facebook

I think facebook would be a great tool to use in the classroom. You could use facebook to have a student present their facebook profile page to the class. You could choose one student for the week to create their profile page and present it in front of the class. This way, they could be spotlighted as student of the week and it would have students and their teacher get to learn more about them. Another way to use this tool would be to have students work in groups and communicate through writing on each other's walls and also instant messaging. All students in the class could add each of their classmates as a friend.

publisher

I have been using a little bit of Publisher this past week and it is awesome! I have been using it for flyers, but it works for almost anything! It is very easy to use and it could be used to give out newsletters to parents about certain events coming up in the school year. Also, students could use Publisher to create assignments from their textbook and make it of use. They could make a brochure about the different oceans, countries, or whatever geological features they want to explore. It is a great and easy tool for both students and teachers!

kidspiration and inspiration

I thought that kidspiration was a great tool to use for both students and teachers. There were so many categories that involved much of the different grade levels. I also loved that there were so many options to choose from how you want to design each page. One day, the teacher can ask each student to create a page of their favorite fruits and why different ones are healthy for them. They can all have the same subject of their favorite fruits, but it can be completely different of how each student chooses to design their page. I liked that the students could create their original page because of the many different options it offers. I thought it was also a great tool to help teachers for their lesson plans. It used a lot of colors, pictures, and fun fonts, and other things that would make learning more enjoyable for the teacher and their students.

I thought that inspiration was also a great tool, but it felt that it lacked in some of the other fun things that kidspiration had. I didn't like the pictures as much. I thought they were more general and boring than kidspiration. I didn't like the layout very much. It was harder for me to find different things that I was looking for. It took me a little longer to find different things I would have liked to use. I didn't like that it didn't have very many pictures like kidspiration had. I thought that this tool was more directed toward older students or that this program was created before kidspiration came out. It seemed that kidspiration was a more updated and easier tool to use than inspiration. It was a great tool, but I just felt that I worked better with kidspiration instead.

Power Point

Power Point would be a great tool to help students learn how to study better and develop skills to do better on tests as well. For instance, in the Power Point book, there is an activity called "What number am I? It gives a variety of different clues to guess the number a student is thinking of. It helps students to learn these math terms better and to know how to solve problems easier. It would be a good tool and game to develop in the classroom for any students.

spreadsheet

I liked the spreadsheet program because it would help with keeping track of grades and highlighting different areas in different colors and fonts to help organize grading better. I think for the students, they could learn how to do a spreadsheet for reading logs or to practice different spelling words.

blogger

I think that blogger would be a fun get-to-know you tool for the students. It would be easier for the upper grades, but the students could learn how to use it. Maybe once or twice a week, each student can show his or her blog for the class. It would be like a spotlight for the week. It would benefit them in learning those computer skills and the rest of the class can find out all about their different classmates.

EDEL 2200: 03/Rebecca Barkdull-collaborating tool

A tool that I think would be very helpful to use in the classroom would be the collaborating tool that is used in gmail. I think it would be very helpful in especially teaching upper grades. A few schools have teachers that team-teach different subjects. I think that using this tool could help teachers add different things in Power Point and could be very helpful to them and the students as well. A group of students may be in a group together and have to give a report by using Power Point. They could use the collaborating tool in gmail to help each other if they couldn't all get together after school and they could work on it whenever they get the chance to at home. It's a great tool if it involves a group project for both teachers and students.