Using Technology For Education

Quiz - Progress Report - Flyer
This was going to be my finest hour – creating all of these neat ways to garner class participation. Well, that road was a little more difficult than I expected. The flyer was especially tough, and I do not understand why. The basic concept of keeping it simple should have been the first thing to jump into my head. Unfortunately, it was more, “let me show off my computer skills”. I had to stop myself several times from trying to over-do just getting the information out to the parents. Overdesign is no better than under-design.
 The next task was equally complex. There are several grade book templates available, and I just haven’t decided the best one for my use. I am trying a couple of different ones, and the one I am using for this assignment is probably the one I will continue to use. It has more information than I probably need, but I want to see what information may actually come out of the time and effort of grading all of these assignments. I know it has probably been done before, but I want to reinvent the darn thing! I chose a bar graph and a line graph to convey information. The bar graph displays the class standing of each student based on the grades accumulated through the first exam. The line graph demonstrates the exam grade for each student. Since the homework assignments give a snap-shot of the current lesson/task, I believe the exam grade is important to measure understanding and retention of the various lessons.

 Now, the PowerPoint is an easy program for me to use. What is not quite as easy is to decide which questions would be the best to use on a PPT quiz. I was torn.

I selected angles as my quiz topic. I am teaching algebra and this seems like a fun, non-threatening way to teach the various types of angles. I also believe the PPT will provide me with the format for repetition that I believe is needed to help learn the various types of angles. I selected sounds I thought was appropriate to reinforce accurate and inaccurate choices made.


I believe the hardest part of all of this is there is so much technology available it is difficult to decide which might be the most effect support for teaching. As I have found through my experience with this class, it does not pay to be clumsy with technology. I need to find something that works, and I need to perfect it.

Quiz
Flyer
Progress Report