New Class new number 515

Back to blogging.

Tuesday night was the first night of my new class CEDo 515 through Cardinal Stritch University. It is hard to get back in the saddle after soom time off doing a online class. This should be the second to last class I need for my Masters. I will repeat some of the stuff I have posted before, to reindtroduce myself to you. I was a dairy farmer for 32 years, but our son was not interested in taking over the farm, and we were just plain tired, so I went back to school got a teaching degree, and then a Library Media Specialist degree and now I work for the same district west of green Bay. I work 1 1/2 hours from my home (I went to the job), so my husband and I bought a second house for me to live in when I am at work. I do not have cable at home so have to go to school to do all my online work-a real pain.

I love being a LMS, and the tools we learn in these technology classes are really useful in my classes and for the teaching staff at my school.

First the text, I like it but not the questions. The case example in Chapter two with Mr. Yates was kind of irritating. I really don't care what he should do in his district. I want to know what to do in my district. And the text is very useful in that regard. But for almost every question, I initially answered it, depends, and I need to know the lesson plan first before I can tell you what technology I would use. I am sure Mr. Yates is very happy to have our imput. :)

The one thing I was very impressed was the discussion of the skittles activity. I have actually done that activity, and all the extras activites that were suggested to enhance the activity were great. I guess I did not do a very good job of planning that activity. What was my objective?

For the graphics program, first I tried Queeky, and thought it was like paint , but after reading a review by Will, I guess it is alot more than I noticed. In my defense, I have never used paint. I liked Queeky, the paint seemed to flow on like real paint, not digital paint. What I finally used was a comic strip maker, Toonlet. I liked the ease of use, but wanted more options for moving the figure around, maybe I just couldn't figure them out. I would never use MagCover in the classroom there were many inappropreiate covers one the page.

For the presentation I used Empressr. After using Power point forever, learning new tools are hard for this old dog. It loaded easy-from a power point, but I had problems in manipluaqting the information once it was in Empressr. I still want to try and download music into it.

All in all I am excited to be back learning new tools and looking forward to learning from each other on how to use these tools in the classroom.