My PhotoShop Banner & A Survey

Maybe all this talking about memory lately has helped me to jog my own memory. The other day Linda was showing off her banner on her Developmental Portfolio, and I'll admit it, jealous reared it's ugly green head. "I remembered a little bit of PhotoShop from my undergrad," she said . . . and I thought . . . I took PhotoShop when I was in high school . . . so I started playing . . .

Learning & Leading

I think it's great that we're all in the same class but we're all on different levels. In fact, in my conference Sunday morning that was one of my major comments about what I really like about TEAM. I truly feel that over the course of the semester I've grown a lot, and I think that I can credit my TEAM-mates for that growth as much as my professors. Tonight I went from knowing nothing about Dreamweaver, to making a site that I'm pretty darn proud of. http://eev3.liu.edu/herricks/kw/portfolio/

I've never really considered myself to be a computer whiz, but I guess in comparison to some people I am. If today hadn't been a Monday, or if we didn't have class today, I would have been hosting the SMARTBoard workshop at my school. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, I went from clueless Keri to the one who everyone in my building comes to with their computer/SMARTBoard problems.

So as we approach the end of this semester, I look forward to being able to reach out to all of you to help the rest of my school and their technological problems! :c)

Are they remembering things better? Or is it me?

I recently received the technology supplements to The American Journey, the textbook that we use for Social Studies. Overall I have been fairly satisfied with the textbook and the resources which I was initially given in the beginning of the year; however, I am very excited about using the CDs and DVDs to enhance my lessons. At first, the CD itself was very awkward to use. I found it rather difficult at times to navigate and find what I was looking for. After a while though, I became familiar with how the manufacturer organized the files. My favorite part of the CD is that the textbook is interactive. Each page has a sound file, where you can listen to the page being read aloud. Unfortunately the pages are not broken into sections (so if you leave off in the middle of the page today, tomorrow you will have to fast-forward to find your starting-point).
Due to testing and other circumstances beyond my control, I haven’t really had the opportunity to use the DVD in the classroom yet. I do know though, that it has a review game, similar to Jeopardy.
My classroom is a melting pot of learning styles, with the two biggest ingredients being visual and auditory. Now that I have the technology (a SMARTBoard, and the interactive software), I’ve found that my students are much more engaged in their lessons. In addition, it seems as though they are remembering more of what we are doing day to day.
I know not every lesson will make it to my students “long-term memory”. I do hope though, that the fact that I am now able to teach on both visual and auditory levels simultaneously, that more of my students will remember what they have been taught.