it's the final countdown! (cue air guitars)

so this is it, folks. the last blog post from me for this class. it's been quite a semester. we've learned a lot and i feel like my knowledge of computers, heck, my knowledge of macs has been expanded and improved.

on monday i finished my scratch game, woot! and i was pretty proud of it, if i do say so myself! it was a good project, a good way to end the semester. i emailed it in on tuesday, i believe, but sent it again today just in case.

one thing i learned from this project that i can use as a teacher is the concept of logical thinking. with the scratch game, everything had to be perfectly organized and sequenced for optimal functionality. as a teacher, i have to think about what will happen in my classroom as part of the flow of learning. my lesson plans will need to be organized and logical to allow a procedure of conversation and learning.

good class, good times. thanks for everything!

i'm thankful for...other people to invent computer games

i wasn't sure if we were supposed to publish a post this week or not, but i figured i might as well.

on monday i completed my scratch game. can you believe it? it's done! and it's not too shabby, if i do say so myself. however, it's also pretty...what's the word...pretty low-key as far as intellectual, developmental learning goes. i think a kindergartener would think it was pretty simple. there is no way that any child could learn as much from playing this game as i have learned from designing it. it was hardcore!

i like scratch. it's pretty user-friendly once you get the hang of it. i felt like i was directing a movie; everything had to be in place and everyone had to be told what to do at exactly the right time to do it so that the other sprite would get their cue and do their job as well. it was intense, but i like it. it was a great learning opportunity for me, as far as problem solving and frustration control goes.

i do not think that i would ever use this technology tool in my classroom, though. i don't think it would be productive for me to invest my time in learning scratch, because that would take so much time and then i would never be able to utilize it effectively for my students' benefit. but it was still a fun project and i'm glad i finished strong.

scratch week

so this week has been all about games. computer games, that is. educational computer games. i always thought that was an oxymoronical statement, but my mind is being opened up a little bit.

on monday we discussed our experience with playing "voices of spoon river." i liked the game; i thought it was a little confusing and i didn't solve any issues. but it was enjoyable. then we discussed about scratch. we decided on the objectives as a class and got to work designing our games. it was intense. i was really confused and maybe even a little frustrated, but i got through

on tuesday i went to the computer lab and played around with the design and figured out how to make my little guy move around properly. it was quite productive.

wednesday was a good work day. i got a lot accomplished and i know what i'm doing now and it's actually quite enjoyable. i like scratch. i don't think i will ever have the time as a teacher to design a new game every time i want to teach a concept, but it's good for me to learn. i'm learning more than my students ever would by playing my little game that took a lot of effort to create.

This week has been more of the same routine as of late: work on assignment on monday, get introduced to new assignment on wednesday.

on monday we finalized our UEN websites. it was much easier than i thought it was. i think that UEN is a very user-friendly website service, and out of all of the things i've learned in this class, this is probably the only thing i'm going to use.

on wednesday we started talking about scratch and games and the use and usefulness of games in the classroom. i'm going to be honest and say i was a little overwhelmed. i have no idea how to use these programs and i am so not creative and crafty when it comes to creating a game for people to use and enjoy. but i'm remaining cautiously optimistic that i'll have a good time playing the game this weekend and getting my brain thinking about how to design my own.

flash and websites

so, on monday i finished up my sweet awesome flash video. it was pretty intense and i'm proud of myself for completing it. it was fun, flash reminds me of autoCAD. however, i do not think that flash is something that i will take the time to learn how to become proficient at. i think there are better ways to deliver content to students than a homemade video, and mine would be shoddy at best. there are so many resources out there; people have made hundreds of thousands of videos, why reinvent the wheel? it was a fun project, though.

on wednesday we started talking about UEN and class websites. it was interesting, especially because the night before, on tuesday, we had a club activity where we had a student teacher, question and answer, panel type thing, and the teachers there answered lots of our questions about student teaching and talked a lot about using the UEN website, and the list serve, etc, to help gather resources and build your own file of curriculum. i think UEN is great, i'm excited to be a teacher and have my own login and start gathering stuff. it's a little overwhelming right now, but it's never too early to start collecting lesson plan ideas, etc. to use in my own classroom someday.

websites and flash!! bam!

i almost forgot what we had talked about on monday, and i just got back from the aggie bball exhibition game; we smoked them!

anyways, this week has contained a plethora of new information for my little brain.

on monday we learned about making websites in aggiemail. i liked it because we didn't have to know any code, we could just fill in the blanks with what we wanted. i wish we had had more time to learn more about it because websites are a great educational tool and i would love to be able to incorporate them into my classroom. it's great to be able to have a place for students to go to receive information right away.

oh my gosh! wednesday was so intense! we learned about flash and my brain almost exploded with awesomeness! i really like flash because it remindsd me of the days when i worked for my dad as a landscape architect and drafted with autoCAD. however, i think that flash is not something i would use in my classroom because it would take me FOREVER to learn how to design good quality videos, and i think my time would be better employed by developing quality lesson plans, rather than flashy vidoes.

Podcasts and googledocs

this week has been pretty intense, as always.

on monday we learned all about podcasts. i think podcasts are awesome! i found a great one that i could download to my ipod that could teach me German with one lesson a day. i am trying to think about how podcasts could be used in the classroom...and i'm coming up blank. i'm not as familiar with them as i would like. as a teacher, i can think of other things i would rather do with my time than create regular podcasts for me students to learn from. just because we have all of this wonderful technology, it doesn't mean that we must abandon all conventional methods of teaching, such as face to face classroom instruction, which i think works pretty well.

on wednesday we discussed and played with google docs. now that was fun. i really really like google docs and i think that this is one form of technology that is worth looking in to and utilizing in the classroom. students can work on projects and collaborate from distances, and i think it's great. i could have my students write papers or make a presentation, and the good thing about google docs is that the students don't have to always find times that they can all meet, and it's a great way to do group projects. i like google docs.