Week Two

This week we learned how to make our own wiki page. Although it was a little confusing at first this skill will come in very handy when we have our own classroom. Something that I don't really like about the wiki page is how hard it is to format the text. Every time I would try to save the changes it tended to go back to the way it was previously. Other than that this web page has multiple uses in the classroom. It will allow students to be more active with technology and also allow parents to stay updated on class procedures. Group projects are one of the main things I feel I would use a wiki page for. This way students will be able to share all of their work online and I will also be able to keep track of their group progress.
Another thing that we learned this week was how to make an interactive game using PowerPoint. It was a long tedious process but the end result came out very nice. This is a good way to make a fun study tool for the children to be able to refer back to even when they are at home. A good idea would be to post a game like this onto the class wiki page!
These two projects go along with the ISTE net standards for teachers because they model digital age work and learning. Being able to create your own web page and an interactive game shows that you have a great understanding of how these programs work. These projects also promote and model digital age citizenship. The use of the wiki page will require students and parents to become familiar with how to use a digital medium to be able to stay up to date with class material. The last standard that these projects follow is facilitating and inspiring student creativity. Students need to be very creative when working on either a wiki page of their own or creating something such as a PowerPoint. There are so many different tools within these programs that the students will be able to play around with and let their personalities show through their work.