TPACK Document

This class has been truly unlike any I've ever taken before. Before starting this course, I considered myself decently knowledgeable in the areas of software and what was available. Boy, did I learn some things! While I have a few years before I'll be able to use my new found knowledge in the classroom, I'm already trying to think of ways to incorporate it into my current occupation. I currently work in a middle school as the financial secretary. I know that students, as young as seventh grade, are learning things such as Powerpoint and their motion paths as part of their 21st Century Skills. Teachers are rushing to "catch up". As a future business teacher, I hope to stay abreast of technology. I believe this class has given me a wonderful headstart. My TPACK document can be viewed by clicking here.

Google Docs Form

Google Docs is a wonderful group of programs. Easily accessible by groups of people and the ability to keep "real-time" updates, Google docs could make emailing, updating and re-emailing a thing of the past. For my Google form, I chose to make a form for something I could use at my current job. My form would make a spreadsheet to track training hours for staff.

View my form by clicking here.

As a future teacher, I think the Google forms application could be a useful tool in the classroom. Multiple choice quizzes would be a snap. With the summary function, it would be easy to analyze where students needed more instruction...for example, if everyone missed question #32 - perhaps, it needs viewed.

NETS Reflection:
Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.
Google Forms is a wonderful way to capture data in real time. There are countless uses for this application in the classroom.

Jeopardy!

Jeopardy Labs provides an inexpensive and easy way to create Jeopardy boards online. The process is extremely simple and takes much less time to set up, in comparison to Powerpoint. Click here to play my Jeopardy Quiz!

This is a fun and helpful site. Students would enjoy this. Personally, I think it would be a fun way to study definitions, etc. - much more interesting than flash cards. I created my Jeopardy lab with Business content questions and terms.

NETS Reflection:
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

Photostory

My biggest issue with this assignment was my microphone not working. Finally, I clicked enough buttons and unplugged and plugged it into my computer enough that I won! Click below for my first Youtube video!


Cyberbulling is a real problem amongst school aged children. The purpose of my PSA is to inform parents of the situation and what they and their children can do to combat the problem.

NETS Reflection:
This is another one of those assignments that reflects knowledge of all the NETS Standards. Not only would teachers and students being showing a fluency in digital tools, they would be being creative, showing leadership through informing others and promoting citizenship.
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

Prezi

Prezi is unlike any program I've used before. I could spend days just playing with it. Unlike Powerpoint, which confines you to slide after slide, Prezi allows you to move throughout the presentation freely. The way it flows makes the presentation more interactive and less boring.

Here's my Prezi:

Sample Business Plan on Prezi

While I'm not completely satisfied with this presentation, I look forward to creating more. I think this could be very useful in education. Some of the presentations on Prezi were absolutely amazing. I look forward to "honing" my Prezi skills.

NETS Reflection:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society. Teachers:
a. demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations
b. collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success
and innovation
c. communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats
d. model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information
resources to support research and learning

Motion Path

I must say. I've been a fan of Powerpoint for a while, but the new things I'm learning are awesome! My motion path was inspired by my 6 year old daughter. She got a new piggy bank and was very eager to fill it. However, as soon as she filled it, she was ready to buy something. We had to have a discussion about the importance of saving.

The great thing about labels and motion path is they add to your presentation. No longer "another boring powerpoint", they become interactive.

Like the other assignments, this meets almost all the ISTE NETS including:
Facilitate and Inspire creativity: I think students would really like "playing" with this feature.
Model Digital Work and Learning: Through creating projects using this technique students could model many different concepts.

Labels

SUCCESS!

After great difficultly, I finally got my labeled slide to work. The Powerpoint part of the assignment wasn't too difficult for me. I enjoy Powerpoint and it is my friend :) However, the loading the assignment to ftp had me stumped.

Thank goodness for some other classmates whose blogs I could check to see how they accomplished this feat. Check out the blogs of Trixie Devine, Crystal Dotson, or Misty Dabate. Thanks guys!

When it came down to it, my problem appeared to be the .pptx extension on my files. I changed Powerpoint to save as 97-2003 and that seemed to solve my problems. My presentation was on Smart Home Technology. Originally, it was part of my Marketing class. I thought it would be a good example. An understanding of Powerpoint can be a great asset in the classroom. It is a wonderful way to show a process in a less boring manner.

It meets many of the ISTE NETS including:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning - Students using this program would learn digital tools, and ability to create useful information resources to support research and learning.
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments - Through using this tool, teachers could customize assignments to meet specific student learning types.
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity - This tool promotes creativity. I sure students and teachers could come up with many innovative ways to use this labels in their Powerpoint presentations.

Ignite Slideshow

Check out my slide presentation in Ignite format.

Consumer credit powerpoint ignite

View more presentations from Anita Lambert.

This slideshow directly relates to my previous post. It too is presented via Slideshare. To learn more about Slideshare, click here.

Powerpoint

As a Business Education major, an important part of business education should be lessons on Personal Finance. My Powerpoint gives an oversight into Consumer Credit.

While I had created this Powerpoint for another class, Slideshare made it possible to update the video for viewing online. Slideshare was simple to use and required only a couple clips to publish my creation. If you are interested in posting Powerpoints online via Slideshare, visit their website by clicking here.

This lesson could be used not only describe how consumer credit works, but could be an introduction to math CSOs, such as:
M.O.CM.2.5 - describe and illustrate how calculating costs, simple and compound interest, Finance charge, loan payment and tax functions are used to solve real-world problems.

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.b. engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.c. promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.
a) Power point does require a modicum of inventiveness. You want to be informative, and yet keep your audience engaged.
b) Power Point is a real tool used in the everyday world. It is beneficial for students to become acquainted with this early, as they could use it in just about any career field. It is an easy way to present information in a myriad of different ways in a short amount of time.
c) I like the part about conceptual understanding and planning. Students have to be aware of a certain flow of slides, and how they communicate relevant information to their audience. Power point presentations should be cohesive and comprehensive.

Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessmentsa. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
b. develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress.
c. customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.

Technical Problems

I've been having some issues with the tinyurl websites. Sometimes it will bring up a message that says site not found. I have tried from both my home computer and work computer. I did find out that all the sites are blocked from work.

Today, they seem to be working. I've saved the directions for the next couple lessons. Hopefully, I can get back on track. Anyone else having this problem?

Thanks!

Jing Screencast

This assignment took me quite a while to complete. The program is simple to use. My main issue was being able to fit the whole lesson into the allotted time. Additionally, I messed up a few times and had to go back and re-record it.

As a future Business Education teacher, I think one of the most important basic skills people need to understand is 1) how to keep a check register and balance their checking account and 2) how to use Excel. In my screencast, I have combined these two skills to create a Simple Checkbook Register in Excel.

Jing is a wonderful demonstration tool.

It meets many of the ISTE NETS including:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning - Students using this program would learn digital tools, and ability to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information
resources to support research and learning.
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments - Through using this tool, teachers could customize assignments to meet specific student learning types.
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity - This tool promotes creativity. I sure students and teachers could come up with many innovative ways to use this tool.

Jing Graphic

Like the snipping tool, Jing allows you to capture a screenshot of your computer. Unlike the snipping tool, Jing integrates the ability to label, highlight and point out certain areas of your capture. For my Jing graphic, I captured an Excel spreadsheet and labeled some basic parts. I could see this tool being very helpful in the classroom.

The "free and cool" programs I'm learning about in this class are great. Being a "visual" person, I like to be able to show people what I'm talking about.

Jing makes this process simple.

NETS Reflection:
I think Jing meets nearly all the NETS T Standards:
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

Google Drawing

Most of my experience with drawing tools consist of publishing programs such as, Publisher, Photoshop, In Design and Pagemaker. Design is something I truly enjoy. I believe that Google Drawing was my first online drawing experience (unless you count Picassohead). I like that most of the commands were similar to MS Publisher. The program seemed pretty straight forward. My Google drawing can be viewed by clicking here.



This assignment met the following ISTE NETS:
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

Self-Assessment

After completing the Self-Assessment survey (located here), I found that there were a few more things that I needed to be doing. I have started going back through my blogs and making corrections. So far, my corrections have included:

• making "Blog Archive" my top gadget
• correcting my URL formats so that the actual web address was not displayed

I have read and reread the blog rubric. I'm working to make my blog "excellent". The self assessment was very helpful.

Glogster

I created a Glogster poster of my daughter with a recording of her singing "You are My Sunshine". It can be viewed by clicking here.

Learning Outcomes:

1. What is glog? A glog is a graphical blog. It can contain pictures, text, audio and video.
   
2. How might you use a glog in your class? Glogs could be used for presentation projects. Students could make posters for everything from historical events to marketing presentations.
   
3. What ISTE NETS T does the use of Glogster most likely correspond with in your opinion? Glogster helps facilitate student learning and creativity.
   
4. What is the problem (if any) with this program? I have limited knowledge of the program. I did notice limits on audio and video size. A
   

Self Portrait

I have to say that I do not think this looks anything like me. My daughter said it looked just like me. She loved this assignment. We now have "Picasso"s of myself, her, the dog, Daddy...everyone she could think of. My daughter is currently the biggest influence on my life.

After I graduated from high school, I went to college because it is what I thought I was supposed to do. However, now I realize that I just was not ready. I had always been a good student, but had no idea what direction I wanted to go in. After a few semesters, I dropped out, came home and got a job. However, I was never really happy with myself for leaving school. When I got married, I found a better job so my husband could finish school. The plan was for him to finish, get a job and then I could go back. Things usually don't go as planned. My husband graduated from college in May 2004. We had our daughter June 2004.

Plans changed. My husband found a job, but I continued to work because I felt that's what I was supposed to do. Last winter, I realized time is flying by! My daughter was almost done with preschool and I was trying to find someone to watch her for the summer. My job was stressful. I was not happy. It was time to go back and finish what I started -this time with a little more direction and a lot more motivation. Luckily, about the same time, a school secretary job came open. While I knew it would be less money, I would have summer's off with my daughter. So I applied for the job. Going back to school and switching jobs has been the best decision.

To create your own Picasso, click here.

NETS Reflection:
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity - This activity would definitely engage students in a creative activity.
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning - PicassoHead gives students the opportunity to demonstrate fluency in digital tools and communicate ideas in a digital format.

VARK Questionnaire

I've always considered myself a very visual person. Usually, if I see something explained, I can figure out how to do it. My VARK Questionnaire results were:

• Visual: 8
• Aural: 5
• Read/Write: 6
• Kinesthetic: 10

According to the questionnaire, I have a multimodal learning preference.

Find out your learning preference by taking the VARK Questionnaire here.

Snipping Tool

I am excited about learning about this tool. I'll often do a "screen shot" to email something I'm trying to explain. However, with screen shots you got the whole screen. Then you have to paste it into paint and crop out the portion that you want. This is a much simpler process and will save time.

I snipped the location of the file on my computer:

NETS Reflection:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning - Shows knowledge of using digital tools.

Edit:
The snipping tool is one of the most useful tools I learned in this class...especially related to my current job. I'm often calling the county treasurer trying to explain what I'm seeing on my accounting screen. She often comments "without seeing it, I can't really tell what you're talking about"...well, the snipping tool fixed that problem for me. Now I email snips of what I'm seeing so she can see it too. Woohoo!

Voicethread Activity

Hello from my couch! I have a lovely summer cold. I completed the assignment up to the point of actually posting a video/voice comment. Since I'm having problems going 10 seconds without coughing my head off, I thought I'd hold off on that one for a day or two (at least until my voice doesn't sound so deep and I can hear out of both ears).

Voicethread is a powerful communication interface. It would be very useful in education and business. I don't know how many times that I've been trying to explain something to someone over the phone and they comment "I could probably help, if I could just see what you're talking about." This would give people that opportunity. I believe the old adage is "Tell me and I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me and I learn." Through Voicethread, students could do more than merely watch. They could participate and learn.

To learn more about Voicethread, visit their website by clicking here.

NETS Reflection:
Voicethread fits with the following NETS T Standards:
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
a. promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning,and creative processes
b. model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
c. customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources
d. provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching

On a personal note...

Congratulations to Braxton County High School Baseball team on their victory tonight!

Good luck Saturday!

Google Reader

So far, I have subscribed to two blogs. The first one is 21st Century Teaching and Learning. To view this blog, click here. In MPB Reflections, the blogger looks at innovations in learning in higher education. In the most recent blog, she discusses "A Case for Social Networking in College Learning". With today's newest technological advances, education is rapidly changing to "keep up" with the times. This blog offers some ways that is happening. The other blog I subscribed to is CoolCatTeacher. It, too, talks about technology in the classroom. I'm still browsing several blogs. I'll pass along anything amazing.

Google Reader makes subscribing to blogs easy and organized. To find out more about Google Reader, visit their tour website by clicking here.


Learning Outcomes:
What is a blog syndication and how does it differ from your previous strategies for information gathering?
Through blog syndication, I am able to put everything I am interested in reading in one convenient place. Previously, I would search for information through google. If I found something I wanted updates on, I would mark the page as a "Favorite". Then I would have to periodically check the pages for updates. Google Reader streamlines this process by putting everything together.
What does RSS stand for?
Really Simple Syndication

Resume Posting

I have uploaded my resume to Google Docs. The original resume was composed in MS Word 2007. It uploaded to Google Documents with little need for format corrections. The only difference I noticed was the original has a 1 pt. line page border. My resume can be viewed by clicking here.

To learn more about Google Docs and set up your own account, click here!

NETS Reflection:
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments- Students in the Business Content area should understand the importance of a resume. Google Docs provides not only a program to create the resume, but a way to publish it to various career sites.
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning- In order to create a resume via Google Docs, students would show a proficiency in various software and web skills.
Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership- Business Education requires life long learning. By keeping an updated resume online, teachers show a commitment to furthering their knowledge and staying on top of current technology.

Speed Test

Last Result:
Download Speed: 6477 kbps (809.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 714 kbps (89.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Personality Test Results

Upon taking the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II, my results showed that I fell into the Artisans group. As a future teacher, I think the characteristics associated with the Artisan group will serve me well. By being creative and unconventional, I hope will be able to keep my future students interested in the subjects I teach. Another characteristic of Artisans is "troubleshooting leaders", surely this will be an invaluable personality trait in the classroom.

Personality Test Experience

The only previous experience I have with personalities tests comes from my Corporate Communications class. Toward the end of the semester, we did a short and informal survey in class that grouped the class into four groups. The groups corresponded to a letter; however, I can't remember what they were - perhaps ISTP? One thing that stood out during the test was that it seemed to accurately divide us into groups with similar personalities. There were 2 really shy, quiet people in the class. They were in a group together. The more talkative and outgoing members of the class were grouped together also. I was in that group.

After reading about the four types of temperaments, I can't decide whether I would fall into the "Artisans" or "Idealists" group. While I don't consider myself an artist of any sort, I tend to be fun-loving and realistic. As for the Idealist group, I've been told that I'm a very authentic person. However, Idealists are also described as being trusting and that's one trait I do not share with them. It will be interesting to take the personality test and find out where I fall.

Browser Wars

· What is a web browser?
A web browser is a software application used for exploring the World Wide Web. Through a web browser, you are able send and receive information over the internet.

· List the most popular 4 web browsers currently?
According to Wikipedia, as of April 2010, the four most popular web browsers were Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
· What does the term 'browser war' mean and what drives the competition between web browsers? What is the big deal in having the #1 browser?
The term ‘browser war’ refers to the competition among web browser makers for usage share. Having the biggest share of users means that the company has the biggest “customer” base. The more popular browser get more advertisers and more market share for their peripherals.

My personal experience with web browers...

I began using the World Wide Web in 1995 via Mosaic. At the time, it was amazing. Browser technologies and features quickly change. Later, I found myself using Internet Explorer because it is easy. It was always been "loaded" on the computer when I got it and I didn't really have to think about it. Having several "techie" friends, I was lured to try Firefox. Currently, it is my browser of choice.

My First Blog & Introduction...

Hi, my name is Anita Lambert. Currently, I am enrolled as a junior in Business Education at FSU. Besides being a full-time student, I am the mother of a very rotten 6 (almost!) year old. Additionally, I am employed as the Finance Secretary for Braxton County Middle School. I've always been fascinated by technology and am really looking forward to this class.

I have a great camera phobia; however, I take plenty of pictures of my daughter. She took this one of me.