Tennis anyone?

Anyone who has been reading my blog realizes that I'm a high school teacher. One of my greatest passions, however, since about the age of 8 has been competitive tennis. Since my neck surgery in December 2007, my tennis "prowess" has been relegated, unfortunately, to watching competitive tennis on the tube. A recent match I was excited to see was from Key Biscayne, Florida...the Sony Erickson tounament...it's always fun to see Serena Williams play (especially when she beats Maria Sharapova) as she did in this semi-final match. I found a small segment of the match on You Tube and thought I'd share it with any of you tennis/Serena fans out there. Happy Viewing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MqoT206XFU&feature=related

ETC 230

I am currenly enrolled in an ETC230 class through DTCC with Dr. Michael Mills. This course been quite a challenge for me, but I've learned so much. Although I consider myself to be average in terms of technology, I'm always amazed how much is out there to use. This semester, we've talked about topics such as online courseware applications, student support services, distance education/learning, interactive television/video conferencing and telecourses. I've been pleasantly surprised this semester at how much I've learned from not only the readings, research and projects, but also through the use of the discussion board. I've realized that a distance education format which is self-paced can be motivating, provided the instructor is interested and gives feedback, as Dr. Mills has throughout this semester. I've taken all of my ETC classes online and am looking forward to completing the last course for the advanced certification this summer hopefully. This posting is part of a capstone project that I'm completing and hope you enjoy reading my past entries as well.

Perfecting Power Point Presentations

For my computer skills students, I've been working on improving their Power Points. My goal has been for them to not only improve their topic choices, but just as importantly, their actual presentation skills. I will show them a number of slides and slide shows that worked well versus those that didn't and I want them to be able to critique what worked well and what didn't. In addition, I've decided to introduce them to Slide Share and some You Tube videos, so that they can visually understand some of the key points I'm attempting to get across. To that end, I have attached the following links that I plan on using during these PowerPoint lessons.



Slideshare



By sharing slideshare with my students, I want them to be able to see the "world that is bigger than they are". I am requiring them to pick topics that are greater than themselves -- not the typical musical artists, sports icons, celebrities, etc., but things that will matter and should matter to this generation. When we looked at the Shift Happens video, it was definitely an eye-opener for me. It not only made me think (which of course was the point), but it reminded me that the true art of a PowerPoint is the PASSION FOR YOUR TOPIC. I'm working with my students about truly getting that message and hope this will aid me in that pursuit.



In regards to working through the perils of bad PowerPoint presentation skills, I found a few webcasts that I thought were valuable to the age group I'm trying to target (high school students). Also, I really liked the humorous one, because as many times as I talk to them about it, the comedian was able to put a funny spin on what I'm trying to get across. The links are listed below:


Don't Read Your PowerPoint Slides
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVKfz0J_mPA&feature=related

How NOT to Use PowerPoint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLpjrHzgSRM&feature=related

Killer Presentation Skills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whTwjG4ZIJg&feature=related

Penn State Blogging

I was trying to look on the Internet for instances where Web 2.0 using blogging, podcasts, webcasts and so forth were actually being used in the classroom setting. As a high school computer teacher, this form of technology that I'm starting to now understand more is definitely something I would like to use and share with my students. To that end, I found a great resource article about a project that was done at Penn State University. PSU is near and dear to my heart, as I graduated from this great university in 1989. There is a program that introduced students during a 5-week summer course to using blogs, podcasts and so forth. I was pleasantly surprised and of course, very encouraged, by what I found through reading this article. Take a look at the link below. It even contains audio tutorials that the students were given to facilitate their process and progress. This gives me incentive to work through this type of information now with my own students.

Blogs at Penn State
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=1004

Current Events

In my opinion, one of the greatest advantages to the Internet age as related to the classroom are that it allows students, teachers, etc. to have immediate access to the realities of world issues. When most of us think back to our own youth, the Internet was not yet in use by the public, there were no MAC/ATM machines, cell phones were certainly never heard of and the idea of walking around with a gadget smaller than a playing card that could hold 1,000s of songs, videos, movie was unthinkable. On this entry, I've linked to two sites I thought were very topical for students...especially those who might actually be old enough to vote in this upcoming presidential election. Please find the links listed below:

http://www.c-spanclassroom.org/resourcelinks.aspx
C-Span Classroom – 2008 Campaign Videos

http://www.youtube.com/youchoose
You Tube- You Choose

Happy New Year!

I'm back on the trail of finishing up this "blog in progress". I had no idea honestly until I started working on this capstone project how many awesome projects that are out there for students. These include real life experience trips, labs, etc. that are out there for all different ages of students, as well as a variety of subjects. I am going to link to just a few of those that I found particularly worthwhile. I stronly encourage you to visit these and my hope is that, it will then springboard you in to many others. It was hard to pick just a few to list honestly. I was so excited by this find that I am working a number of them into my curriculum for next semester. Although I've been working with computer technology education for quite some time, I am stunned at what is out there if we just have the time to look and of course, the time to try these types of experiences with our students. I did my best to select suggestions that are supportive of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences.

The links are listed below:

About: Greatest Living Writers Project
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=10734

Developing the Listening Mind
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=11251

Let's Go Global
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=8818

Locations for Learning
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=12056

Amazing Day!

After hours of searching and learning more than I ever expected, I have found some amazing webcasts that I found on the Internet. Although I'm a computer software teacher, I had no idea honestly how much can be learned on these various mediums that are online currently. I would like to share a link to a computer animation of my cervical disc replacement surgery. Although it's nothing I would normally have found interesting, now that I've had the surgery, I'm addicted to watching and learning on these You Tube live surgery webcasts. I hope this will help those who didn't know they were out there to learn about many scientific technologies occurring everyday around the world.



Here is the link for the cervical disc replacement surgery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsYyVtBph7E&feature=related