Reflections

=__Reflections__ = = = = = =Upon the heels of our success with our Google Site, we went into Project 6 with high hopes and excitement. We "met" virtually through Ventrilo and quickly realized that this project may be a little more in-depth than Project 5 in terms of research. Karen volunteered to set up the site using Wikispaces, and we all mentioned that we would help one another since many of us were new to this program. I must admit that I had more formatting issues on my pages than with Google. I did not like the size in percentages and it was frustrating with the spacing as well. I had the same glitches in Google in terms of saving, and then it would *magically* format it differently. I enjoyed researching my technologies and found it enjoyable looking for new and innovative technologies to go with my two strategies. I could see myself really applying these technologies into my classroom or school library. I could also see how student motivation would increase as well by using these technolgies. I feel very lucky to have Karen, Trent, Sandy, and Debbie in my group because we are all perfectionists (not that this is a bad thing), and we support one another. We also work very well collaboratively and are willing to help one another. Students so often are more tech-savvy than us when it comes to certain modalities, however, students still need to be able to use technology to help them throughout their educational process, and this assignment provides many ways for educational success and growth in information literacy skills. I thought this was a very relevant project and look forward to showcasing it in my E-Portfolio. ~Angela Wojtecki   =

=Overall, I felt the project was very helpful and provides helpful tips on how to implement different types of technology around education and aspects of it. I really am looking forward to seeing my groups ideas and other groups ideas on how technology can be used to align with the concepts presented. As far as the actual experience of using wikispaces in order to present information to others, I did not like it. I felt in comparison to google documents (Project 5), wikispaces is much harder and more frustrating to use. Spacing between pictures and text are off, text font and size are the same according to wikispace but when one looks at it you can tell they are different. This is very frustrating to deal with and almost takes away from the actual point of the assignment. If it wasn't from the help of my colleagues, working this project would have been very frustrating due to the lack of creative features of wikispaces. The overall project was interesting to research and come up with creative ideas for but the structuring and presenting of the information was not.~Trent = = = = //When we were assigned this project I thought didn’t we just complete something like this? How wrong I was! For each kind of technology I chose for this project I researched it deeper and learned of the various types of that technology then applied those to the strategies I had. How exciting and informative it was! It is such great times in the educational world where these exciting new technologies can be applied to motivate and engage students in their learning process. I love learning and applying them to my lessons as soon as I can. It is motivating for me as a teacher and I in turn excite my students into learning these new skills.//  = =   = = = Sandy// ** = This was another great project for me! I have learned a lot about setting up and managing a wiki and some great new strategies to use in the classroom with students. Although some of my strategies were not brand new technologies but they were a new way to use some tried and true software like Microsoft Word for summarizing. I bet I spent hours and hours looking at all kinds of crazy sites and software. It is great to make the time to just sit and research! I once again want to thank Angela, Trent, Sandy and Debbie for being such a great group. Thanks for helping out on the wiki—it really looks great! I too get very frustrated when working with fonts and spacing on some of these web based templates. Once I think I deleted my whole page and started fresh to get rid on an annoying spacing problem. This is when I wish I had some HTML skills! I loved reading my group mates strategies and look forward to looking at the other groups as well. Every time I attend a seminar or take a class there are so many great ideas—I try to find one—set up an account and then use with students right away. Last webinar with Kathy Schrock I choose Glogster! What fun I had with that! I am instituting that in a class next week. I see Glogster was a technology used by Debbie for the nonlinguistic strategy. I am not sure what to pick from this project yet! Group 1 did a great job collaborating! I tried to visualize what you all look like, since we just meet virtually—have fun deciding which character you are in my ToonDoo. ~Karen = = = = Like everyone else in our group, I thoroughly enjoyed working as a group. We truly have a great group of people. Angela, Karen, Sandy and Trent were always ready and willing to help this newbie-to-the-tech-world. We helped each other with tech ideas, formatting problems (we all had a lot of those!) and proof reading. Karen did a great job of setting up the site for us and creating our introduction and summary--thanks Karen! = = Again, like everyone else in the group, I was frustrated with the many formatting issues. Just when I thought I had my page "perfect" and saved it, I would look at the saved page and it would have changed in the mere seconds it took to save. I don't understand how or why the wikispace changes the font size and type and spacing, but it was very frustrating. Things that I had changed and saved, several times, changed to a different size or font. But, on the plus side, I did learn something new, and will be able to use Wikispaces in the future. = = The assignment itself was a fantastic experience. I had so much fun researching nonlinguistic representation and technologies that could be applied to it, that I finally had to just stop because I had a list of a dozen things to choose from. What a great dilemma--to have too many ideas! The three that I finally chose were things that were all new to me, and all are methods that I would love to see used someday. I can't wait to be a School Library Media Specialist and recommend them to collaborating teachers, not to mention use them myself! I had a more difficult time finding feedback ideas, but I was excited to find technologies that allowed me to highlight three different types of feedback: student-to-teacher, teacher-to-student (and parent), and peer feedback. I also enjoyed finding a new way to use Microsoft Word. = = Now that the assignment is finished, I can't wait to explore some of the technologies that the other members of my group described! ~ Debbie = = = = = = Introduction < = = Cues, Questions & Advance Organizers <  = = Generating & Testing Hypothesis <  = = Homework & Practice <  = = Identifying Similarities & Differences <  = = Nonlinguistic Representation <  = = Providing Feedback <  = = Reinforcing Effort < = = Simulations & Games < = = Summarizing & Notetaking < = = Summary < = =  = = =
 * //I thoroughly enjoyed this project as I did the last and learned so much. It is amazing how my confidence grows as I complete a project. I want to thank-you Dr. Kovalik for having the insight to create such relevant projects. My group all put out their best work forward as always and it has been a positive experience to work with them all. Thank-you Angela, Trent, Debbie, and Karen it was my pleasure to be in your group!