So this past week we continued with webquests. We learned the process of making a lesson plan and applying it with the core curriculum.
As a student of UVU's education program I am realizing the importance of lesson plans and how to use different lessons to catch a student's attention and help them grasp onto the concepts they are being taught. I have been taught several different ways to create a lesson with Webquests being the newest one. As a teacher I hope that I can get my students engaged and excited about learning and I am counting on webquests to help me accomplish that!
I have looked over a few examples of webquests and have seen that this is an engaged way of learning. It gets me excited to have tools such as these that I can use to help my students receive the most out of their education and to have them be able to show me through different activities what they know. I plan on incorporating handson activities as well as activities to allow the students to create and act. I feel that when a student is put into character they suddenly are able to feel and relate to what they are learning. That is why I think it would be wise of me to use webquests in many of my social studies lessons.
Now as a student I am planning on perfecting my skills and really knowing how to creat a webquest in a reasonable amount of time. I know I will be extremely busy as a teacher so now is the time for me to prepare and really understand how to use the different tools I have at hand. webquests don't exactly seem to be the easiest and quickest route right now. But with practice I feel as though I will be able to design an educational webquest in a reasonable amount of time and still be able to prepare for my other lessons. Webquesting is a new exciting way for me to look at my future techniques as a teacher.

In this video it talks about engaging students by using twitter or facebook. The teachers felt that it was important to have the students interacting in the classroom so they completely understood how use the tools for educational purposes outside of the classroom as well. As a teacher I find that these tools can benefit the students as long as they are helping the students grasp the information. I am not too familiar with how twitter works, but as for right now I have found that facebook helps out a ton with contacting fellow classmates. By forming classroom groups students can make wall posts, create status updates, and send messages reminding each other of important assignements or information that is needed for the classroom.
As a future teacher I feel that it is important to find ways in which technology and internet tools can be used to better a lesson.

In this video it showed a few examples of different classrooms and what those classrooms are preparing the students for. I learned from this video that we need to prepare our students for the now and not the then. We live in a world that is always changing and growing. As a teacher I have to always be willing to grow and learn as well so I can teach my students what they need to know to be able to survive in the real world. Technology is a huge factor in our society and without educating my students they will fall behind. They need to learn their basic curriculum by using the tools of the world that they will one day be using in their own careers, in their own everyday lives.
As a teacher I need to be sure to keep my students engaged constantly to be sure they are getting the best education for their time and not for a world from the 1900's.

This past week we learned about webquests. Webquests are an online tool that takes a student through a process to complete a task and experience higher level thinking. Each webquest has a process that clearly states what a student should be engaging in. With this process comes steps to a task and a rubric. I look forward to being able to use webquests because I found that they can be a very fun and useful way of learning. From the few webquests I viewed I found them to be very resourceful with information, which left me wanting to participate in the task that was assigned to the students.

I liked this video because it stated clearly everything that I really cant stand in a powerpoint. I actually have alot of problems with powepoints. I feel as though teachers or students use powerpoints as a way out, as a way to say that they really were just being lazy so they didn't really want to plan anything. Well when I think of powepoints that is what I now think of. I do believe that powerpoints can be an extremely awesome tool if used right. If a teacher is wanting to have important information stated and shown or funny side notes/videos or pictures that can go with the lesson then I think powerpoints are great. But when teacher is reading off word for word what the lesson is then I feel as though it is the most pointless teaching and I might as well have not come to class. As a teacher I will take the advice from this video to make sure my powerpoints are effective when they are neccessary to use or can benefit a lesson I've prepared.

My beliefs as a person in society and as a future teacher are that technology and keeping up to date are extremely important. I don't mean that you always have the newest nicer tools, but I do believe that for the most part you need to understand how to work most of the newer day tools and keep in mind that soon the new tools will become old news. Technology wont stop and if we as humans get stuck on something we may fall behind in our skills and fall behind with society. As a teacher I believe that I need to do my best to keep technology in the classroom by incoporating it in with all of my curriculum. If I can manage to have them know basics at first then pretty soon they will be whizzing right past me and teaching me. If I were to keep everything paper and pencil and hardcopy admissions then I feel as though my students will be missing out on opportunities to grow and learn how to be productful in the world of technology. I know this idea may scare some teachers, but I know I would hate to be clueless about the tools we use and so I don't want my students to fall behind either.

After I read the different articles and reviewed the videos I realized more so how the world is pretty much just a big network of technology. It is everywhere. You can pretty much access the internet anywhere you go now and always have access to information. With this in mind and with the idea of how far technology has come within just the past few years, there is no saying that it is going to stop. It will only spread more and become more convienent. Students need to be prepared for the ever changing ways of learning and with technology. It is extremely important for me as a teacher to keep my students informed and keep them up to date so the wont fall behind and can be prepared for the real world. I already knew technology was consistently advancing, but after reading these articles my eyes opened up to how incredible it really is and how important it is to our society to keep up.

After I finished the surveys I realized that most of my skills are basic. I understand how to work most things on a computer and know how to incorporate it into a lesson and teach others how to use it. I am not an expert on anything when it comes to the computer. I have been surrounded by computers enough that most of the time I can figure things out on my own, but I have not spent enough time with them to know how to do anything I want on a computer. I feel as though it is important to understand programs and tools on computers so I can keep up with technology and not fall behind when I'm teaching my own students.
After reviewing the Net standards I can say that for the most part I will feel comfortable teaching my students what they need to know on computers. I may need a few lessons on how to trouble shoot or how to do small details on programs, but if they are more basic then I will not have a problem at all teaching students and using computers in my own life and jobs.