Goals for weekend two...two

I am very pleased to announce I have completed most of my goals for this weekend. I have learned many new and exciting tools in PowerPoint 2007. I am now very familiar with both programs which are Inspiration and Kidspriation and found them very useful for all teachers who plan on hooking their kids. It provides many uses to multiple intelligences and everyone should have it. I will continue my goal of learning new technological additives to education in order to increase my students' knowledge of my content area. In essense I had a very insightful and productive weekend.

PowerPoint Presentation

Using PowerPoint 2007 was very interesting. There are many new and exciting diagrams and charts that I have used in my project of choir recruitment. I enjoyed making the project but found that in Vista it is a little more difficult to get used to. I am familiar with all the functions on WindowXP and have not spent much time on Vista. It will be very useful in my attend to create more enthusiasm for choir at C. T. Walker Magnet School. Although I have not finished with my sound or video I plan on adding those features to my project once our class is over.

Kidspiration project

Fun with music! This program is very helpful to provide visual diagrams and charts for any subject you teach. it is a great asset to have for our spatial learners that can incorporate many different multiple intelligences.

Goals for weekend two

Technology plays a very important role in today's classroom. I have grown up in a world plagued with technology since the 80's and am very familiar with new trends that come out today. My number one goal is to continue my interest in technology, learn new and exciting programs that will engage and enhance my student's learning and offer me a wealth of educational tools in which to increase my own potential as a teacher.

1. Although I am very familiar with PowerPoint I wish to learn more procedures and methods in which to use the program.

2. I am unfamiliar with the programs Inspiration and Kidspiration and wish to learn how I may best use its resources.

3. My long term goal is to learn how technology can be used in my classroom and how my students can benefit from it in terms of musical technology and dramatic arts.

Summary on Integrating Technology Using Multiple Intelligence

The article included many interesting sites and programs for the benefit of students with special needs. One program was titled Inspiration/Crosspad. This program helps students with note taking deficiencies and offer alternatives for the student to take notes by illustration and creating mind maps. Also discussed was the use of scanner/reading type programs which offer students with literacy problems to listen to the text in a book in class rather than reading. Another very useful program is called Tele-Web. This program increases the academic skills of students with special needs by giving the students the ability to teach each other. This also boosts self-confidence and self-esteem which is crucial in a special needs setting. These few examples of media technology offer students with special needs an opportunity to learn and grow at the same pace as any other student in school.

Photoshop elements

There are many interesting things about this program. A few of the techniques that I have been working on and are fun to use are the cropping tool, the impressionist brush, auto enhance tools and the magic eraser. One of my favorite applications was the filters, affects and layer styles. My wife is an artist and often uses her Holga to create pictures using light filtering. I can achieve the same effects with some of the tools in Adobe photoshop elements. The challenges I have faced have only occured with experimentation using the tools. After an amount of time using the tools I have slowly gotten used to the effects that each tool creates. Many programs offer the same applications but you don't have to purchase them. I would use any of these programs which include Gimp, Picassa and/or Photobucket. My goal with any of these programs is to create photos that are out of the ordinary, something cameras are not able to produce.

My pics

Digital Images in the Science Classroom

This article talks about the advancement of digital and visual technology in the science classroom. It talks about the use of microscopes and how the classroom time is spent mostly on making sure the students are seeing what they are supposed to see. In digital cameras you can change the size of the image in order to fit the needs of the classroom. It also allows students to speed up or slow down the growing process through the use of time-lapse photography. Digital images give the student more power in their own learning using intuition, knowledge of scientific principles and inference skills which changes a student from being an observer to active participant in the science classroom.

Goals for GARTS 6008

My goal is to incorporate as many methods of technology in my music classroom as possible. I want to have my students create power point presentations, create blogs of topics in class and use music software with ease. I want to be able to post pictures, videos and rehearsals online where my students and teachers can use readily have accessible. I love technology and finding new ways of using it to benefit my personal and professional lives.

Born into Brothels

The movie Born into Brothels was a movie about children in Calcutta who were brought up amongst the most deplorable settings of human existence. What amazed me the most was the essence of hope in the children's eyes amidst the darkness of their dwellings. I was very interested about how the children used the camera as an outlet of emotions and a springboard to education. Born into Brothels was very emotional and compelling. The old saying that everyone can be taught regardless of economic background was very true in this movie. Watching the children in the film made me critically analyze my own methods of teaching. I am very glad that the children from Calcutta were able to excell beyond their current situations of poverty and education and that there are people out in the world who believe that one person can make a difference. I hope there is a follow-up movie in the future with the status of the children growing into adulthood.