EME2040-Blog #3

In the future I would like to teach kindergarten, and when looking at the ELA technology standards for Kindergarten, there is only one. I feel pretty competent in my technology skills that I could teach the kindergarteners how to use a smart board and use programs such as Paint. The only thing from this list that I would need to learn how to use beforehand would be StoryJumper. I have never heard of this program, but I think I could probably pick up on it fast. Kindergarten is a very developmental year and is crucial to learning. All of my technology skills will come in handy when teaching the kindergarteners how to do all of the basics, even things such as how to log on to a computer. 

            When looking at the CPALMS Kindergarten Educator toolkit, I see a lot of helpful resources and games that the kids could play to improve their skills. One of the resources I would use would be the Curious George-hide and seek and bug catcher math games. I would use these because it takes a cartoon and turns it into a learning game, and I think this is very helpful when teaching kids. It makes it interesting, fun, and something the kids look forward to doing. I would use this, and other interactive learning games when teaching in my classroom. 

Completing the Newsletter design assignment took me a little more time than I thought it would. I have used word a lot, but I was using different functions than I was used to. I learned how to use the column function and how to use column breaks. The formatting seemed much simpler once I had figured out how to do it. If I were to do the same assignment again, I think my time completing it would be cut in half because now I know how to do things like create columns, tables and other formatting that originally took me much longer than I would have liked. As a future educator, the skills I learned and used to create a newsletter are things that I will need when creating my own newsletter in my future profession. I had put hyperlinks and pictures in documents before, so this was something that I completed pretty easily. I think with a little more practice, I will be very confident using columns, tables, and boarders. This will provide me with the skills and tools to quickly and efficiently create newsletters and other things on Microsoft Word in the future.