Day 4

Week is almost over. It has been a long two weeks in Lynchburg. I am so ready to get home. PhotoShop exercise was interesting today. I know my wife as used it before, but today was my first adventure with it. When I downsized our group picture, for some reason it got blury. I could never determine why. So when I overlayed it on the beach scene, it did not look real good. Guess I need some more practice with. I never could get the Movie maker program to work quite right. The audio exercise with the one-sided conversation was fun. We spent about an hour or so with our group putting the final touches on tomorrow's presentation.

Priority for tonight will be to brush up on the presentation for tomorrow. I may try to do a little with the WebQuest, but I really doubt that I will finish it. I will finish it up after I get home. I am so glad that Dr. Dunn is giving us some extra time to get that submitted. I have not even started the lesson plan or prospectus assignment yet. So even though class ends tomorrow, there is still a great deal of work to be done before I can relax for the summer.

Day 3

Over half-way through with the week now. We looked at Second Life a little today. It looks interesting. I just don't know how I feel about it. If it is used properly, it could be a very neat collaboration tool. I just have never been real interested in virtual reality "stuff," so I don't know that it really appeals to me.

I think our group is in a good place with regards to Friday's presentation. We spent a couple of hours today basically just cleaning up the slide presentation and arranging it in the order that we want it. Tomorrow should hopefully just be going over it a couple of times to practice for Friday. I just spent a little while getting started on my WebQuest assignment. I plan to work on it more in a while. I am going to try to get it completed tomorrow, but I am not real positive that is going to happen. I am doing a WebQuest that relates to the geography of Georgia, which is the first standard that I cover when we go back to school in August.

We got some good information today about the dissertation process. It seems like it is going to be a very daunting task. Of course, I knew it would be. I'll just have to push through it. I know going in that it will be a very time consuming endeavor, but it will pay off for many years to come.

Day 2

Day 2 is in the books. About ten years ago, during my Master's classes, I took a technology class. I remember doing something with databases. However, I never used it after that, so I lost all of the information that I learned about it. Today, I relearned some things about databases. I need to make it a point to use it occassionaly at work, so that I can keep it fresh. I really enjoyed learning how to do the hperlinks in powerpoint. I had no idea how to do that before today. I can definitely see myself putting that to use with my students.

I have a couple of ideas about the Webquest project. I have look at the zunal website, but I have not done anything with it yet. I wanted to wait for Dr. Dunn's instruction about it. We continued our group work today. Hopefully, we are headed in the right direction. Presentation Day will be here before you know it.

Today was the first day of class. Dr. Dunn is obviously very knowledgeable about the material. I met new classmates and will be working closely with Shane, Sylvia, and Ursula over the next few days. I learned several new things about the online Liberty library that should prove to be very useful in the future.

We started working on our group presentation near the end of class. Of course, I am stressing a little, because that is just what I do. However, I think we got off to a good start. We should be just fine. As a group, we will be examining various aspects of online learning.

Pre-Class Reflection

As I begin this class, I by no means consider myself an expert in the field of technology. I do think I know the basics well enough to accomplish most of what I need to accomplish. However, I am not afraid to ask for help when I need it. My wife is a media specialist and enjoys experimenting with all technological things. The signature photo at the conclusion of this post was her doing, definitely not mine. I would have no idea how to create stuff like that. I am a quick learner though, and she has now shown me how to insert this "signature" at the end of each of my posts. So basically, when I do not know how to do something, I know where I can go for answers.

In my classroom, I have incorporated new technologies and methods as I have learned about new things. I have a SmartBoard, an LCD projector, and a laptop that I use for instruction daily. I also work closely with the media specialist at my school to help my students incorporate different tools for performance-based projects and assignments. I also maintain a class web page for my students and their parents.

Ideally, I would like to leave this course (and others in this degree program) with more confidence in creating innovative activities and lessons for my students. Being a teacher leader in today's schools will require this.