Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is about using the web for teaching and learning. Online publications was one of the first things that caught my attention. We have done a lot of work with online publications in W200. It talks about the different ways that you can use these articles. You can save them, print them or even email them to yourself. It talks about how some websites save their articles as PDF files. This is something that I have dealt with a lot. I think it is actually easier to have the articles as a PDF file then just on the website. You have to have Adobe Reader to read PDF files. The chapter then goes on to talk about weblogs. Blogs are something that I have had a great deal of experience with. I've had several different blogs over the past few years. I love blogging and I would love to incorporate it into my classroom one day. Another part of the chapter that I found interesting was Class Web Sites. It talks about teachers who made their own classrooms websites. I definitely think that this would be something that I would enjoy doing with my class one day. It would be a great activity for older students and I definitely think that they would really enjoy it. Towards the end of the chapter it talks about acceptable use for the interenet and privacy. This is something that we have covered a lot during class. As a teacher you have to make sure that your students are not abusing the internet and that all of their personal information is kept safe.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 focused on the broad topic of academic software. To me this broad topic is so important for teachers to incorrporate into the classroom. In this chapter this broard topic is divided into a variety of categories of software. The categories of software that stood out to me were the graphic software, tutorial software, educational games, special needs software, and mapping tools. I believe that these specific types of software stuck out to me in the reading because they are the ones that I have personally seen used integrated into the classroom. What I like most about these types of software was that they get the students to be interactive with the lesson.

Chapter 6

Chapter six is all about academic software. Academic software includes a wide variety of things such as, desktop publishing, graphics, reference like encarta, tutorials and drill and practice, educational games, simulations and special needs. I remember using simulation software in elementary school to play the oregon trail game. It was a lot of fun and helped me learn more about oregon trail and how things happened. Educational games are something that students probably enjoy the most out of anything. They learn without even knowing that they're learning. The chapter then goes on to talk about how to use each of these systems. One thing that I found useful was the pictures and diagrams they used to help explain themselves. I'm a visual learner so pictures are always better for me. Also, I liked the rubics that they used to show how to grade the different softwares. Towards the end of the chapter it talks about content specific software. It explains the different types of software for math, science, social studies, and language arts.

I was really surprised when I was reading this chapter because I had no idea that there were so many different types of academic softwares that could be used in schools.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was all about software! The Academic Software includes the software that can help the teacher and the students learning. They have many softwares such as desktop publishing, graphics, and educational games. All of these helping the teacher and the students. Chapter 6 gives a description of the paint program, the drawing program, the imaging software which is used with scanners to convert hard copy images to digital images. The editing software allows you to change the image. It explains the reference software such as encyclopedias, atlases, grammer tools, and dictionaries.
Chapter 6 is all about the software available to you to use on the computers. To me it was all familiar to me just a review.

Chapter Six

Chapter six was all about software! This chapter discussed the vast category of academic software giving examples of how to use it. For example the chapter talked about special needs software that will perform operations such as reading sounds and words .
This chapter also went into desktop publishing software which is used for a variety of reasons. A few ways teachers use them could be to type up a newsletter so they could easily add and arrange graphics, made a worksheet, or even make a flyer for a school event.
Another interesting thing chapter six addressed was simulations. I honestly had to think a little bit to remember that I had in fact used a simulation before. In middle school we had to take a class called tech ed. In this class there was a plethora of ‘modules’ or work stations for us to do. We wouldn’t be able to do all of them but there were enough to keep everyone busy. I can remember that I did the module on aviation in which I got to do a flight simulation! The plane I ‘flew’ ended up crashing, but it was an interesting experience.

Chapter 4

Overall chapter 4 talks about using digital technologies in the classroom. In this chapter these digital technologies can be broken down into the three categories of useful input devices, useful output devices and emerging technologies.

Useful input devices are peices of technology that are sed to imput data into a computer. These devices include: scanners, digital cameras, graphic tables, microphones, tablet PCs, touch screens, and electronic whiteboards.

Output devices allow the teacher to share data with students and faculty. Output devices include a variety of methods of technology. The output devices talked about in this chapter include: data projectors and speakers and headphones. This two major devices share data through images that are projected for students.

Emerging digital techologies for the classroom can be discribed as hardware that are likey to be adapted for use in schools. These types of hardware include: wireless devices, handheld computers, E-books, voice-activated devices, portable storage and the use of virtual environments.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is all about the digital technologies in the classroom. They start out discussing how teachers can take pictures and easily download their pictures on their computers. It states that the two most commonly used devices when using a computer are a keyboard and a mouse. With these two devices you can do everything you need to do on a computer. Other devices that are commonly used with the computer are scanners, digital cameras, and touch screen devices. The most common type of scanner is called a flat bed scanner, its like a small personal copier. Also they discuss all about the digital camera. Being a owner of a digital camera, I know all about the special features and how to use one. The memory card is a very important investment when you have a camera some types of cards are Smart Media, Compact Flash, and a memory stick.
A graphic tablet is a electronic pad to draw diagrams or create artwork. This is helpful for art students because it gives a more typical digitizer to draw the original images. It discusses pen input devices which is a PDA. Its a portable computing device that can be used for hand notes, and transfers them into a Word processor. They are very useful for business people and teachers. For people that is on the go all the time! Another digital tool is touch screens. Its a computer monitor that responds to your finger when you touch the screen. Chapter 4 is all about the different technology resources you can use in the classroom to help the teachers and the students teach and learn better. To me Chapter 4 was all a review when reading, because I am familiar with all the technology they mentioned.