Friday, February 1, 2008

Technology: When the power goes off

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the power goes off?

FETC 2008 Opening Session

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Opening Session: Jeff Corwin Experience

I would say that the best part of my day in FETC, was the opening session with Jeff Corwin. He talked about how he became a naturalist (age 6), then a conservationist, and a biologist. He made me reflect on what technology means to our environment. Technology is good but as humans we cannot forget about our natural origins, the things that the majority of time, we take for granted. He talked about how important is to teach our students to conserve nature, plants, and animals.
He made me think about if we are using technology to conserve our environment in its totality. I know there are new ways to turn energy into electricity, new hybrid cars, etc, but I wonder why there seems to be no rush to make it happen in its totality.
I also got a 45 min. DVD about his experience with the animals living in Florida, which I plan to show to my students when we learn about animals during our Science class.

FETC 2008

Using the PIZZA Method: What the Best Teachers Do to Integrate Technology in Every Classroom by Jennifer Womble

The speaker only gave some general ideas to consider when integrating technology in class. If you have taken the “Integrating Technology in the Curriculum” class at UCF, you didn’t miss anything from this workshop. She suggested that teachers need to focus in content and use technology to enhance the education experience. When designing lesson plans, teachers could use technological tools to explain the content. But what does PIZZA stand for? ”P” for Plan,”I” for Implement, “ZZ” for Reflect and “A” for Analyze.

FETC 2008

FETC 2008
Workshop: Photoshop Elements by Linda Dickeson

I really enjoyed being the presider of this Photoshop Elements workshop. The speaker even gave me one of her books that she used in her presentation. I learned a couple of tricks for editing pictures. I learned about resolution and pixels. Although we used an old Mac version of Photoshop Elements in the class, the information was transferable to the latest Photoshop Elements Windows version. The speaker also gave some ideas about managing and editing pictures in class. She recommended duplicating the picture before doing any editing and leaving the original one intact. In addition, she suggested backing up all the original pictures before even giving them to the students.