“Prerequisites: ETEC 444 or equivalent experience satisfying California Level I computer technology standard.
Principles for integrating computer technology into learning environments to improve: planning, designing and implementing learning experiences; educational communication and collaboration; assessment and evaluation.
Meets California Level II computer technology standard.(Seminar 2 hours, laboratory 2 hours) Letter grade only (A-F).”
Artifacts
Educational Video
The educational video was an exercise to have us create and edit an educational video. The subject matter was left at our discretion. For the video we had to have either music or a voice recording edited in. I ended up using iMovie since it seems to be relatively easy to use. The video I created was designed to be an introduction to a beginning German class to provide them with an overview of what we were going to do in class. The video also included a sample video created by a previous German class for their skits. The only problem I had with this video, was that I mistimed the opening and I had to speak quickly to keep up with the text.
Staff Development Workshop
The staff development workshop gave my group and I the ability to create a sample workshop on a subject of our choice. The goal was that this should be done as if we were giving an actual staff development workshop to colleagues at the school where we worked.
We chose to give a workshop on using the lesser known functions of Google. The primary topic was creating a website using “Google Sites.” We also covered using advanced search functions in google, video chatting with in gmail, and creating sub-email accounts with in gmail to help keeping a tidy inbox. All of our information was presented in a google site to help our audience visualize what google sites can be used for.
Back to School/All About Me
This project was designed to be used by teachers to create a back to school project for their open house to inform parents what their students were going to be learning. Since many of us aren’t teachers yet or a back to school/open house project would be out of place in a college setting, we were given the option the create an “All about me” presentation. The only main criteria for the project was that we were not allowed to use Microsoft PowerPoint. This was to force us to use something else than the most commonly and overused presentation software out there. Many students opted to make a video, use google docs, or Prezi. I chose Prezi since it looked like a fun and eye catching alternative to make presentations.
Prezi – Back to School Presentation
I enjoyed using Prezi for my project and will most likely continue using it. I did have several implementation issues with Prezi, which led me to conclude that is still more of a beta program and not quite ready for mass use. My major annoyance with Prezi was that it would often zoom either way in or way out to the point that I could not resume my project. I had to save and quit the project, log out and then log back in to continue working. This was quite annoying, but not a deterrent from using the site. I still think Prezi has potential.
Educational Podcast
This assignment required us to create an educational podcast, where we taught something in our subject matter. The concept of the assignment was not difficult, because the objective was the actual technical creation of the podcast. We had to make sure it was a certain length, added music/audio that did not distract from the lesson, and included the basics of a podcast such a name, date, title, etc. I found this useful, because while I may subscribe to and listen to many podcasts I haven’t actually ever made one before this assignment. For my podcast I decided to create a list of basic phrases that a traveler would need when going to a German speaking country.
Reflection
This class was geared to using more technology in the classroom as well as developing staff development workshops. The main projects in the class were to create a podcast, a presentation without the use of powerpoint, an Educational Video, and a Staff Development workshop, where my group and I had to teach the class how to use the more in depth features that google offers. The implementation of technology in this class will be very useful in the future, since I will definitely be responsible for organizing and/or giving Workshops and helping instructors and students integrate video into the language learning classroom.