Digital Camera & Comic Life

I really enjoyed the activity that we did today in class using our digital cameras to take pictures of geometric shapes. I learned how to use comic life and love the program. I didn't even know that there was such an easy, fun way to use our photos productively. It was a very user friendly program that I enjoyed using which can make things so much easier when working and producing photos. 

Some of the ideas that you can use with this program would be: changing the background color and font color through the style option, putting the little quote things in where text can be put in, adding text wherever and however, and using a variety of styles for the development of the page and material used.

I have learned a lot through this activity that we did today. It is one of those activities in which the individual really needs to work through it on their own to better understand the linguistics of the program. It is an easy way to acquire and work with photos with not a lot of effort required for the project to turn out really well. I would recommend this program to other users because of the positive experience I was able to have with it today.

Web Based Applications

The potential benefits of computer based tutors are super beneficial especially for really young children who have not gone to school yet or even those who may be struggling in school. The children can learn things through these tutors in a way that can help them to learn in a variety of ways and very effectively. These tutors cover most all of the different subjects and there are a lot of different activities in each subject that can add variety to the child's learning and keep it enjoyable. Also, these tutors are very colorful, exciting, have noises, and are very entertaining for young children. Children will want to focus and pay attention because it is not boring and as a result the learning experience will be that much more productive for the child.

There are a few concerns and weaknesses that I saw with these programs. Some of the programs did not make sense in their wording therefore making it kind of confusing what was expected of the child. Also, some of the programs did not have much of a challenge which did not make it very motivating to do good on the program. It made me want to find something else to try instead because specific programs did not meet a challenging and engaging activity to meet the students' specific needs.

These tutors are well designed for the most part but they do need to be clear and specific. They cannot be too challenging that the student has no idea what he/she is supposed to do. They need to be motivating though and have some change and variety to make it so children want to use the programs to learn which will increase their desire to learn.

Instructional Architect

Today in class we learned about a very valuable accessible tool for lesson plans as a future teacher. Not only can teachers access this website but others as well and anyone can publish a lesson plan for the public as well as their own class. I am constantly amazed by the resources available to us as future teachers. Learning all of this new information really excites me to let others know of the incredible resources which are available to the public.  

The creation of the lesson plan is very intriguing to me and I really want to use this resource as way to plan my lessons especially as a future teacher and student teacher. These resources are very educational and have great purpose to them. There are a great variety of subjects available and within the different subjects, there is a valuable amount of different types of lessons within easy access to the user. 

This new resource, I feel is one of the most valuable I have learned throughout this semester. As a future teacher there is a lot available to increase the variety and effectiveness of the lessons that are taught to my students. I really hope that teachers now are aware of these resources and using them to help make things easier for them as they use technology and teach their students the core curriculum.