Instructional Technology Portfolio Kristen R. Honaker

 Home | Resume | Field Experiences | MidPoint Portfolio |Final Portfolio| Matrix | Resources | Courses

Field Experiences and Their Impact on Student Learning

* *Alternative School, Middle School At-Risk Students**

Lesson/Assignment: MEDT 7466 - Pixlr lesson

Description & Impact: I introduced my students to www.pixlr.com. The students had to bring in pictures and apply different effects to the pictures. The also were introduced to photography terms. The students were excited and motivated to do something other than our traditional keyboarding and Microsoft Office exercises. Students were sharing their different effects with each other and often returned to this website to explore when they finished their other lessons. In the future, I hope to get my school to purchase cameras so students can take their own pictures.

================================================================================================

Lesson/Assignment: ABC PowerPoint e-book - Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3 (ESL)

Description & Impact: My students had to create two e-books using PowerPoint. The first e-book was an ABC book designed for younger students. I found that keeping the topic simple made the assignment less intimidating for students as everyone was capable of tackling the ABCs. The ESL teacher that I collaborated with borrowed the assignment to use with her ESL students at a regular high school. I had one student who I allowed to do the assignment in Spanish. He then shared this with the class. The students were more motivated on this assignment than past assignments. They helped each other and really brought out some creativity to the assignment. In the future, I think I could assign ABCs for particular subjects and vocabulary terms.

================================================================================================

Lesson/Assignment: Brown Bear e-book - Sample

Description & Impact: This assignment is similar to the ABC e-book assignment. For this assignment, students read Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? book. Next they had to use PowerPoint to create a similar version of this book. Part of the assignment was changing the color of clip art (yellow frog, pink horse, etc.). For the students who worked more quickly, I added the task of narrating their book. I shared both of the e-book assignments to all of my classes via the TV in my room. Students were very interested in seeing what their classmates had done.

=================================================================================================

Lesson/Assignment: Google SketchUp - Sample 1, Sample2

Description & Impact: I had no particular lesson on this assignment as I didn't have time to research and come up with a lesson last year; however, I felt it was a cool program and decided to download it on all of my students computers and encouraged them to explore it when they had the chance. I have no problem with letting students I am not an expert at something and allowing them to explore. I love learning from them, too. Most of the students took the opportunity to explore this program and often went to it when they finished their regular assignments. They were interested in sharing their work with the rest of the class. I hope to come up with a collection of activities that I can give to my advanced students to help differentiate instruction.

=================================================================================================

Lesson/Assignment: Microsoft Word Drawing Toolbar - Lab Sample 1, Lab Sample 2, House Layout

Description & Impact: After creating a PowerPoint lesson for Dr. Baylen's class about using the Drawing Tools (in either PowerPoint or Word), I had the students create a layout of our computer lab. The interest level in this assignment was very high. I allowed them to get up and look around the room as much as needed. The students used a variety of skills - copying, grouping, ordering, etc. They were proud of their assignments. I had a student who was then motivated to create a layout of her house. She was very proud of it! To get the students in my class to be excited about an assignment is a feat in itself. I have also had students create scenes using WordArt in the past. I have found that the more leeway and creativity I give them, the more willing they are to do the assignments.

=================================================================================================

Lesson/Assignment: Digital Storytelling Project

Description & Impact: At the end of the semester, my students explored and used MovieMaker. We didn't have much time so they didn't create an academic lesson, but explored many of the effects, transitions, etc. I wanted them to know that MovieMaker could be used as a powerful tool and could also be used to display their academic work. I shared my digital story about Andersonville with all of my classes. This was particularly related to 8th grade Georgia History class. The greatest impact about sharing this was that many of the students showed empathy since my father's gravestone is shown at the end. Anytime, my students think about someone other than themselves and show any type of empathy is a great moment as it doesn't happen very often.

=================================================================================================

One of my main goals for the upcoming school year is to collaborate with the academic teachers to bring their curriculum into our computer projects. I hope to use Prezi, Voice Thread, Tagxedo, digital cameras and videos.

Race Car PPT Idea, Treasure Map PPT Idea

Aside from funding my biggest obstacle is COUNTY TECHNOLOGY POLICIES!!!!!! No wikis, no blogs, etc. :(