Digital Camera Scavenger Hunt

Let me just start by saying, I have NEVER had to run so much just to take pictures. It felt like we were racing for a million dollars or something...there should have been an incentive for this hunt for the first team who completed their pictures first and were the first ones back to class!
The activity today was awesome. It was a good twist for a change. The usual in class lecture and computer activity does get a little predictable after a while so I thought it was pretty good to throw in this activity. Its important for us as teachers in training to remember to do things like this so we can keep the energy in the classroom at a steady high.
I already knew how to work the camera and download the pictures so the fun part for me was actually going out to take the pictures...i had an awesome time and It was a really good idea for an assignment =]

word processing software

hmm....i guess i never realized how BENEFICIAL online word processing could actually be. Now I have so many options to chose from when I think about doing my next presentation. Today in class, Keoni and I were assigned to work with inetword.com and explore the website and find out some things to share with our classmates. We had fun with the website. We also got to see three other websites that the three other groups in class worked on and I found my new favorite online word processing site =] I'm glad we got to explore these websites today. It was a fun class =]

mnemograph.com

to evaluate the mnemograph.com, i'd give it an 8. It was pretty easy to work with and Pretty easy to understand. I did struggle a little at first but once I got the hang ot it, I was pretty comfortable with using the software. I'd probably use this software in my future classroom as a social studies project. I'd let my students do a timeline of events that has taken place in their family household over a period of two months or they could also use the timeline to map out their summer including only the most memorable moments they had. I think this is a great software to use.

MY B L O G=BLOG!

This blog that i just set up kinda reminds me of the Infamous "myspace". I'm able to update things whenever i want, set a template, change my pictures; just about everything you could do on myspace. Using this blog as a future teacher, i would probably use it in the upper grades like 5-8th grade. I would use it for my students to be able to communicate outside of class and keep daily journals. I would use a blog instead of having them hand write it because journals are usually done in the first ten minutes of class. Well, instead of my students taking the first ten minutes or possibly even more time to write their journals, They get the opportunity to write it in their blog when they get to the computer center. This is easy to handle because its a part of the regular class block and it will make it a lot easier for me to review the entries instead of letting every student go around and decide whether they want to read their journal write ups or not....

The Web Flow Chart

Last week, three classmates and myself had to work on a flow chart that consisted of the administration in "our school" and we had to include tech. people. We used mind42 and I most definitely WOULD NOT recommend this site for teachers or anyone for that matter. It was very hard to work with and it was really hard to comprehend. If I had to rate "mind42" I would rate it at a low 2. I just did not understand it at all and it was too hard and time consuming. As a teacher, I feel like i need something that is consistent and easy to work with. Also, I feel like a project that is time consuming for me will be time consuming for my students and that is not a goal of mine as a teacher. I wouldn't try this in my teaching practice but i probably would use mindmeister or gliffy to create a flow chart. The two applications are a lot easier to use and less time consuming. =]

A little on me...

I feel like I keep having to introduce myself but oh well, meeting new people is always fun for me =]. I'll start with the basics. Nanette Yvonne Borja Hurst is whats on my birth certificate but you can call me Nan or Nannie, whatever floats your boat. I'm 22 years old and i'll be 23 in a few months. I'm the youngest of two children and the only girl so yup you guessed it, the oldest is a boy. School is really important to me and in my family. I'll be graduating with my bachelors in elementary education in the Spring of 2009 and I am SOOO excited for that. Feels like I've been working a lifetime for this degree but the moment is finally upon me so i'm super excited.
On a more personal note, I am a proud MOMMY to a beautiful baby girl, who we named Irieyana Ferne Hurst Aughenbaugh. She is now 9 months old and will be one in November. She is truly a blessing and in my eyes, gods greatest gift to Derrick and I. She is my motivation, my inspiration, and my reason for living.
I think I'm getting a little too carried away here so i'll get back on track and answer the rest of the questions. I'm in ED 480. i am taking the course because well its required and i know this course will help me further my technology knowledge if you would call it that. SO far I've learned, what a blog is, how to create my own blog site and what i'm doing right now, writing a blog. The course has been fun so far. Even though I hate using MAC's i've managed and I've even learned more things about the computer that i hate so much =]. Looks like this will be an interesting semester.