselves, students learn more than they would just sitting in their seats listening to a lecture, while having fun doing it.

Prezi and Finale

Today in class we were introduced to a tool called Prezi. Prezi is a tool that is similar to Popplet which we already learned about. With Prezi you are able to use unlimited space, use different backgrounds and fonts, and also add pictures and videos. Another good thing about this tool is you are able to embed your Prezi into your blog. A possible downfall to this tool is when making paths, if there are too many going every which way, the viewer can become dizzy. Prezi is a free program and is very easy to learn about.
We also learned about a music program called Fanale. The obvious downfall to this program is the price. The cheapest it runs is $350 witha student discount. Fanale is pretty neat. It allows you to make your own music composition and play it back in any instrument you choose. This program would be slightly difficult to use if youre not familiar with sheet music. This could also be a downfall because it is difficult to learn how to use. Overall I think this tool would be cool to use in class for those student who are musical learners.

Kidspiration

I really enjoyed this tool. It is part of a series which also include inspiration, which is for older children and adults. The fall back to this tool is that there is only access to a temporary free download and we would eventually have to purchase this to continue using it. This would be a good tool to use in a classroom, when using super grouper, because it allows children to group things into categories. The example we were shown was the children are on the computer and the teacher gave them a topic such as fruit. The students were responsible for finding pictures of fruit using the clip art provided, and also finding pictures that were not fruit. I think this tool would benifit students in a positive way.

Museum box and Go!Animate

In class we learned about a tool called museum box. This seemed like a pretty cool tool. It was a lot more interesting than a standard powerpoint, which I think is a great quality. Museum box would be a good tool to use in a classroom because it allows us to group things into different categories. For example we could have a box titled "Planets" and in each drawer we could have the names of all the planets and a fact about each of them.
We were also shown a tool called Go!Animate. This is a cool tool because it would get childrens attention because it is different and interesting. The fall back to this is that it is not free. This would be a good tool to use in a classroom because it is able to turn lessons into cartoons. This seems like a more interesting way to learn than to just sit and listen to the teacher lecture about something.

Wordle

I really enjoy this tool. This could be used as an introduction activity for any age really. It is really easy to use and it is a creative way to introduce yourself and the things you like.
All you do is in the box provided, you write anything you want about yourself or an activity. The more times a word appears in the box the larger that word will be in the final product, making it easy to see what is really important to people.
There is a down fall to wordle. You are unable to save your wordle in a place where you can access it later, meaning we would have to finish in class and present. Or we have the option of printing out our wordle so we can present the next day.
This would be a different  way to introduce ourselves as teachers on the first day of class. It seems like everyone pretty much has a set way of doing that. This is just another option.
The link for wordle: http://www.wordle.net/create

Music in Education

I was in band for 8 years throughout school. I played the flute and was in marching band for 6 years. Every year my band director would tell us how the school district is thinking about getting rid of the arts (choir and band) because they are not as important as all the other subjects such as reading and math. She would make us write pretend letters to the board saying why we think music should be kept in schools. I was researching what music does to the brain and these are some things I found that maybe shoud be taken into consideration...

• Music improves spatial-temporal reasoning (See the M.I.N.D. Institute research), a neurological process needed to understand mathematics. The best way to enhance your child's learning with music is to encourage listening to and learning music throughout the child's developmental years. (http://childparenting.about.com/cs/k6education/a/mozarteffect.htm)

• Music training imposes a high working-memory load. That can be a good thing, in that it helps you expand your working memory capacity, and thus reduces the impairing effects on memory of working memory overload. Increasing working memory capacity also improves the ability to think, as manifest in IQ scores.
• Music show improvements in auditory verbal memory and auditory attention
• She(Nina Kraus, a prominent brain researcher at Northwestern University) believes music training may benefit academic achievement by improving learning skills and listening ability, especially in challenging listening environments (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201007/music-training-helps-learning-memory)

• It is a proven fact that music has helped to educate students. For example some kindergarten teachers use musical rhymes to teach their children how to write, and how to learn the alphabet. The reason behind this is because it helps the child to retain the information better than without the rhymes or music. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/58241/can_music_help_enhance_learning_ability.html)

I 100% believe that music has a positive effect when it comes to education. A major debate is whether or not to keep funding the music program. I wish everyone understood what a great expreience music provides for a person. Even if it wasnt a proven fact that music helps when it comes to memory, I still think music should be kept in schools.
I understand that english, math, and reading are more important when it comes to getting an educaion, but when I child learns to play an instrument or learns to sing, they are becoming wello rounded individuals.
Once I am a teacher I am going to incorporate music into my lessons, not every single lesson but into at least once a week or  maybe even once a day, I will have music in my classroom.
If music works to help with tests, why not use it?

Google Docs

In this class I think the most interesting and easiest thing we have used so far is Google Docs. It was so easy to use. It was very convient that we were able to do a group project without having to meet in person so we didnt have to work around everyones schedule. I really liked how we were able to write the paper but also comment on the side so we were not all writing on the document at the same time.
One thing I did not like about it was when we all tried typing on the document at the same time it did something funky and moved the page because we were all doing it at the same time.
I think Google Docs would be very easy to integrate into any classroom.

My name is Natausha Glenn. I am a sophomore at Edinboro University of PA. I am an Early Childhood Education major. My goal after becoming a teacher is to make a difference in a childs life even if it is just one child. Knowing that because of me one childs life was made better will be the biggest satisfaction for me as a teacher. I think making a difference in a childs life should be at least one goal of every single educator. No matter what they are an educator of, we should all have the mind set that we are here to make a difference in someones life. I think that is what being an educator is all about. I would like to share anything useful I learn that might be useful to use in a classroom. Not just in early childhood education but in every educational aspect.