Assignments

=Assignments=

Here is my "**Assignment 1: Working with Word**":

This assignment was meant to enable me to use Microsoft Word to write a letter to the parents of the students at the school which I will be working at in the fall. I was to introduce myself and this class and to use a variety of tools on Word, such as inserting ClipArt, word wrapping around the ClipArt, and hyperlinks. The importance of teacher-parent communication is essential, and creating such a letter is essential to that relationship. While I may not use all of the frills of this letter in one that I would actually send out, I will be able to use this one as a template upon which I can elaborate or reduce as I see fit. I have converted this Word document (.doc) into an Adobe .pdf file to further demonstrate a tool that I learned in this class. By converting this .doc into a .pdf, I have made it harder for a reader to download the file and make changes to my original document.

Here is my "**Assignment 2: Excel**". (the Excel file) (The graphs that accompany the Excel file, along with questions that I prepared for the students to answer)

Just as my first assignment was meant to help me work with Word, this assignment was meant to help me work with Microsoft Excel. I took data that was given to me and arranged it in manners specific to the assignment. I then graphed this data through Excel. Finally, I composed four questions that I could ask students to answer based on the data that was provided to them in the graphs that I created. I truly learned a lot about Excel through this assignment. Before this class, I did not know anything about how to graph data on Excel; I also learned minor details about Excel that will come in handy if I use Excel to record student's grades.

Here is my "**Assignment 3: Evaluations**":

This evaluation assignment consisted of three parts. The first part was to download and evaluate instructional software; the second part was to evaluate websites; and the third part was to evaluate a virtual tour. (Also, you might notice red writing on my attached assignment. By doing this, I am exhibiting my new skill of tracking changes that were made to an original document.) In the first part, I evaluated an online program called 'Flight to Freedom' - the user was able to simulate a slave's journey from slavery to freedom in the North or Canada. While students could learn about this in history class, this program enabled them to become involved in the process. I believe that this type of attachment is essential to learning. I definitely see myself using programs like this to teach issues in history and social studies. In the second part, I evaluated a website about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, during my evaluation, I found the website to be hosted by Stormfront, a white supremacy organization. The website turned out to largely consist of misinformation - yet was unfortunately one of the top Google hits for "Martin Luther King". The necessity of website evaluation became clear to me. There is no doubt in my mind that I will use an activity like this to evaluate websites with my classes in the future and to get students to do similar website evaluations on their own. In the third part, I took a virtual tour of the solar system through [|nationalgeographic.com]. Without technology, this experience could not be possible. This is the main benefit of a virtual tour - access to places otherwise inaccessible. It was this assignment, especially parts one and three, that opened my eyes to the benefits of technology in teaching. These programs were very interesting and would definitely attract the attention of my future students.

Here is my "**Assignment 4: Concept Mapping**". Link to the concept map. Once you are viewing the image, you can download (save) it by right-clicking on it and going to 'Save Image As'. (The rubric that I created to evaluate such a concept map)

This concept map assignment was created using the Inspiration program. The assignment helped me to learn how to use Inspiration, how to create a concept map, and how to create a rubric to evaluate such a concept map. My concept map was about different types of world economies, and was very enjoyable to make. While I would not claim to be an expert on using Inspiration after using it to create this concept map, I do feel like I have a good working knowledge of the basics of Inspiration now. However, I believe that the rubric was the most essential part of this assignment. I had been taught how to create a concept map before, just not on Inspiration. And while I had also previously been taught how to create a rubric, I believe that this one really helped me for some reason. I think that it is complex without being complicated, and it is simple without being plain. Adding a section at the bottom entitled "Teacher Comments" was something that I had never done before, and I believe that it is a great idea - it enables the teacher to standardize the evaluation of an assignment such as a concept map, but can also personalize the evaluation. I will use concept maps as a teacher - they are great tools to organize information. I will also use rubrics for myself and for the benefit of the students because they are useful for students to know what is expected of them in each assignment; I believe that I will owe a small debt for that to the rubric that I created on this assignment.

Here is a link to my "**Assignment 5: [|Classroom Website]**".

This assignment enabled me to create a classroom website (available above). Using [|weebly.com], I was able to personalize the name of my website as well as the content within. I included a homepage (with an introduction about myself), a helpful links page, a calendar page (integrating the Google Calendar function), some interesting videos, and other pages that may be useful to my students. I believe that this assignment was the most important assignment that I completed this semester, and it was one of the most enjoyable as well. I was able to learn that technology can be used in wonderful ways that will greatly enable students to be more in sync with the teacher; through the use of an online calendar and other links that create more transparency between what the teacher wants and what the student thinks that the teacher wants, I believe that my classroom can only benefit. I am fully prepared, I think, to use such a website in my future career as a teacher. Actually, it is very likely that I will use //this// website (with changes to adapt it to my school and classes). I will definitely use an online calendar such as Google Calendar that I can update from home and notify parents and students of important dates for trips, assignments, etc. Such as website can also be used as a type of online syllabus for anyone to see; if parents want to see what their children are doing in class, it will be available to them online.

Here is a link to my "**Assignment 6: WebQuest**".

This assignment was one of the toughest assignments that I completed in this class, but it also was one that I am very proud of. In this assignment, I had to create a 'WebQuest' for students to interact with. It was close to a mix of an online scavenger hunt and a project. I wrote an introduction to the assignment, a task for students to follow, the process that they would use to successfully complete the assignment, the standards that I was meeting with the assignment, resources for the students, the specific roles that each student could 'become', and my rubric for how the students would be evaluated. While I knew how to do most of these separate tasks before this assignment, I had never done them on a website like wikispaces (which is the same site that this ePortfolio, and therefore you, is on right now). It was an interesting experience to create links within the main page and to make sure that they all worked. This whole experience helped me understand that technology sometimes is a little difficult - not intrinsically, but that you just have to know what to do and how to do it. Once I was working well within the wikispaces site, my ultimate project turned out very well, and I am very pleased with it (please visit it through the link provided within the title immediately above this paragraph). I will use this type of assignment in my classroom because I think that students would enjoy this interactive learning experience. Because I now know how to create such an assignment, it will not be that hard to re-create in the future. I could use wikispaces for an assignment like this WebQuest, or I could use it for students to create their own works and to put them online for others to see.

Here is my "**Assignment 7: Podcast and Lesson Plan**". media type="custom" key="374675" Here is an outside link to the [|Podcast]. (This is an example of the type of work that I would expect from students) (The lesson plan that I created to accompany my podcast)

The first part of this assignment enabled me to create a lesson plan for a lesson in which the students would create a podcast. This was very useful to me because I have only created a limited amount of lesson plans, and it was good to be able to practice creating one - especially creating one that will have a direct link to a project that I was simultaneously working on! The second part of this project was an example podcast that my students could listen to and be able to know what I expect from them. They could model their podcast after mine or go in another direction - as long as it corresponded to the guidelines that I created for them in the lesson plan. The actual creation of the podcast was difficult at first, but it became easier as I grew more accustomed to the technology (just like many of these assignments). I used the program Audacity to record my voice and to incorporate sound effects into my podcast, which was a re-created radio broadcast that supposedly immediately preceded the Stock Market Crash of 1929. This is a great way for students and teachers to use technology to express themselves to each other. Students could create projects that they could not only play for the rest of the class, but could have available on the internet so that family members anywhere could hear it. Teachers could create podcasts that featured lessons or other useful information that they might want students to hear at home. I am prepared to use this in class because, once again, despite the initial difficulties in using this technology, I feel like I could easily incorporate this type of assignment in my class. As I mentioned with many of the previous assignments, I believe that this type of interactive learning is a great opportunity for the teacher to engage the students in something that they find interesting and something that they will learn from.

Here is my "**Assignment 8: Digital Video**". media type="file" key="Assign8_BSeymour.wmv"

This assignment was definitely my favorite assignment in this class. It was very enjoyable to create (despite the depressing subject matter which I chose to create a video about - the struggle for civil rights in the United States). I was so excited to work on this assignment, and to do it well, that I started it well before it was assigned (and thus made a few mistakes regarding copyright law as well as the specifics of the assignment). However, I have since fixed those errors. I have even made modifications to the assignment after I turned it in for class - I want to make it perfect! I will definitely use this type of assignment in my class. Students can easily create a digital video like the one that I created. This is a great assignment because students who are not very creative in a normal classroom setting can express themselves in a different way; yet students who are not as enthusiastic about this assignment can also create an acceptable and feasible digital video simply because of the relative ease of use of the program (I used Microsoft MovieMaker, yet they could use other programs as well). Once again, this assignment showed yet another way for me to integrate technology into my classroom and to get the students interested and engaged in the learning process. I can use MovieMaker to create videos to emphasize lessons, or the students can use MovieMaker to create videos that they can present to the class and can also share with their family anywhere. I would never have thought to use such technology before I was introduced to it through this class, and now there is no way that I would not use it in a class! __Note__: I understand that the quality (size, compression) of this video makes it hard to watch. I did make the video as a 'full screen', large, easy-to-watch version. However, such a large file would not have been able to be successfully upload to be turned in for submission.

This ePortfolio is my last assignment, "**Assignment 9: ePortfolio**"!