Final thoughts

Looking back I felt very nervous about this class. At the start of this class I considered myself to be not very tech savvy, and now I feel quite confident in my ability to work with technology. I have created great projects throughout the semester and am proud at how far I have come. I actually enjoy working on the computer now! This class has made me more confident in my tech skills as a new teacher. I will take away a great deal of useful information and ideas from this course. I think this course should be a requirement for all college students. I have learned about so many great tools, websites, and creative tricks throughout the summer. I definitely feel a million times more comfortable with technology and computers, and have grown a great deal throughout this course. I never would have thought me of all people could create so many great videos and projects using technology!

Classroom Website

Creating my own classroom website was such a useful resource to learn in this class. I can edit the sites and pages and personalize it when I get my own classroom one day. The website creator I used was 'sites' in Google. You can create your own website by going to 'more' and then 'even more' on your Google account. Above I added a screenshot of my home page layout.

The link to my entire website: Ms. Gress' Classroom Website

iMovie

 I made this 'about me' movie using iMovie. I had never used this tool before and was shocked at how easy (and fun) it was to create my own movie! The editing tools are simple to use and adding pictures and songs was a cinch! I would definitely love to share this 'Meet your new teacher!' movie with my new students each year.

Glogster

This Web 2.0 tool is a little complicated to use. I probably would not assign my elementary students to make a Glogster for an assignment. Before the in class presentation I had heard of this online tool, but had never tried it myself. I like the idea of a collage type blog, but I had a hard time getting it to look like how I wanted it to look. This is a good tool to use as a choice for a project, but I do not think I would require a Glogster for a project. I would like to become more familiar with this tool so I could use Glogsters as handouts or introducing new information. The creative look of the Glogster is really cool, and I think children would enjoy the fun design! Here are a few examples of fun Glogsters:

Storybird

Storybird is a great tool! The artwork available is fantastic and there are hundreds of pictures available to choose from! I have used storybird in classes before to create small presentations. Teachers can use this to teach a new topic, and students can even make there own. It is easy to use and creates complete fun-looking stories! This tool would be great to use in younger grades because you can use it to emphasize writing a story and the different parts used in sentences and paragraph forming. Storybird is one of my favorite online tools I have used so far. I love art, and the artwork on this site is adorable. There are many Storybird artists that have pictures that are relevant to children. This is a great alternative to many presentation building sites such as powerpoint. I will most definitely use this great tool in my classroom.

Animoto

Animoto is a video making tool that lets you make 30 seconds videos with sound for free! Animoto takes pictures and presents them in an video type presentation. There are many templates available on the website and even photos and music you can use in your video. You can also upload pictures from facebook, flickr, Picasa and a few others. Animoto offers educators a free Plus account that can be used in the classroom. Teachers can make fun videos to help emphasize a topic or present new material to their students. Animoto is fun and easy to use! I would definitely like to create presentations with this tool to present in my classroom. There are several good example on this website of how educators have used this tool in the classroom. www.animato.com/education

Inspiration

Inspiration is a very useful and simple tool to use to design digital diagrams. All of the pictures and clipart in my above example were found on Inspiration. I have used Inspiration before in a class, but found it a lot easier to use this second time. Teachers could use this digital diagram for a ton of possibilities. As you can see from my example Inspiration can be a great visual while teaching any topic or subject. Teachers can have students design their own diagrams and present them to the class. Teachers can also print the visuals from Inspiration and hang them up around the room as references for the students. I think this tool could be very useful and helpful in the classroom environment.