Collaborating with Google Docs

Overall I enjoyed using Google Docs for the resume project. It wasn't too tough overall, but I did encounter a problem. The problem that I experienced with Google Docs was sharing my resume with other people like my housemates. Since I don't use my msu.edu e-mail account, I struggled to be able to view my housemates resumes and to help them out by editing them on Google Docs. If my housemate sent me a link to their Google Doc then I could view it and e-mail them my response, but other than that I couldn't do much more with their resumes on the actual Google Docs website.

When I played with Google Docs a little bit before it was easy because I sent it to myself and enjoyed collaborating with myself, but as far as collaborating with others that was the most difficult part. I think that if the students didn't have msu g-mail accounts than things would work out fine with collaborating as a class. I have heard a lot that the msu e-mail affects g-mail things.

In my own classroom I would have all of the students in my class make their own g-mail accounts or I would create g-mail accounts for all of them and then just make sure they used those accounts when we were collaborating on papers or other projects. I think that it would be a great tool to use in the classroom, because the students would be able to edit each others papers and I could have them submit it to me and I could provide feedback easier without having rough drafts of things everywhere. 

If you haven't tried it out than you really should.

Link to Google Docs

Music in the Classroom

I'm very interested in how to integrate music into the classroom. I was originally going to be a music education major and hoped to direct secondary vocal choirs. My career path changed when I was observing in an elementary music classroom and saw how much the teacher enjoyed the younger students. I always knew that I wanted to teach, I just wasn't sure about which level. Over my years at Michigan State I've come to love teaching at the elementary level. I took a class called MUS 463, which is a class about integrating music into the elementary curriculum. It was a very fascinating class. I learned about so many ways to integrate music into all of the subjects such as math, science, literacy, and social studies. There are so many songs that can have the words changed to fit a certain subject. I know throughout my school career it's been very helpful to have certain songs that help you remember facts or a trick for an algorithm in math. Songs can be a great tool for memorizing and since they have catchy tunes they stick in your head better than just facts. I plan when I have my own classroom to use song as often as I can. Especially since music classes are becoming less popular in schools, giving students a bit of music within the regular curriculum will help them learn musical concepts as well as general education concepts. Whether it's just playing music for them to listen to or actually teaching them a song, I hope to be able to use music with my students to make their learning experience different and exciting. Over the years I will explore this more and more, searching out helpful websites and developing my own ideas for songs I can use during lessons. 

Google Docs

Click here for Jing video of me trying out Google Docs.
I played with Google Docs a little bit and it seems pretty easy to use for a college student like me. I uploaded a  word document and was able to edit it just like with Microsoft Word, I also was able to send the document to my mom for editing and received her comments right on the actual document instead of me having to open a new similar document and saving it to my computer so I could adjust the older version. It makes it so much easier because then I'm not having to compare two separate documents on my computer and then edit the older version and send it in an e-mail to be edited again. As the video below explains it would cut down on a lot of the document clutter that people who need to do a lot of editing of documents experience. 
With Google Docs you are able to access your documents from any computer since it is over the internet. The advantages of Google Docs being used in the classroom would be that students would be able to upload their documents to the Google Docs, so they could access them from a computer at the school. You could use this technology to have students peer edit each others work or even have you the teacher do an edit of the paper before the assignment is actually due. It would be a good way to turn in papers so that they can't say they forgot to print it or anything. It would allow easier access to the students documents for the teacher and the grading could be done on the Google Docs and returned quicker. 
The disadvantages of Google Docs would be that it is a little more advanced then most programs and could probably only be used in higher level education like middle school or high school. You could possibly use it with younger students if their parents could help them with it. One way to use it in the younger grades would be as a way of communicating with parents. Letters that need to be sent home could be uploaded to Google Docs instead and then parents could go on and access the letters without worrying about the student not giving the letter to their parents. 

Reading and Projectors

The content that I would like to focus on is reading within language arts. There are a couple of technologies that would work well with reading such as the nook, kindles, the elmo document camera/projector, and projectors/smartboards. I would probably be most comfortable with using a projector/smartboard. I can see being able to put a picture book on a sort of presentation so that all of the students can see the words on the board and the pictures are really big. Then you can take a pointer and point to the words as the students reading, helping them with letter sound knowledge, and other concepts of print. Students common misconceptions about concepts of print are often related to which way to read the text, and what to do when you get to the end of the line, but not the end of a sentence. Some students will pause at the end of the line even though there's no period or comma. Using the projector the teacher would be able to motion the students through the end of the line, so they don't stop. It would probably take scanning the book into the computer to make it work, but I think it would work out really well. Reading is starting to be done a lot more on a screen, so students might as well learn more about reading off of screen. Plus, rather than have to find a big book version of the book, you can get the students access to the book in large, viewable text and pictures. Technology advances more and more everyday and soon paper books will become a thing of the past. Teaching the students to use the different technologies in their reading will help them achieve more when faced with an online or on computer text to read.

Digital Story through PhotoPeach

Being an Aunt on PhotoPeach

I decided to tell the story of being an Aunt or more the story of watching my niece grow up before my eyes. I never expected to be an Aunt at this age, because I have a twin and a younger sister, so likely it would be me or my twin that would have children first. Though it was unexpected to become an Aunt, watching Tessa grow up has been the highlight of the past two years. She has definitely changed my family's life for the better.
I would have my students use PhotoPeach to make a story about their life, and how they grew up with pictures of them at different ages. It would be a good way to show a timeline of their life. We would then present the life stories to the rest of the class, so that the class can get to know each other as well as to give me information about my student's backgrounds and lives. 
The program was simple to use especially if the pictures are already on the computer and you can just download them to PhotoPeach. I tried to have PhotoPeach find my facebook photos cause it has that  option, but there was a problem so it didn't work out. I just downloaded the photos from my computer and found it easy to follow the step by step instructions. Very basic and user friendly. I wish it was a little more advanced though, so that you could change the text and such. But I enjoyed it.