Kidspiration and Inspiration!

We had a nice break in class this week, we were asked to play around in Inspiration and Kidspiration. I have never heard of this software before but even the names got me curious! I spent at least 2 hours playing around on these programs and still feel like i barely understand the basics and their is a lot more to learn!
First i looked at inspiration and imediately was so excited. This program was especially designed for teachers to create endless assignments, handouts and activities! I was amazed at how many tools and objects i had to work with. I really liked the tool to create diagrams and charts. I made a diagram about the sea, i changed the background color and used a bunch of sea animals and objects that were really cool! When i become a teacher i can use this program to make an assignment or handout where i put pictures in a row and the students use describing words to describe the animal or object. Also, if i teach upper grades the students can use this program to make their own projects or assignments. or to teach the class about a new topic.
Next, I had some fun playing around in Kidspiration! Wow, this software got me even more excited because it was specifically designed for kids! I loved all of the pre-made activities, younger children would love them as well! The base ten blocks were really cool for the math section and i realized that for those hands on learners these activities would be perfect. Also, i liked how you could move the objects around and allowed you to type on it as well. It was almost an interactive worksheet! I also played around with the "make your own" activities, that would also be really helpful as a teacher especially with the younger grades. I had a lot of fun creating my own activity about animals and matching. I will use this tool a lot as a teacher.
Overall, i think these two programs will be extremely benifitial to teachers. Although, I doubt that these programs will be available to all schools and im sure it is quite expensive. If i am able to have this program where i teach i will be forever grateful because it is an awesome learning tool!

Teamwork!

This week in class was a lot of fun. Like i wrote in my last post, we created three powerpoints in groups. I really liked working with my classmates for these projects. It was really fun getting to know each other and helping everyone do their part and work together. I also learned a lot during the time i worked with my classmates, I became more familiar with powerpoint and the differnt tools to make our slide show more creative and professional. This project has helped me a lot, i learned that comunication is really important when you work as a group to make sure that everyone is on the same page. As a teacher, i will definately help my students develop teamwork skills and teach them the importance to work as a group and help each other. Also, i think it is very benifitial to help the students realize that each team member needs to do their part in order to make final project a success.