Use of Google Tools in Classrooms

My group checked out Google Calendar and it is an easy way for teachers, coaches, administrators and students to share time-related info like class topics, test and quizzes, field trips, student club activities, team schedules, assignment deadlines, school events, parent-teacher conferences, staff meetings with other teachers and administrators, and school holidays. Changes made by a calendar organizer are automatically seen by anyone who checks the site, so it is always up to date. You can set up separate calendars for each of your classes and share each one with a designated group of students, parents or the entire community. Having a common online tool to store and share all of our calendar information is so much more efficient than expecting everyone to keep track of a thousand events, calendars, and handouts. Not only are you posting the event date and time, but any other descriptive or pertinent information can also be accessed just by clicking on the event. So, for example, instead of having a field trip handout that you hope actually reaches parents' hands, parents can sign up to access the calendar and have all the information they need for the field trip posted under that event. Google calendar is more efficient, easily accessed, more organized, saves paper, and best of all it's free, which is great for schools on a tight budget! You can also choose to have email updates when the calendar is changed or updated. This is a cool tool that hopefully I'll remember to use in my classroom rather than having to set up a class website.

Protecting Yourself Online

In this technological age, much of the work we do is online. Our computers and various websites hold important information that can be accessed by hackers and viruses. If we don't take proper precautions, we can be victims of identity theft, predators, unwanted adds, phishers, spam, and pornographic materials. Some ways to avoid these online threats include:
~don't click unknown links and downloads
~make sure your computer has firewalls, anti-virus software, and programs like Ad block Plus
installed
~back up your work
~know who you're talking to and "adding" as a friend on facebook, etc.
~use secure passwords and don't use the same password for all websites
~don't have important info. kept online: credit card #s, social security numbers, etc.
~know what to do if your identity has been taken or someone has hacked into your accounts
BE SMART, SAFE AND SECURE!

Podcast Project Experience

Although I was a little stressed about the project when it was assigned and frustrated with technical issues, I learned a lot from this experience and it proved positive. In this day and age, kids are becoming more and more technologically advanced and as a future teacher I hope to not be too incredibly far behind them in my classroom. I liked learning how to make a podcast and will hopefully learn how to make a movie as well to enhance my lesson plans. I thought about how my podcast could be used as an anticipatory set when starting a new unit on WWII. I won't go into details about "what I learned," because the entire podcast making experience was all new too me. But I did learn that Macs make these projects easier because of the shortcuts that Mac computers allow. Maybe one day I'll switch from my PC. ;-P