Strengths and Weaknesses

After taking this survey and reading the NETS paper, I found that I am at the apprentice level in almost every single operation and concept. My biggest weakness that I found filling out the surveys was that I haven't really thought about how I am going to teach my students how to use technology and how to reflect on the activities I teach. The survey also said that the activities need to be authentic. I think that every activity taught by a teacher is going to be authentic because every teacher teaches differently and has their own level of skill when it comes to technology. My other weakness that I noticed was that I have never used video chat. With such an evolving technological world, one day I could be using video chat to talk to my principle or even parents. I think that one-on-one meetings are going to become less frequent and video chat will be more common. I found a video that explains how to use video chat on gmail and I think that how wide spread gmail has spread, knowing how to use video chat with gmail is a great tool. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGJRfoK9xQ. This other video I found motivated me to use technology when I teach and teach technology to my students. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6AqDNjNmhw&feature=related.

I think because I have knowledge of using computers it is going to be hard for me to not get frustrated when a student doesn't understand what I explain to them. For my first goal, I am going to be patient with the students who don't understand when I teach them, review or start from the basics of using a computer. For my activity, I am going to have the students first learn the different parts of the computer such as the mouse, monitor, computer, key board, etc. That way the students will know what each term means when I use them and not have to explain to my students one by one what each part is. I will then take them through learning how to use word processor by having them make a cover of a book that would be about themselves and have them create a creative title for it. That way they will learn how to put pictures in a word document and how to use the different font sizes and style as well as font placement. I will continue on to teach how to save documents and the importance in saving them regularly when working on the project. I will help students whenever they have questions but when I take it step by step and show them how do to it on a projector as they are doing it, it will help me create a steady pace where I won't become frustrated with the students.

My next goal is to use video chat. I am going to use it with my peers and maybe another teacher that way I will be able to know how to find the video camera on the computer and know how to make it go into video mode to chat with others. My activity to help teach students about video chat, I am going to have them video chat with another student on the other side of the room. I could also have a cooperating teacher from another school have all of their students on one video chat with our classroom and that way we can still see the distance video chat can work between as well as have it not be one on one with each student. It will also help teach this concept if there isn't a camera for each student to use. I will take my students step by step through the process of finding a camera on a computer and connecting to another through a projector and that way they can physically see how to do it instead of just hearing how to and having a list of steps to follow.