This task involved doing research about Acceptable Use Policies and Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers. To be honest, I had no clue what either one of these things were until I began working on this assignment. I learned that Acceptable Use Policies are a very important thing for classroom teachers to be aware of. It is important that as a teacher, your students and their parents sign an Acceptable Use Policy before the students use the school computers. If the school does not already have its own AUP, the teacher should create an AUP for the classroom. It is also important as a classroom teacher to be aware of the Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers. These guidelines determine what resources and material can be used in the classroom. Above is a sign that I created that could be posted in the Teachers' Lounge. It gives specific points of what each includes.

Through this task we were to create a website through Weebly. I have never created a website before. It was very exciting to see how simple the process can be. I think that this can be a great tool for classroom teachers as well as just anyone in general. It is a great networking tool. It is also cool that you can upload documents to the website and then hyperlink them so that a user can view the documents. There are, of course, frustrations that go along with this technology as well. Sometimes you have to play around with the different tools to get them to work properly. Overall, I think this will be a great tool for me in the future not only in my professional career as a teacher, but also for my persoal life as well.

The goal of this task was to learn how to organize and even design a record book, or a grade book. In order to do this we created a personal attendance sheet and grade sheet for EDU250. For the grade sheet we had to enter each task that we would be completing in the course along with the total points that each was worth. For the attendance sheet we had to enter in each Tuesday and Thursday date until the end of the semester. We also had to include holidays in which no class would be held. The tricky part about this assignment was formatting the columns to fit onto one page. I learned a lot about Excel and how to use the tools that are available. This was a very practical task in that it is essential to my role as a classroom teacher.

This task involved creating a resume. To hear the word resume, to me, seemed like a daunting task. I was surprised at how simple the process was. I was surprised to discover that the body of the resume is typically only one page. I had created a resume my Freshman year of college when I applied for the position of Residence Assistant. However, with much information changed I decided it would be best to start from scratch. Career Services from Union came to talk to our class about Resumes and gave us clear instructions on how to construct one. It was very benefiicial. We then picked out a format that we would like to use. We were instructed by Dr. Clifford to also include our Philosophy of Education as well as References. From there we gathered information and created our resumes. Once completed, Career Services checked them for errors and marked the corrections that needed to be made. I was shocked to find that my paper was bleeding with red ink when it was returned. However, the corrections were fairly minor and very simple. I feel that having created my resume I am one step closer to becoming a classroom teacher. Now that it is done, all I have to do is update the information as needed as I continue along my professional journey.

This task involved choosing videos that we could use in the classroom that we see ourselves in in the future. We had to research the Tennessee Curriculum standards for our content area and choose one to use for this task. My content area is Marketing and Management I - Principles for grades 9-12. I chose Standard 1.0 which basically covers the foundations of marketing. I was to research videos using Learn360 as well as YouTube and TeacherTube. I was successful in finding one very informational video on Learn360. I got very excited to know that these tools will be available to me in the future. I did not find any videos that I could use on YouTube or TeacherTube. I searched these key words with no luck: marketing, demographics, target markets, marketing mix. I believe that I may have had more luck on the latter two websites with a different standard.

In this task we were asked to create a sort of "virtual field trip" for our students. It makes me sad to know that many school districts are no longer supporting field trips for students. Some of my most educational experiences while I was in school were outside of the classroom. This task, however, encouraged us as future classroom teachers to think "outside of the box" to create a learning experience for our kids that would take them beyond the classroom. This would be done by taking 20-25 photos that would correspond with a particular standard in our content area. I chose Standard 4.0 about promotion. I decided to take picturesof promotions that we see in our every day lives that we might not realize. I ran into trouble finding that many businesses will not allow you to take pictures of anything in  their stores. I had to redirect my thinking even to promotional items in my apartment. It was a very fun experience! After taking the photos we had  to develop a list of vocabulary as well as an assortment of questions and answers that went along with the photos I had chosen to use. I must say that even looking at the TN Curriculum Standards in doing these tasks has made me even more excited to begin teaching!

This task was very fun! We were able to create a card game and a BINGO game using the  vocabulary and questions we had constructed for Task 6. Also, using Puzzle.com we created a crossword and word search. I was very excited to again be able to see the FREE tools that are available to teachers. I was shocked at how simple the process was. I believe that these tools will be very beneficial in aiding my students in their learning.

 This task has been my favorite so far, hands down. In this task we used the same standard that we chose for the previous 2 tasks to create a social bookmarking chain through a website called TrailFire. I was able to find several fun websites with creative promotions. I was able to include a variety of websites as well: YouTube videos, articles, pictures  of creative advertisements, etc. I know that this will be a very useful tool in my classroom in the future. I will be teaching 9-12 graders, who I know respond very well to the use of technology in learning. With this tool, they are able to interact with a website by answering questions while enjoying what they are doing. I had fun creating this trail and I am confident my students will have fun with this experience as well!

In this task we used the website VoiceThread.com to create a presentation of the standards that we have been working on for the previous tasks. A few slides were created using PowerPoint and the rest I used pictures from the Photo Journal project. Voicethread has technology where you can talk to the students and doodle on the slides to enhance the presentation. The other important aspect of this Web 2.0 technology is collaboration. You are able to view other threads that have been created. Anyone can comment on your thread and you can, in turn, comment on other threads. I believe that this tool will be very helpful to me as a classroom teacher. Below is the  VoiceThread that I created:

This task involved pulling our questions, vocabulary, and pictures together from Task 6 to create a game using PowerPoint. The idea was that the game would be used in the classroom that we saw ourselves teaching in the future. I enjoyed the creativity that was involved in creating a game that would be fun for the students, as well as useful in teaching the standards from the curriculum. The game included a title page, directions, a score card, a game board, and many sets of questions and answers. The challenging part was the design itself. I had never created that type of PowerPoint before using navigation keys to connect to different pages within the PowerPoint. When our games were finished we peer-reviewed each others' games. This process was very helpful as well.

This was the one that pulled everything together. I got to create my own lesson plan using the tools I have learned about and created during this semester in this course. This was the first lesson plan I have ever created. At first it was very overwhelming, but after completing it I feel very accomplished and the role of teaching is feeling more and more attainable. For the whole group instruction part I planned to show a PowerPoint that I had created highlighting the vocabulary for the lesson. Students would then use those notess from the PowerPoint to complete the assignments for that day. I split the students into two groups. The first group was student-focused in that students created their own crossword puzzle using the technology from puzzlemaker.com. The second group was teacher-directed in that the students were to complete the TrailFire activity that I had created. For review at the end of the lesson we would play the interactive PowerPoint game as a class. This task was great in that it gave a practical application to things that we have been learning.

In this task we were instructed to find a peer-reviewed article from the Wilson Web Database on Union's library website. The subject of the article was to revolve around Web 2.0 tools and how they are used in the classroom. The article that I found was entitled What You Need to Know About Web 2.0. It basically summarized what Web 2.0 technology is as well as applications for educational professionals and applications for the classroom. The challenging part of this task was finding a full-text, peer-reviewed article based on the subject that was given. My goal was to find an article that was simple enough to understand, yet useful to me as a future classroom teacher. This task taught me patience and the importance of staying researched as a teacher in this society today.
Works Cited (APA): Imperatore, C. (2009). What you Need to Know About Web 2.0. Techniques (Association for Career and Technical Education), 83(9), 20-3. Retrieved December 6, 2009, from OmniFile Full Text Select database.

This was probably my favorite task of all in this course. We visited the STAR Center here in Jackson. The STAR Center is a place for people of all ages with all types of disabilities to go for training and therapy. We went on a tour of the building. We saw where career training takes place for people with learning disabilities amongst many other types of disabilities. We saw the rooms where art therapy and music therapy take place for all different types of clients. We saw the room that was designed to aid the vision impaired, as well as the hearing impaired. It was an eye-opening experience. I look forward too volunteering at the STAR Center in the future.