Ok, so here is the second reflection of the week. For our educational technology class we had to dig around on our teacher's website http://www.cyndidannerkuhn.info/CDK/Home.html and write a reflection on some things or resources that we found there so here goes:
To start off with, before I even enrolled in this class, I heard about Cyndi Danner-Kuhn and her love for technology through a cousin of mine. She’s employed in one of the Junction City elementary schools and Cyndi did a presentation there. Over Christmas break I saw my cousin and she told me to look up Cyndi's website and various things she talked about. So, I have viewed CDK's website prior to “exploring” it. One of the things my cousin said Cyndi stressed was the use of “delicious” to create a way to view your bookmarks off of any computer and I’m sure we’ll get to that in class, but it seemed to me like a really cool idea.
Re-browsing through her website, I see some familiar links and such. I am friends with some people that took your class last semester and enjoyed looking at their blogs, one resource that I see they must’ve gotten off your website is Tech Chick Tips. This resource is a podcast that has two Texas teachers sharing what they love and how to use bits of technology. I find them kind of fun and interesting to listen to.
One resource I newly discovered while browsing is www.dropmocks.com
This website is really cool, and I can use it in the future to make quick presentations of pictures or images I need to show my class. All I have to do is drag and drop and it’s so much simpler than loading pictures into a powerpoint.
Another cool resource I discovered through the “Langwitches” Blog is edu.glogster.com, which is a way to create online multimedia posters and share them. I thought this was really cool! I remember back to middle school language arts and we had to make posters for several things, but never got to use any program as cool as this! The project is then entitled a “Glog”. I feel like this will be a more relevant way for me to let my students make posters if they have to, than the traditional poster board and marker way. Glogster even allows a person to put sound on their poster, thereby enriching the full multimedia experience and I think it’s really cool! Although you have to pay for a licensed copy of it, that is the only downfall that I see at the moment. It’s not a free resource, bummer.
Something I found funny was “creative excuses NOT to use technology”. Some of those excuses are entertaining to say the least, some are pathetic. Reflecting on my schooling, I KNOW technology makes a difference and is beneficial to the classroom. I’ve been using a Mac since 6th grade, (I went to school at Stafford Jr/Sr High School) and I’m loving it! It makes doing homework better, faster, and easier. I can take it to class and take notes on it, do powerpoints for projects, use Imovie for projects. Or take advantage of all the online resources that I could possibly need. I love that this website has people giving excuses they heard for not including technology time, personally though, I think they’re scared or unfamiliar. This could be helped by technology presentations within their school districts, not unlike the presentation you did in Junction City at my cousin’s school.
Two last random reflections, I noticed that “animoto” and “scribd” are both listed and good resources for teachers to have. I have used both of these websites before and concur! Animoto makes videos really fast and it’s really simple to use. Whereas Scribd is an easy way to share documents. I could easily use this with my students, and have them have scribd accounts and share assignments with them maybe, or things that I need them to read online, that way their parents see it and it doesn’t get lost in a bookbag. As a result, both sites are really great.
Overall there are a great deal of resources and interesting things on her webpage, I wish I had the time to sit down and look at each one and dig deeper into every blog. However the ones I did choose to look into are great, and very interesting. I feel like I’ve learned a lot and class has barely began :)
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