link for site

https://sites.google.com/site/jertroyertestclass/

Google Sites

This was a frustrating Gain for me. I have not spent much time with making websites. I had a hard time making my site's appearance look good. I will have to do some more work with it to become comfortable. I like all of the things you can do with the site and all of the gadgets, images, and charts you can put on. I couldn't always figure out how to get things exactly where I wanted them and sometimes I couldn't make a new addition to my site look like something I had already made. I hope that after working with it more, I can make sites for future classes and for my future classroom using google sites.

Apps apps and more apps

For the disciplines in education portion, I chose to look at 5 math apps. I hope to be a 7th or 8th grade math teacher upon graduation, but I still looked at the apps with an open mind for older elementary children as well. There were 5 that really stood out to me above the rest. I REALLY like easel algebra. It provides several different types of problems and questions that students can explore on their own and use the whiteboard on the screen to work through it. If a student needs help, there is a video that shows both the whiteboard being drawn up and a person's voice explaining the problem. Similarly, I liked the Mathboard app. This one gives quizzes that can be catered to the student's specific area of learning or a more specific set of numbers or problems they need to study. The video brought up a good issue and that is the lack of space for scratch work. Although, if the iPad is left on the table, but turned 90 degrees, there is much more space. A similar size issue is my one complaint with a great app: Sketch explorer. This one allows the user to "play" with different shapes and even add more shapes to a picture to see how they change will effect the original pieces or functions. The graphbook allows one to explore shapes in several different views including points, lines, solids, and graphs. The example I played with was a spiral like a snail shell. It's great to be able to move it, change its size, and manipulate the view such that you can see so many different facets of the object. Lastly, and very simply, is the jumbo calculator. A calculator is not some amazing app that can't be found anywhere else, but I like it for a couple specific reasons. If iPad's are part of the classroom experience (regardless of grade level) having the calculator app will be good for testing because it is big enough for the student to see and use quickly and it takes up the whole screen so that a teacher can say not to have anything but the calculator up once a student finishes the test. This will help prevent cheating and distraction as well as give a much needed tool to the students.

My preparation apps were the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Spelling Test. With the dicctionary, students can explore words as they are reading books on the kindle (or ibooks) app, learning about an historic event, or even learning new concepts in math or science. My personal experience in spelling makes the test app good. In late elementary grades, if I correctly spelled all spelling words on the weekly pretest, I got to look for my own spelling words (using a dictionary, map, or other tool). This app would allow a student to pick his or her own words (or a teacher to pick new ones) and then say them both for study and finally for testing purposes.
Photoshop express is a nice way to manipulate photos on the go and have them ready to view or share on the iPad. I have taken a couple courses that included the full photoshop program and this app allows for all the essential functions at a fingertip. For students, it will be good for fun (recounting a class trip or project) or making pictures their own for a project's visual aid.
Lastly, I looked at Puppet Pals. I really enjoy making videos and I can't wait to use this app to make stories with my daughter. She can narrate and/or move the characters across the screen. Students in class can do the same to tell about a chapter of the book their class is reading or to visually tell their own story in a creative writing experiment. I loved all of the apps I looked at for this Tech Talk!

Not much of an artist, but this might help...

I really enjoyed playing with Google Drawing. I'm not much of an artist when it comes to physically drawing something, but computer apps that do it are wonderful. Drawing works a lot like the generic "paint" program that comes on most computers. Many of the mouse functions as well as the shape and drawing manipulations are similar, if not identical. I simply drew a few lines, made a square, an arrow, imported a picture, and added a text box just to get a feel for the different options with Drawing. I looked at the middle school lesson plan before I actually experimented with Drawing and was totally lost. Then I explored and the Tangram plan looks like a lot of fun for students (and teachers). Learning to manipulate and understand shapes will be made easier through Drawing and the collaborative aspect is just another bonus (as it has been in with all of the Google Drive functions).
Drawing never seemed to be something useful for subjects other than art until I read the handout. The reading and writing assistance that it explained was so obvious (afterward) that I felt a little foolish for not seeing it. Though the handout suggested there are further math applications than geometry, I will need more time to see if that's the best option. Obviously, the collaborative aspect makes most of the Google Drive functions exceedingly more useful so maybe there is more in it than I understand after the little bit of playing I have done with Google Drawing.