I will be honest, I thought that this class was going to be structure around the basic knowledge of how to use word processing, powerpoint, spreadsheet, etc. Dr. Wang definitely blew my mind within the first week. I have learned more about my computer in this semester than I ever thought was possible! More importantly, this class has helped build the basic structure of how I am going to use technology in my own classroom someday. All of our assignments in this class have been challenging, but there is not one that I do not plan to utilize in my future. I have often said that every child learns differently, and I feel that this class has helped me extend my arms further to help even more children than I thought possible. 
My weak point in this class was confidence in myself. This is my first semester at a university and I am also a full-time wife, mother, housekeeper, teacher assistant. I have always been one to worry that I am not doing what I am suppose to be doing. When I would open an assignment for the first time, I always assumed that it was way too hard and that there was no possible way that I could do it. I literally would be sick to my stomach over the projects, until I got a little push from my husband. Jamie always reminded me that there was not one thing that I could not accomplish, and he would make me break the project apart and read the instructions to him. After that, it was all a breeze! My strong points in this class was anything to do with “being creative”. I absolutely love colorful and fun things. I loved finding pictures to go with each reflection from the week. I also enjoyed working with all of the Google functions. The interaction between my peers and Dr. Wang has been spectacular. I was very worried at first because this is my first year at USM, and I was very unsure of the classes, professors, etc. Dr. Wang has opened an entire new light for me. I thoroughly enjoyed our online collaborative meetings. I loved that we were able to meet as a class, in the comfort of our own homes. I liked that the entire class could be in one meeting with Dr. Wang at one time. Another thing that I really liked was being separated into groups. I am in a group with four other ladies and I honestly felt like if I needed help, I could shoot them an email for help. I can also say that I have had several conversations with Dr. Wang and she has always been very thorough and available to help anytime it is needed. I enjoyed the Blackboard Collaborative tool for communication.
I was only able to attend two of the three online meetings due to being sick, but I thoroughly enjoyed the meetings! I love the fact that all of the class could be in one meeting to listen and talk with Dr. Wang about the projects and any questions or concerns that we had. I used email as my main way of communication. The only issue that I ever had was with myself forgetting to press the send button. Other than that, I love using my email to communicate! The blogfolio assignment has been a work in progress for me. To begin with, I had trouble figuring out all of the functions and to be honest I am still finding out more everyday. I can honestly say that I love my blog! With Dr. Wang’s instructions and tutorials, it was very easy to create a creative and meaningful blog. It reflects our learnings and our projects, but it also reflects our own personalities within them as well. I can truthfully say that I plan to continue to blog in the rest of my school career and even into my teaching career. I have often said that every child learns differently. My group members can assure you that I have said this on numerous occasions, and that’s because I truly feel this way. This class has helped me better prepare myself for whatever students I might have in the future that may need to be taught differently. I get emotional just thinking about how big of a difference that this could make in just one child’s life. I am very passionate about being a teacher. I want to do whatever I have to do to help my students, and technology plays a big part in that. This class has helped me develop into a more technologist person and I will forevermore be grateful for that.
There are many children that have to be accommodated to than I ever thought of. I personally know of one student in the county high school that is losing his vision and this just recently began to happen. His teachers were literally blindsided by this, and were not sure what to do to help him out. They all had to somewhat do what we have had to do for this assignment. It’s a sad thing, but there are children that have difficulties daily. To me, this sort of falls under my slogan of “every child learns differently”. I made an oath to myself when I decided that I wanted to become a teacher that I would do absolutely everything in my will power to help every student learn, no matter how I had to teach. I am very glad that I was given the opportunity to do this assignment and that I was given a tutorial for it. I had no idea that my computer could do these things, but wow! I feel so enlightened after this experience. I honestly feel that EVERY teacher, old and new, need to be sure they know how to do everything we did this past week.
When I first used this it was for a World Literature, I could not believe how awesome that it was. I loved that TurnItIn gave such quick results! I did not have any problems using it this time. I feel that plagiarism is a big issue in today’s times. Children cheat and break the law and usual have no idea. I did not know what plagiarism was until I was in at least sixth grade. I think that it should always be taught at least to fourth grade. I think that this would help educate them young, yet it would stick with them! For the grades that I truly want to teach this would be an asset to have, especially when it comes to doing book reviews and reports. Overall, I had an awesome experience with TurnItIn and hope to be using it in the future as an educator.
It usually turns out to be a teacher and it’s her own, well put together website. I had always thought, “No way, I could never have time for that.” I was so wrong. This is something that I feel like I can do in the future for my classroom, for multipurposes! For one, by putting it all out there, I feel that there would be a lot less confusion between teachers and parents. I think that this could do nothing but benefit both parties in the long run. Especially the web resources page. This is something that parents can access at home to help their children in a great way. I can honestly say that the only problem that I had was trying to get my pictures to get in a straight line. I thought that I had tried everything! I took a small break and then it sort of fixed itself. I was so thrilled! Overall, this assignment has been my absolute favorite yet and I cannot wait to utilize my own website in my classroom someday!
I absolutely loved the Easy TestMaker! Instead of typing up a test myself, I can easily type it up and have it formatted for me. I love that it gives you all sorts of question types to choose from. I actually did not have any problems with making my test. It was a very easy to use website that I can promise you that I will be using in the future! I also enjoyed creating my rubric, though it was tough for me to get it figured out. I wanted to use some of the same category names so I clicked on them, but then everything else showed up as well. That threw me off to begin with, but I fixed it quickly! I can also see myself using Rubistar in the future to evaluate all sorts of assignments. Last but not least, I had a time with TrackStar! Creating my track was easy, but finding the information on the web that I wanted to use was tough. We will be going over pronouns in my classroom, and I wanted to gather a few things to use in the classroom. Well it was definitely tough, but having such an easy program to use made it so much more easy for me! I liked that I could just add my websites in, and then I could go back to organize them the way that I wanted. I will be using this in the classroom this upcoming week, so I will let you all know how it goes! Overall, this experience has been a joy for me. I have learned so many new and quite exciting things to help me excel as an educator. 
room and with my own personal school work. My favorite is the thesaurus website! I am always striving to expand my vocabulary, as well as my students, and I have had lots of success with this so far this year! 
It is kind of like a group text, only better and less annoying. I actually didn’t have any issues with this application, which is surprising for me. It was pretty much all laid out there for you, and I loved that. The Google Sheets application is just like Microsoft Excel! I was familiar with Google Sheets because I use this in my classroom often. We have a field trip coming up in two weeks and I decided that I would organize all of our students’ information. I can definitely say that it looked very well put together when I finished. I have also used Google Docs plenty of times in the past year. My husband introduced me to it, and I haven’t used Microsoft much at all since then! I can’t say that I had any problems occur with this application either. I had never used Google Slides before until this project. I have made plenty of slideshows throughout my years, so I was sort of partial to Microsoft Powerpoint. When I started my presentation I was sold. It is pretty much just the same! There are a few differences, but nothing too major. One setback that I had was figuring out how to put a sound on there, and I’m still not positive if it works as it should. I also could not figure the animations out to begin with. With Microsoft, there are so many different things to choose from, but with Google there were not as many. I like a wide variety, but this wasn’t a major problem for me! As far as the survey goes, I had no idea this application existed! I can definitely see myself using this to make my own worksheets in my classroom someday. I can honestly say that this project has enlightened me. My favorite thing about the Google Applications is the fact that it automatically saves after every edit! I am the world’s worst at forgetting to save, my computer dies, and I have nothing left to work with. I will admit that I did have a few mishaps on fully understanding the project, but the good thing about that is that I had four ladies in my group that stuck with it. I feel that we all communicated well with one another and we also were quick to answer each other’s questions and concerns. I am very thankful for Laura, Jennifer, Melanie, and Taylor for doing as they were suppose to and helping me get this project done! Overall, this was an excellent learning experience for me! 
With anything that you may be working on/with, I feel that you need to have basic knowledge on it. I also feel that you need to know how to use all of the tools that are provided. Using iMovie this past week was a delightful experience because I read tutorials on what each tool was and how to use it. I definitely feel like I will be using multimedia and hypermedia in my classroom in the future. I remember playing a Jeopardy type game in middle school and I absolutely loved it. In my classroom that I am in now, we use YouTube videos to go along with our lessons some weeks, and the students ALWAYS enjoy that. You can also tell that they are getting more out of the lesson as well. All in all, I am personally fond of multimedia and hypermedia!
Teaching Blogfolio for IT 465 