Camtasia Studio

 

One of the things I learned was such a cool software that can be used in education.

It is a software which is really helpful for everyone who wants to share the great information with others, the experiences that he has, and to explain how things work. Basically, it is a screen recording and video editing tool. With Camtasia, there is no need to travel and change your locations to share your experiences. This software allows you to create your professional videos without any formal training. It also has some editing and interactive content which helps to clarify some processes for the viewers.
It has been used by the instructional technology specialist at the district I went to do my internship. Actually, she uses it to create videos for teachers to train them or to explain something they want to learn about. Once she is done with recording, she produces the video on her Youtube account then all the teachers at the district can watch whenever they want. It is very hard to get all of the teachers together at the same time because every building in the district has diffrent times and schedules. They are also busy with students. When teachers want a training course, Camtasia is really the solution so that they can practice that at their own time.



Teachers' meeting!

One day during my internship, some teachers and the instructional technology specialist met together to discuss a few issues about technology stuff. 
The important things that the instructional technology specialist asked the teachers to do:
1- Google Docs:
She emphasized how Google docs is a powerful tool in education. It has great benefits that can make teaching and learning much more easier and interesting. Students can share, collaborate, submit their homework, and work together at on a document at the same time. Basically, it is going to save time and paper too. It can be used anywhere and anytime you want.
2- Google Hangouts: 
.Because of so many projects going on the district, the instructional technology specialist finds it hard to get training time. To solve that, she is trying to do more online training to catch people that way. One thing that she is planning to do is Google Hangouts. It does let you have around of ten people in a conferencing room, so you could have members of your family or different parts of the world. They could get together in the internet, meet each other, talk, and share computer screen.
In fact, I really found it interesting to use Hangouts. They tried it when I was there. It's just amazing, and I loved it.

Nexus 7 Tablet!

The Nexus 7 tablet from Google has become a great device for being use in schools for many reasons:
1- The Google Nexus 7 is half the price of the iPad. To illustrate, for the 8 GB model, it comes for 199$ and 249 $ for the 16 GB model. By going with the Nexus 7, schools can get two of them instead of  two iPads. It's really nice.
2- Some people think that because of the price of the Google Nexus 7 tablet, it is not powerful as an iPad. That's not true because the Nexus tablet has many great features which allow students to be engaged and interested.
3- The battery life is just perfect for the use in a classroom. It can stay for about 8 hours. 
4- The size of the Google Nexus 7 is really good for students. The screen is just 7 inches. As a result, it is going to be easy to use and to navigate.
In fact, there are other features of  Nexus 7 tablet which can make a huge difference in education. When I was doing my internship, the instructional technology specialist who works there said that " I have noticed that theses tablets are not as easy to navigate as the iPad." 
I played a little bet with the Nexus 7 tablet, and I really noticed that too. However, kids can figure it out and just love it.

The GradeBook

The Grade book is one of the tools that West Carlton has used. Basically, it includes coulombs for attendance,  test scores, homework, and other details. I think that it is really important because it keeps all the grades that students have achieved for the whole semester in this book. For the elementary school, they use report cards, and they look really simple. Standards based report cards are being used for the report cards. For the high school, it gets more complicated. AT the end of each period, the teachers print the report cards and send them home for the parents. In the future, they would like to publish the report cards on their web page so the parents could have an access to see their child's grades..

My First Day of the Internship

On Thursday 01, 17, 2013, it was the first day for me to do my internship at West Carlton School District. For this semester, I work three hours a week with the instructional technology specialist at this district. When I first came, we worked on Google Chrome Books that the school ordered for students in some buildings. Probably, the laptops were 300. As a result, we spent a long time on removing them from the boxes and also removing the stickers for each one. Then we logged in as instructors. We also registered them into Chrome OS setting so that they can manage the laptops. When anyone has an issue or needs to be fixed, they would know it exactly.