Week Two Reflection

 Did you know that working on the Internet and baking Christmas cookies at the same time is not a very efficient use of time?  Got my cutouts done, but it is hard to read and write in five minute increments.  But....a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!

Well, two down,  how many to go?  What is the count for this class?  I thought this was a six week course, but on the calendar posted on the Angel site, this goes til May?  With this intensity, I don't think I would make it to May.  Anyway, I thought the work this week was very relavant.  The search thing is really important to know, and I am really bad at the advanced searches.  But I did have a minor victory in finally being able to make a Boolean search for "Wisconsin author" books!  The search engine exercise was good to do, and especially since I was able to find one that will work wonderfully for the students at my school, but for the most part, I will probably forever and always just use Google.  The assignment to make a word processing document was o.k.  I made a table for the first time ever!  I just hope my categories make sense.  I think the most fun thing this week was discovering Zoho.  If I had done this part first, I might have made my word processing assingment in Zoho.  I really hope I get the opportunity to use it with my staff and students.

I still drove myself about nuts working on the reading and answering all those questions.  I pulled some late nighters doing those.  With the holidays, its just really tough to fit it all in.  But once again, I THINK I got it all done.

Week One Refelection

This has been a very hectic and anxiety filled week. The first week of a class always makes me very anxious, because you are never quite sure what to expect as far a course work. In the past classes I have taken with Louis, the weekly sessions always seem so overwhelming. But usually by weeks end, I somehow get it all done. This week I am not quite done yet. I just got my book yesterday, so I don't have all the reading done, so all the questions aren't done either. I am excited to meet my two new team mates on Tok Box tomorrow. I am bummed that I'm not with my guys, Matt and Andy. I have been with them since the beginning of the LMS program. But, they say change is good.

This week we were assigned two projects. They worried me at first, but they turned out to be pretty cool. For my presentation I decided to go with SlideRocket. It was pretty easy to work with, much like doing a power point. But I am having a major problem embedding it. I was able to put the link in for my presentation, so at least it can be seen, but I'm really worried about not being able to embed it. A huge thanks to Mike Gielow for teaching me how to embed an HTML. I have never had to do that before. Unfortunately, like I said, I can't get it to work for my presentation. But I did get it to work for my graphic!! :) I used ToonDoo, the world's fastest way to make cartoons! (That's what they say). I did find it pretty easy to make it work. I only tried the one option to make a graphic. They had another one that allows you to make a cartoon book. That looks like a lot of fun. I would like to try that with a class some time. In my SlideRocket presentation I gave an introduction to the Newbery Book award. The 5th grade class is beginning a unit on Newbery books, so I thought this would be a good way to begin. I also think that the older children (grades 4 & 5) would be able to make their own presentation on their Newbery book using SlideRocket. I also think they would be able to use ToonDoo as another fun and different way to present their Newbery book.

I still have a lot of reading and questions to answer before Tuesday, but I think I am going to make it. It is such a relief to be able to check off the assignments one by one as they get finished. One week down, five to go!