Week of Sept. 18

Whew! I just turned in my graphics exercises. ALL NEW to me. I believe this was the first time I have ever used both Paint and Picture Manager. Honestly, I am not sure how often I will be using Paint in the future. When I completed my "drawing" with Paint, it looked like it had been done by a five-year-old. I would much rather get a white sheet of paper and some crayons. However, learning how to import graphics was very helpful. I also never knew the difference between .bmp, .gif, and .jpeg, much less when to use each of them. Cropping, resizing, etc. will definitely be useful when it comes to editing photos and graphics. The use of pictures, whether on handouts, in Power Point presentations, or on tests adds so much and makes things much more visually appealing.

Week of Sept. 11

We do not have a required reading this week, so I will comment on the projects I've been working on. While I was overwhelmed at first, so far I have found them to be very "doable." I have honestly been surprised at what I've been able to do! My husband is impressed (he is especially intrigued with "Mail Merging") and wants me to keep notes of these so I can teach him how to do them as well. He nor I knew so much was available on Microsoft Word!

Although I do not have a computer in my classroom, these skills are going to be useful in my class preparations. Now my handouts, quizzes, and even tests can be more interesting for first graders to view with the simple addition of a border or graphic. And, who's to say I won't have a computer in my classroom one day where I can introduce United Streaming?

I know the Power Point tutorial will be coming soon, and I have been looking forward to learning how to do this. Once again, it is a bit intimidating to me right now, but I hope I will be just as surprised as its ease as I have been with everything else.

Week of September 4

Cooperative learning groups are something I have tried in the past, sometimes with success and sometimes without. This article provides some helpful guidelines in ensuring that they are successful. First and foremost, as the article states, a cooperative group is more than just a group of people working together. Successful cooperative groups are built on working towards a mutual goal, providing support and encouragement, and working together to complete a task. It is vital that each member in a coopertive learning group be expected to do his/her share and held accountable to it. Groups must also be willing to come to consensus on all decisions. This may require sacrifice on the part of some group members in order to help the greater good. The groups must also have positive, constructive interation with each other.

In the elementary setting, a big challenge to cooperative group learning was the tattling. In an effort to be sure that "everyone is doing his/her part," often members of the groups would come to tattle on the others. Something I always worked toward was teaching the group members to work out issues among themselves before coming to me. In the future, I think it will be helpful to spend some time laying out the guidelines mentioned in this article before the groups begin working together. When done correctly, with each group member participating, cooperative learning groups can be a wonderful and enriching learning experience for all students involved.