520 wk 3

Well I found some great stuff this week. My blog was flagged for spam and I almost lost this account. I don't know how but that almost happened. The part of this week I enjoyed the most was the 280slides review. This tool is great! I used empressr before and it did not do what I wanted, but 280slides did. I could actually upload a ppt and make it available online. This means I can work with my familiar power point and then share it through 280slides. Also I enjoyed looking at google for educators. There is not much there for a person that teaches automechanics and collision repair but I still found it useful. I have enjoyed working with these different tools and I hope that I can keep track of them all. If I am able to incorporate these things into my teaching and my life I will be much more effective and efficient!

520 wk 2

Well summer is coming and I am excited! I always seem happier when the weather gets nice. So far I have enjoyed this class and I have appreciated the assignments. I enjoyed the internet based learning assignment because I found a lot of great articles in support of it. I think that what we are doing in this program is very useful for our profession. I want to be a leader in my school and a good example of a technology literate teacher. These articles would be good ammo for a budget, faculty, or school board meeting in order to support educational technology. I have always been in support of using the internet for teaching and I go as far as using youtube in many of my classes to show videos and google images for pictures. I could not be as effective or interesting without the support of technology. Not to mention all of the good ideas I get from the web. I was not all that suprised to also find articles about people and teachers that do not support educational technology and do not use any either. I hope to change the minds of those people in my school and keep growing in my "techKnowledgeY"

520 wk 1

This course has started off pretty well. I missed most of the first class because I was attending an awards dinner with my students. I did catch the end and was able to get a pretty good picture of the assignments for this week. The focus on evaluating internet resources is a great activity. Using the forms provided in the wiki and creating my own really allowed me some time to think about how I evaluate web information. These tools will be very useful when assigning course work that students can use the internet as a resource. Many people may not be aware when they are doing internet research that some sites have a bias or an agenda that skews the information they provide. These types of influences can prevent students from doing effective internet research. It is the same as when we used books and magazines as our only sources. If I was writing a paper on gun control, the NRA would definitely have something to say, and their information may be valid, but you can bet that it will have a pro-gun slant. Being able to determine the validity of the source is important no matter what type of media you are using.

510 Blog 4

I am a person that is always willing to learn. I do not know a lot about computers and their parts so all of this info is new and useful to me. I don't know if I will ever use a lot of this information but that doesn't mean that it is useless. I will never build my own computer, nor will I probably ever do my own upgrades or major troubleshooting. I do find this information useful when it comes to buying a computer. As we begin to talk about computer components and how to build the perfect computer, understanding what certain parts do and how they work makes it easier to make an educated decision when buying. I understand RAM and memory pretty well, but in this class I have learned about things like motherboards, processors, and virus software. When we are done with this class, if I can discuss computer parts more intelligently and make good buying decisions then it is worth it. The only addition I might make to this class is a resource listing full of links and information on the topics we research just to make finding quality information a little easier.

510 WK 3 what would I lose?

My laptop and I have not been getting a long for about 3 months now. When we started this program, my laptop often decided not to boot up or would not turn on at all. That computer has all of my music and about 4 years worth of college and work related files. Most of that stuff I have backed up on an external hard drive, so I am okay if it decides to die. The computer I am using now works great but all of my work is web based so I do not have to worry about it. If my work computer at school died, I could have issues. I have done a lot of work on that computer in the last two years. At the end of the year I backed it all up on my external hard drive and all year this year I have been meaning to do it again. If it crashed over the weekend I would be lost. I have a ton of files on there right now that are not backed up. I have letters, curriculum, power points, and pictures all saved on that computer. I have been thinking that I need to have an external hard drive at school at all times so that I am more likely to back up on a regular basis. Online storage is also an option, but not one that I prefer. I like the external hard drive because I know right where all of my info is, but if we had a fire or if someone stole it I would again be out of luck. This weeks data recovery assignment really made me think about what I am going to do for my school computer. I am glad all of my course work to date is done online and I have really begun to love google docs. I will probably end up backing up again at the end of the year and kicking myself if anything happens again. This is one of those problems that is easy to fix if you can just get yourself to do it!

510 wk 2 microsoft desktop future

I think this is an interesting topic. This blog is going to end up being a lot like my response to triumph of the nerds. No one can tell where this industry will be in one year much less five or ten, but the one thing I do know is that it will be constantly changing. When you talk about PC's and desktop computers, I think we are already seeing the change with PDA's, Iphones, and blackberrys. These types of mobile devices are quickly replacing many forms of computers that we currently use. As for Microsoft, I don't believe that they will fall out of favor with the world becuase if nothing less they will be able to provide services to business for many years to come. But for the general public, I think software as we know it will change. In the future I think that cell phone companies will provide all of our internet service because we will want to be mobile and have access all the time. As this new technology (mobile access) develops that will give opportunities to other companies to come in and supply the customer with the software and operating systems that we need. The consumer will always be looking for something newer, better, faster, and easier. That type of demand will always provide customers for business like Microsoft and any others that want a piece of the pie.

510 week 1 my computer history!

If you want to get technical, my first computer was a Nintendo. haha! As far as a PC is concerned, our first was an apple 2E and then an apple GS (I think). I was about 6 at this time and the year was somewhere around 1987-89. The first thing I remember on those computers where the games. Oregon trail was a favorite at home and school. We also had army games like Howitzer and Parachute. Howitzer worked kind of like battle ship, you put in coordinates trying to blow up the other persons tank. Parachute was the game where little men parachuted out of the sky and you had to shoot them as they fell before they blew up your gun. These games were really simple, but at the time very entertaining. I refused to type or do anything constructive on the computer, at that age it was purely entertainment.

When I was in middle school (1996) we started to use the internet. I mainly learned to type so that I could instant message my friends, it was a big thing back then. During that time, many of our teachers began requiring typed reports and papers over hand written. I still could not type very well and I often paid my older sister to type everything for me! If you would have told me then twelve years ago that I would be using a computer for a good portion of my daily life I would have laughed at you. I never would have dreamed that I would become so dependant on a computer and the internet. Years ago I could have gone weeks or months without turning on a computer and now I rarely go more than a few hours. Boy how the times have changed!