My Journey Through EDU 314

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Before entering my EDU314 classroom I knew very little about computers, I only knew how to copy and paste documents with control C and control V. You could almost say I was computer illiterate before taking this course. It was often that I would say I hated technology.  Found computers to be terribly frustrating and intimidating. I have learned so much about computers throughout this semester. I can honestly say I am very proud of the website I have created and the skills that I have acquired throughout this course. Now, I feel very confident in using the Nvu program. I can link websites, add images, manage the table settings, and add alternative text to the pictures I put on my website. I also have learned how to make my own puzzle and manage many of the tools in the new Microsoft Word program that I didn’t know how to use before. I also learned that when I am making my own website, all the files should be located in the same folder or the links will not work!

Besides making my own website I loved using the watermark tool in Microsoft word. I think that is definitely a fun aspect of the application that I didn’t even know existed. I also enjoyed doing my own photo story with the Microsoft Photostory 3 program. I am excited to show all of my friends my photo story and even show them how to make one of their own. I am even thinking about making a photo story for each of my housemates. First I need to figure out how to get the photostory program onto my Mac computer!

Although there were many exciting projects throughout the class, I did have some frustrations. At the last minute I decided to delete a link that I never used. The frustrating part of this was that the link was on every single page of my website. I found it to be extremely annoying and tedious to go through all of my web pages to delete that one item. I ran into the same problem when I changed the name of my homepage. After changing the name of the page I had to re-link all of the pages to my home page. However, I didn’t have too many problems with my links not working like many of the other people in my class because I made sure to keep everything in the same folder. I am glad that was stressed throughout the semester or I would have had some serious problems with my website.

I worked alone on project number four, the acrostic project. Although I liked working alone, I needed a lot of help from our T.A.s to get me started. After getting started on the project I was fine for the most part. Next, I worked on the web quest project with four other people. I thought this was difficult because unlike the elementary group project, we were spread out around the room and couldn’t collaborate on any ideas. We basically copy and pasted the information and put it into our own web quest. I think I like doing the make your own elementary school project better because I actually sat with my group and we talked about what we were going to do for the project. Everyone was working together as a team. I think this was more helpful because if one of the group members had a question about how to do something on the computer, another group member was sitting right next to you. During this project worked on one page at a time which was much easier than the web quest, where I was working on five pages at once and felt overwhelmed. I learned a lot from this project and enjoyed collaborating ideas with my classmates. I think groups in the future classes should sit next to one another to make sure everyone in their group knows what they are doing.

In the beginning of the semester, I think it was important for the students to pair up and show one another a few things they knew about the computer. For example, Taryn Lippert showed me how to use control F to search a document for a certain word. Now that I have this knowledge, I use it all of the time. Almost every time I am researching a topic on the internet I use control F to find the topic of what I am looking for.

Now that I have begun to learn about all of the interesting things you can do with computers, I want to learn so much more. I would like to continue to learn about the Nvu program and the different tools that can be used. I would also like to continue to develop my knowledge of the new Microsoft Word program. I still have trouble finding the tools that I need to use within the application. Taking this course has definitely encouraged me to take other computer courses in the future. Since taking this course, I find computers to be less intimidating and more exciting than I did in the past.

I am sure I will take these skills with me into my professional career as an elementary school teacher. As a teacher my goal is to teach in a unique way that is interesting to students. I think this course will help me achieve this goal when I am in my own classroom. I plan on using many of these activities with my students. I feel in a classroom, it is very important for students to become acquainted with one another and with me as a teacher. I plan on using the acrostic project with my students in the beginning of the school year. Students will be able to write about themselves and present this to the class. As a teacher I would also like to have my own website to be accessible for other teachers, parents, and students alike. This would be useful because parents would be able to see what their children are doing in the classroom as well as view upcoming events within the classroom. Students could check the website if they forgot what the homework was, to play an educational game, or even study for an upcoming event. 

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