CEdu510 - Class 2

Unfortunately, I had to miss last week's class due to parent/teacher conferences. Not that I don't enjoy conferences, I would have just preferred learning about search engines and word processing in our classroom environment rather than at home alone. The presentation on search engines proved to be interesting. There were more vocabulary words that I had never heard of that needed to be learned, for example: boolean, truncation, and computer robot programs called spiders. I found the article on choosing the best search for your information need to be something in which I will reference in the future. In addition, I am going to try venturing away from Google and use Yahoo! and Ask more frequently or in conjunction with Google as my primary search engine. In reviewing the overview on word processing, I realized that I don't know as much about word processing as I should. I would like to learn more of the intermediate editing functions, such as merge printing and creating an index. I also realized that I really need to teach my students how to use the writing aids to enhance their work. Sometimes I assume that they know how to use these features because they are juniors and seniors in high school. I have learned any kind of assumptions based on age can be proven incorrect, especially when working with EEN students. Another chunk of time outside of class was spent on reading and completing work for chapters 3 and 4 of the text. Both chapters were important because they focused on how to help our students become engaged learners by using technology to guide communication and critical thinking.