Experiencing Group

 

            During the research project, I worked with Jordan Fitzpatrick, Emily Watts, and Dana Meredith. We used the Google Docs, as well as Prezi for our project. We used the Google Docs for the research paper, and Prezi was used as the presentation tool. We decided to use the amazing tool, Google Docs because it allows your entire group all to be in different locations, working and reviewing the same document, all while being able to edit and add your own information. Prezi was used for the presentation, this was a great tool that kept things very organized and looking neat.

             Google Docs has many features to it, which made it surprisingly easy to work with. One of the great features it has includes the instant messaging which allows you to see who is typing and keep it all separate from your work . This feature is on the right hand side of the page so you're able to communicate with your group without having to type on the actual document, which could potentially get confusing as well as messy.
Prezi has many features to it as well, like the great backgrounds you have to chose from. It is a great way to keep your information organized, and present it in a professional way. However, Emily was more familiar with this tool so she did most of that for the group, so it's not something that I'm very comfortable using.

 
             Overall, this project was pretty interesting. Not only from our research, but through everyone else's presentations. I learned a lot from the presentations while taking notes and observing the information being presented, as well as through watching others Prezi's and other visual aids that were used. It was neat to see how everyone organized there findings and images. I think that these two tools that our group used are great tools that we can each use in the future when we become teachers.

My Wordle from all of my blogs

PowerPoint (Ugh)

                                       
                                            
For the PowerPoint assignment, we were supposed to create a narrative. We did this by searching the Pennsylvania state standards. Once you decided what grade and subject you were planning to teach, you searched which topic you wanted to teach, and by doing this that would give you your standard numbers in which you attached to your narrative. After creating your narrative, you were then supposed to create a PowerPoint on your subject giving a lesson plan.
                                            
  In my case, I want to teach middle school- high school life skills. In my lesson, I wanted to teach the students about peer pressure, and all of the different impacts of growth. Seeing as how that would be way too much to cover in one days lesson, I decided to narrow it down to just peer pressure.

In my PowerPoint, I gave the students two different scenarios for two different people (Tina and Tommy). In both cases, each student had two options. They could either do what was responsible, or they could do what the other students wanted them to do. So, in the PowerPoint, you could click on whichever option you wanted them to make and it would take you to a new slide which would give the consequence of that action.

                                        
     
I think that my PowerPoint wasn't overall great, and I definitely did struggle with it. But, I would say it turned out better than expected. (A for effort!) Adding each hyperlink and creating all the different slides for each option was time consuming. But in the end, it looked pretty good and I was happy with it. I was especially happy because this was my first time using PowerPoint other than for giving a normal presentation. I learned quite a few of the different features of PowerPoint, which I can thank the "Beyond PowerPoint" article, and Mr. Smith for. I even added a YouTube video, completely by myself without any help and that was a pretty big accomplishment, I would say.
(If you are still really struggling, you might want to check out this list of 10 tricks for working more effectively with PowerPoint.)
                                         


Finally, I have to say I was extremely impressed with my groups work on their PowerPoint's. You could definitely tell they all put so much time and effort into creating these fun interactive tools. I also think that we were all very laid back when presenting. It was more comfortable presenting to a small group, which was nice. There were no red faces, squeaky voices, or shaking involved here!