Internet Tools
Tops & Bottoms Reading and Science Unit
Reflection on Tops & Bottoms Unit
This
assignment was defiantly an awareness and exploration experience. Most of my
time was spent looking at the different programs to see what they would do. I
discovered things that I’m glad I know about now, before I start teaching. There
were a lot of “make your own work page” sites, which were good, but I’m not much
on a lot of work pages. However, I found that I could make them on the program,
copy and paste them onto Word, and then make them how I thought they would
benefit my teaching and my class. The Teach-nology, was a great resource for me.
I made some work pages on other sites, but I like the ones I made on Teach-nology
the best, so I threw out the others and went with what I thought was quality and
they are easy to make. Some of what I made could just as easily be made on Word
or on something like Print Shop, however having the template ready to use made
things much quicker.
Through applying my learning to this assignment, I found that there is a lot out
there to help teachers with their teaching and a lot of it is free! Much of what
is out there is made by other teachers, so you know if they would use it in
their class; it could very possibly be made to fit your class as well. Within
the sites that I looked at, I learned which ones I like best, which ones are
easier to use, and where to go to produce the information that I need. I loved
Filamentaltity! I wanted to do a Trackstar, but I was having problems getting it
to work, so I went back to Filamentlity. It was very easy to use and it ends
with a neat presentation for kids, parents, and other teachers to see the
information you have put together. I also liked it because it was a Produce and
Post, but it could be a Produce and Print. Teach-nology is where I made most of
my materials. It provides templates for various work pages. These work pages do
not have to be used for what they are made for. An example, is I used the time
line work page to make my Story Structure Page, the Planning My Story page, and
the Weekly Observation page. So I learned to manipulate what they gave me to
make it what I wanted. I loved the Puzzlemaker site, but I could not save the
puzzles I made and when I opened them on Word, the puzzle was not there, only
the clues. So the puzzles I made on Puzzlemaker, I could print off, but I
couldn’t share them with you, so I did a Word Scramble instead. Often, I had a
problem with making something then saving it as a webpage (html), but it would
open up and not have the graphics with it. I tried saving it under different
things, but it still wouldn’t work. I even emailed the Puzzlemaker site, but
there hasn’t been a reply yet. So if anyone knows the answer to my dilemma I
would appreciate some suggestions. I believe I was most amazed by RubiStar. When
I got to the rubric, I thought it was just another template where I fill in the
blank. After typing for awhile and trying to think of how to give certain tasks
so many points, I realized that by choosing the kind of task you were making the
rubric for it would do all of this for you. I thought I had found a gold mine!
So I added a little to some of the tasks and made sure the points they were
given would fit my lesson and then I was done. RubiStar is amazing!
Overall, I think this assignment has increased my knowledge of what’s out there
for teachers. This will add to my teaching and make things faster for me. I feel
like this assignment is one that I needed the most from this class.
