ILP #2

I decided to do an infographic on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I enjoyed making the infographic and I intend on making more in the future!
https://infogram.com/how-to-make-a-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-1ho16vm3nznv6nq

Blog Post 10

One of my favorite things I've learned about with Excel is the formula tools. I have never really needed to use Excel so I never messed around with it, but now that I have, I see how useful it can be with regards to education. For example, if I'm teaching AP American Government for Juniors and Seniors, I will most likely have seven different sets of students a day. With about 25 students in each class, that's 175 students to keep track of! With that being said, Excel would be a great way to do this. By having a constant list of all of my students separated in sheets by their class period, I could easily see which students are struggling in what areas as well as easily calculate their class average as an incentive to have students work harder. By having this constantly updated, it would be more manageable than other programs as well as the most efficient manner.

Some of the topics that I found most interesting were the tech sandbox (obviously) but I also loved everything about digital natives and digital immigrants. It was always hard to watch teachers in middle and high school struggle with a projector or a DVD player, because as digital natives we all knew how to fix what they were struggling with. It makes more sense since those teachers were all digital immigrants that it may not have been second nature to them. I also loved the blogs where people posted screenshots of their work, with the newsletters, websites, and powerpoints. I enjoyed how people got creative with it and took a different perspective than the approach I took.

Something I have always wanted to learn was photoshop. It has always been interesting to me and a software that I have zero clue about. I have already started taking steps to foster this experience. There is a woman in my sorority that is in the interior design program at Florida State and apparently they utilize photoshop for the majority of their projects. She said that she would be willing to teach me the basics until I get the hang of it on my own. I am very excited because I have played around with apps, but never the real deal so stay tuned!

Blog Post 9

The concept of a flipped classroom is very unique and on paper, looks fantastic. The idea is that the teacher would post a video online where they would lecture like they would in the classroom. This allows the student to pause the video, rewind, or completely restart until they understand the lesson. In the classroom, the teacher is then able to focus on what would have been homework and go through examples, allowing students to ask questions and truly understand where the student's misunderstanding is coming in to play. This concept is amazing: any kind of learner is able to stay on track and grasp the information. There are issues, however. Many teachers use this as an excuse to not do anything in class because the work "should have been done at home." Another issue is that it takes a lot of work to make a good and interesting video. If you just post a video where you are sitting at a table talking into the camera, students will not want to watch them and in turn, possibly not watch the videos. When my teacher attempted to do a flipped classroom, he made his videos an hour and a half long of him just talking. This resulted in many students just copying each others notes and doing very poorly on tests and exams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQWvc6qhTds

The idea behind open content and open source is opening textbooks and outside sources for students to be able to see and get for free. It is incredibly unfair when a student is forced to drop a class or gets a poor grade in the class because they are unable to afford textbooks. Some required textbooks for classes are hundreds of dollars, which is very difficult for many students to pay for out of pocket. Some students use financial aid in order to pay for textbooks but that can sometimes takes days and even weeks to hit your account. In that time, assignments will have most likely already have been due and studying should have already been happening. By having open content, students are able to see the same information without having to go into debt.

http://opencontent.org/definition/ 

Something I learned from the PowerPoint projects has been how to hyperlink within a project. I have always been amazed by projects that jump around and have never understood how teachers or other students have done it. I actually really enjoyed doing the second project and probably got a little too into it because I ended up with over 40 slides! I also have a better understanding of how to use animations in slides and how to add notes in order to have a guide to go off of in the case of giving a presentation or teaching the slides.