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!