Journal 10

I have never really used Excel and the data collecting and reporting tool it had to offer prior to entering this course. However, through practice and exploration I have come to the realization that it is a platform that could immensely help make my job as a teacher more easy and efficient. Given that I would like to teach third grade and not middle or high school classes, my utilization of Excel would most likely be very simple and basic. The program would overall just allow me to document all the student’s names and contact information and their parents contact information and have written reports of their progress and grades for each quarter.

Through reading and reviewing my classmates’ blogs, I have come to find a lot of interesting information and perspectives on the world of education. More specifically the manner in which my peers utilized and compared their educational experiences growing up to determine the things they want to implement in their classrooms that worked and the things they are going to strive to avoid. The personal blog posts of each classmate gave a personal touch to each topic we discussed, while introducing me to new online applications like digital storytelling. Overall, I found all of the content posted by my peers to be interesting as they are almost all future educators who are passionate about education and impacting children’s lives.

A technology-related skill that I would like to learn next would be having the ability to edit professionally and utilize Photoshop. I personally am a visual learner and learn best through images and visualizations. Having the ability to use this program would allow me to not only make my job more fun and interesting and so I genuinely understand the content I am presenting, I also think it would allow me to visually teach my students as well. I do not plan on using Photoshop to teach extensively but I do think it would be a unique way to create posters, assignments, and even help my students with projects. To achieve this goal of learning how to Photoshop, I am going to take advantage of the free lessons and workshops offered on FSU’s campus and will strive to learn the program!