Lesson 4: Using PowerPoint's in the classroom

This week’s topic for class is my favorite thus far! At my school I’m known very many different things: 1. Getting pied in the face 2. Always willing to do crazy stuff 3. Hands-on activities, and finally 4. Using PowerPoint slideshows in class. Watching the video and reading the different sources for information helped me grow as a PPT user. I love to use PPT’s in my classroom. Around 2 years ago I noticed how my students were beginning to feel about my Social Studies class. They seemed to be a little bored with the content and I knew they weren’t very excited about reading out of the textbook as much as we were. So I decided to make things more interesting by making PPT’s that coincided with all of my different topics/units. I began to use the PPT’s as the main source of teaching rather than the textbook. I even began making review games and fun activities that the students could participate in with Microsoft PowerPoint.

I have around 100 PowerPoint’s that I use in my class each year. The topics range from Causes of the Revolutionary War to Use of technology in the Civil War. One of the PowerPoint’s I created was meant to act as a fun game/review of what a primary source is.  In class on this day I made the students split up into teams so that I could test their comprehension on primary sources. This PPT was presented all 5 of my social studies classes. I teach 5^th grade SS in a departmentalized grade-level, so I teach the same lessons 5 times each day. I would have to say that I was probably most proud of making this topic of “primary sources” which can be kind of redundant and boring to students, one that they enjoyed. All of the classes really loved coming into SS and using PPT’s to play a review game.

Of course this PPT wasn’t completely perfect. One thing I could have made a little better was how the PowerPoint should have had a “home” functioned key that actually worked. I tried to put a “home” button in the slide but failed to sync it up correctly and it didn’t work. This caused a little dis-organization.

Overall I would have to say that the students enjoyed the presentation that I created for them. Every student was excited to come to class. I had to make them promise not to tell the answers to the questions for other classes! I would recommend the use of PowerPoint to every educator. Other than having to worry about your computer crashing and maybe some viruses, I don’t really see many bad things that can happen from using PPT. If we as educators take the time to create a valuable PPT’s, I know that students will respond to them in positive ways. 

Lesson 3: Using Publisher for School Newsletter

Technology has been a big part of my occupation over the last few years. Not only do I love to use technology within my classroom, but for the last couple of years I’ve also served as my school’s Webmaster. Through this process, I have become very familiar with all sorts of programs such as DTP and Word Processors. As webmaster, one of my responsibilities is to help design our school newsletter. This is an informational newsletter that goes home with students every Friday. The newsletter at the top of this post is used to communicate important dates, reminders, and information to parents/guardians. Parents have said they really enjoy these newsletters because a lot of times their child will forget to remind them about an important event that is coming up at school.

          When looking at the school newsletter you can tell that it is definitely visually appealing. It has been designed in columned boxes so that the information doesn’t run together. There are lots of bright colors and images that help each block of information stand apart from the other. Each block also has a big headline so that you can instantly see who or what the information pertains to. I always make sure that the date of the current newsletter is at the top right of the page so that it doesn’t get confused with previous newsletters.

          There were a few things that really distracted from my newsletter. On my original newsletter for this week I tried to cram about 9 different blocks of information on the page. While I was successful in doing so, I noticed that it really took away the clarity of the page itself. The font became too small to read because I tried to squeeze too much on. Another thing that I noticed from my original document was that I made a header about Literacy Night at a minor league baseball game here by my school, but I failed to give the date and time for the game. I gave information about what the event was being held for and how much tickets were but forgot the most important information! Our school’s Spring Carnival is a really big event in our community, so we’re always to quickly advertise it. As with any school event, volunteers are a must. On our newsletter I put a blurb in it talking about the carnival and letting our school community know that we were looking for volunteers. In the newsletter I told everyone to contact a big parent volunteer in our school, Luanne Kinman. When editing this newsletter I failed to take into account that not everyone knows Luanne!  In order to make this an organized final product, I had to go back to add her phone number onto the page. Now as you can tell from the final product located above, our newsletter is much clearer and easier for parents to use. 

Lesson 2 - Using Databases and Spreadsheets

Who knew that so much could be accomplished in our classrooms by using Spreadsheets and/or Databases? Not me, that’s for sure! Over the past week I learned more about spreadsheets and databases then I did in my entire undergrad computer classes. As an undergrad student I never focused on how these programs could be used to help me as an educator so I never really made that connection, but my eyes have been open to a lot of things in the past week just from this lesson!

When I first became an educator I really only used programs like Excel to keep attendance or to maybe chart who was on task with a project or something like that. In the last year or so I have moved from basic Excel use to using the spreadsheets to communicate assessment results with my 5^th grade students. I have made spreadsheets that calculate overall scores on assessments such as my summative tests and common assessments given by the school district. This has been extremely valuable, because I have made it a friendly competition between all 5 of my classes to see who could get the top score. We always chart our overall scores.

I thought that I was using spreadsheets and databases to the fullest, but boy was I wrong. When searching online I found lots of uses of spreadsheets in the classroom. In fact this website: http://www.amphi.com/~psteffen/excel.html has many resources that make Excel fun and meaningful to use in the classroom. I have displayed a picture of how you can create flashcards for studying on excel at the top of the blog. I found that webpage by using another teacher’s website here: http://www.sbaran.net/excel/index.html it was Mr. Baran’s website that really got me excited in new ways to use Excel. Over the last 3 years of my teaching experience, I have made my students make timelines on several occasions. Not once did it ever cross my mind to have them make timelines with interactive pictures on Excel until I read about Mr. Baran’s ideas. On his page and others I found examples of how students were placed in groups and given certain key events in a certain thematic unit like the Revolutionary War for example. The students worked hard to make their contribution to the class timeline.  Mr. Baran has ideas such as graphing the president’s political background with Excel as well as much more!

Over the past week my thoughts about spreadsheets and databases have changed tremendously. I hate to admit it, but I used to be like the teacher from the article we were supposed to read who said that if she didn’t get how to use Excel how could her students? Now that I have read more about how to use the program I can honestly say that my feelings have changed! I look forward to utilizing these new ideas!

Lesson 1

What did I learn this week that I will use immediately?
This week I really enjoyed completing the “Technological Literacy" assignment.  I liked that I got to sit down and really think about which areas of technology I was proficient in and the areas I needed help in. One thing that I decided I need to improve was effectively using technology for assessment. One way I decided to immediately try to improve this is by using a program made by the company "TurningTechnolgies". Their product called the TurningPoint Response Card is something that I want to use in my classroom right away as a new fun assessment tool.
What steps will I take?
I have researched this product and have read many reviews about it to help me get a better understanding of what it is capable of. This program comes with around 25-30 "response cards". Each of the cards (basically remotes) will be passed out to each of my students and can be used to calculate grades on a summative assessment such as a test. They can also be used as an "on the spot" formative assessment in which students have to select a multiple choice answer by using the A, B, C and D buttons. I have already talked to my administration about this product. They agree that this can be a great tool to use in my classroom. I have a very close relationship with my students and I asked them if they thought they would like using this product and they all were extremely excited! They really liked that I could ask them exit slip type questions on the PowerPoint program and see the results instantly. It also is helpful to me because I'm the only one who see who gets questions right or wrong so it allows me to see which students have mastered a concept and which ones still need help. None of the kids ever get embarrassed by this, because no one knows who has answered which way.
What challenges will I face?
The 2 biggest challenges I will face with implementing this plan immediately is #1 funding! As we know, money is as tight as ever in almost every school district. This is a great program, but no one is going to allow me to have it for free. Another challenge for this program will be the implementation of it in my class PowerPoint’s. I have made close to probably 50-60 PowerPoint's that I use in my classroom but none of them have been setup to run with the TurningPoint response cards.
What will I do to overcome the challenges?
I plan to talk to my administration about the possibility of obtaining the funds for this product. I know that they like the idea of these being used in the classroom, so I'm hoping that they will try to help me find the extra money! I also saw that on a few different websites offering this product that there are grant opportunities. I plan to complete the necessary paperwork so that I can possibly get one of these systems for free! I also plan to do more research about the TurningPoint Response Cards. I would like to believe that this system can be easily integrated with PowerPoint so I'm going to research and go to any trainings I can find so that I don't have to re-do all of my previous PowerPoint’s. I don’t think this will be a major problem. I'm excited to see these implemented into my class!