Week # 8 - Where do we go from here?

          This semester I have learned many things that I will actually put in to practice when teaching!  What has made the biggest impact on me is the vast amount of free technology available that before this course, I didn’t know anything about!  Websites like wordle, igoogle, screencast, delicious and free online portfolios.  I realized how much I was stuck in a rut using the same technology and the same websites.    



         Because of this I will continue to pursue new online technology websites that I can use in my personal and professional life.  Another “aha” moment I experienced was, I can actually use this technology, fairly easily!  I tend to get frustrated when trying something new and give up easily because it’s not user friendly.  I found so much of this new technology to be very user friendly.  I will continue to use my blog.  I plan to create a new blog dedicated to Christian working women who are balancing work and home life.  Once I begin teaching, I plan to have a blog that will help my co-workers stay abreast of new technology they can use in their classrooms

Week #7 Blog Reflection - iGoogle, do you?

This week I created a lesson plan that required students to act as a start up entrepreneur with the opportunity to travel to London and meet a potential investor.  The student has limited funds $2,500 and must travel on specified dates and cannot exceed the budget.  The lesson plan required that the students use the following tools and websites:

-         Google calendar with trip feed                                                                                                   

-         Google Earth

-         AA.com

-         Expedia.com

-         Google Docs

-         Google Map

This lesson was fun to plan because I love planning trips almost as much as I enjoy going on them.  (I know I’m a weird.)  I enjoyed learning to use google Earth and found its capability to be incredible.  See below for a screen shot of the hotel I stayed in London last year!  I also really liked google calendar and was able to sync it with my iphone calendar and share with my husband’s google calendar. 

            The videos I watched this week really spoke to my heart.  As someone who wants to teach business technology courses to high school students, I realize how necessary it is we incorporate technology into all courses.  I hope that as a new teacher I am able to show my co-workers technologies they can incorporate in their lesson plans.  One way I can do this as a teacher is to have a blog that my co-workers follow.  I feel that in order to improve student learning all schools need workshops for its teachers so they can stay abreast of ever changing technology.  When I become a teacher, I will be open to students teaching me new technology and sharing it with the rest of the class because let's face it -they are learning faster at an earlier age than I EVER did.