Software Tools

PowerPoint: Who Wants to be a Millionaire Game

     For this assignment we were asked to grab a pre-designed PowerPoint template from a source off of the web and alter it in order to make our own interactive game. I thought this project was incredibly fun, cool, and surprisingly easy to use once you got into the swing of it. For my game, I chose to make a "Who wants to be a millionaire" styled game with questions in line with 6-8th grade United States government questions. It took me a few tries to get used to formatting it, but I found that it was fairly simple to use once I got going. If I had known that creating a small game like this would be so easy, I would have tried it long ago. As a teacher, I think having a skill like this in your repertoire could be very handy, as students love any types of games as they help to break up the regular routines of class. I could definitely see using something like this in my future.

Excel: Datasheet:

     I thought that this assignment was extremely simple, considering the wonderful tutorial videos that came with it. I used datasheets very similar to this one for one of my outside artifacts, although I admit that those were quite a bit more complex. While I could repeat a lot of what I think about excel and its uses here, considering that I have already done so for an outside artifact, I would rather focus on the importance of another lesson that I learned while doing this. When I had originally used Excel in my statistics class, I found that the learning was extremely complicated and the creation of the spreadsheets was not only difficult, but it was next to impossible. While I know how to create documents like this, I must admit that this project taught me the value of good instruction. The videos that came with this project were so detailed and easy to follow that I did this project in literally minutes. The last time I learned to do this, it took many hours, and I must say I think that it is because of the way the material was delivered. I can definitely see the value of knowing how to make spreadsheets like this in a classroom and professional setting; however, I think that the main thing that I learned was how important it is to use clear instructions and utilize online video learning tools as much as possible, which gives students the possibility of learning it again once they get home and are actually working on it. I think if you commit a little bit more time into how you will teach, it will pay off in the long run with how effectively students can learn.

NETS- Teacher Standards

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity:

a.       Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness

b.      Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources

c.       Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.

d.      Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.