Last but not least...

            

            For my first semester ever at The University of Southern Mississippi, I am in the Introductory block in the education program. Within the program, I enrolled in IT 365. I was told that the class would be a breeze and that it was nothing to worry about because I would be going through a class full of things I already knew. Boy, were the people that told me that wrong. I really was clueless to the many things that could be done on a computer or with the Internet.

            In IT 365, I have learned a lot of things. I have learned all kinds of functions and features of computers and online technology. In the beginning of the semester, we learned about different parts of the computer and about hardware, software, input, output, and things of that nature. That part and all the basic functions of the computer was what I already knew. Everything else was new to me. We learned about Inspiration and how to use that to create different types of idea maps. We worked with several online resources such as, Story Bird, Rubistar, Track Star and Wordle. We were able to use all of those resources at no cost at all. Each of them offered very different things that could be beneficial to my future classroom. We also learned about how to use Movie Maker. That specific assignment was fairly easy and actually pretty fun. Another thing that we spent some time on was the Google Functions. This one was very complicated because I had to work with a group of five and on the day it was assigned two of the members were not in class. I had to personally get in touch with them and tell them what to do because they were clueless and our instructions on Blackboard were vague. To say the least, with the Google functions assignment I learned patience. Later into the semester, we each created a webpage for our future classroom. This assignment was challenging but very fun. I am happy to now know how to make my very own website. The last assignment we did was on assistive technology already on computers. I had no idea that all of the specific things we learned about it class were offered on a standard computer. All in all, I learned a wide variety of things in IT 365.

            I believe that my strongest point was making the website. It was easy to be created and imagine exactly what I might use in my own classroom. I feel like this was my strongest point because the assignment was challenging but enjoyable and a website is something I could actually use in my future. My weak point was on the Web Tools assignment. I chose this as my week point because it was my lowest grade. I was counted off for grammar. I am really not sure how I messed up so terribly but I will definitely try to improve that in the future. My specific learning goals would include to basically not wait until the last minute and apparently I need to pay more attention to directions.

            I feel like in today’s time it will be very easy incorporate many aspects of technology into the classroom. From computers and Internet use to iPads and smart phones, I feel like there are infinite ways to bring technology to the young students.

            

Assistive Technology

Assistive technology is any kind of technology that can be modified for someone with any type of disability. It is important as a future teacher to know how to make use of any kind of assistive technology for future students. For this assignment, we have to create a Power Point with information about our findings in changing all of the assistive technology settings on our individual computers. I think this assignment itself is not that great, but I do feel like it is very important to know the things that we are exploring. My favorite option is the on screen keyboard. I think that is really neat and helpful for people who do not have full use of their hands. For my personal preference, I like having the option to change the contrast and brightness of the screen. If the screen is too bright, it will often give me a terrible headache. For someone with vision problems, there are a variety of things that could be done to the screen so that they can see it better. I think that as a future educator, it is my responsibility to make sure that, no matter if someone has a disability or not, all students are learning and receiving the information in a way that suits each and every student.

            Assistive technology allows all students to use computers and other types of technology. I believe that assistive technology falls under the NETS-T standard #2. With assistive technology, the teachers are able to customize and personalize activities to accommodate all students.

***CLICK HERE TO VIEW MY ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY ASSIGNMENT***