Week 4

Videos

In the "Did You Know" video I liked how they presented a lot of statistics.  I like that they actually showed the numbers so that I could visualize the concreteness of the numbers and information.  I didn't realize how many jobs people go through before they reach 40! It was very shocking to me.  I was also shocked that soon China will have the most people speaking English.  I think that one day because of technology and because we can communicate so easily with people in other countries that English will be the universal language, more and more people are learning it which makes it easier to communicate with people in various parts of the world.  I think that it is important we utilize various technologies in the classroom such as computers but I also think that it is important that students learn the basics without technology such as math, good penmanship, reading, writing etc.  In the second video "A Vision of Students Today"  it was focused solely on college students.  It wasn't really eye opening for me because I knew that that's how it is.  I think that college students have so much to do and a lot on their plate but they waste a lot of time on things like facebook and myspace.   This time should be better used doing homework, actually studying, and interacting with people face to face instead of through the internet.  I know that technology has improved communication in a lot of ways but I also believe that it is destroying personal relationships that we have.  

Reflection: 

This week in class we learned about Microsoft Word.  I think that Microsoft Word is the most important tool in the classroom.  I know that I use it more than any other program (except the internet), it is definitely user friendly and essential to every student at one point or another.  I will use Microsoft Word to create handouts, documents, assignments, flyers, calendars, instructions etc for my students.  Anything that I have to create by hand for my students will be done in Word.  I will use it to write letters to parents, create permission slips, announcements, and volunteer lists.  I can use Microsoft Word to type reports to give to colleagues, any assignments they would like to use I can simply print for them or even attach it in an email.  I think that Microsoft Word is a very useful tool in creating simple documents.  It has a decent thesaurus, dictionary, and spell check to help people use correct grammar.  It doesn't really  a lot of draw backs other than it is so simple that you can't do anything fancy on it, you can't collaborate with others as easily (like google docs), and sometimes the spell check and automatic formating don't work as nicely as you would hope.  Microsoft Word is a critical program that is utilized by parents, students and teachers.