ILP "Participation"- Lynda Tutorial

     For my second independent learning project, I did a Lynda tutorial on how to embed contact forms on a website. I chose to do this specific tutorial because I wanted to make a contact form for a website I have that contains some of the poetry I have written. During the tutorial, I learned primarily how to use WordPress contact forms and how to select certain ones based on their purpose. I also learned that contact forms are rarely filled out if they are long and contain many prompts for information, but this can sometimes be helpful to weed out certain people who may respond.

      The learning experience through the Lynda tutorial was very thorough. There were many links inside the videos so I could choose which areas I wanted to focus on, and I really enjoyed that. The only thing I did not like was that it was geared toward WordPress, and I am more accustomed to using Wix. Besides that, there was still lots of helpful information that made choosing a contact form much easier.

blog post 10

     As a teacher, I believe data collection could become important. It could help me to survey students and gauge their needs as well as get a general feel for where the class is struggling and needs more instruction. This would be useful for classes of all ages. Excel would be another tool I could use for all classes. It could help me organize students' grades, personal information, and it would allow me to inform students of what kind of grades they would need to keep getting in order to pass the class.
     When reviewing classmates' blogs, I found it interesting how they were set up. Some of my classmates spent a great deal of time organizing the look of their blogs and these blogs are very appealing to the eye. Others focused more on the writing and it was interesting to see how they interpreted the prompts and answered the questions.
     Next, I would like to learn how to type in a book formatting, with page numbers and chapters and the like. To do this I hope to do an online course of sorts that will help me to set up an aesthetically pleasing book. I want to do this because I would really like to become an author at some point, and by seeing how my writing would look in actual book form, I feel that it would motivate me to keep working toward the final product.

blog post 9

     The flipped classroom is a new, but controversial way of teaching students. Rather than taking time in class to teach student's a topic, teachers using a flipped classroom model will instead send kids home with material to learn, and then use classroom time for more hands on instruction and answering any questions that students may have. While this might be helpful for students who do better in an active classroom environment, it puts a lot of weight on the students to teach themselves and use their free time solely for school, rather than for other valuable extra-curricular activities. khan academy

     Open content is content that is available for student use without worry of infringing on copyright. This is a useful tool for students because it allows them to take certain resources and manipulate and modify them in order to create something unique to them. This way, students can make the source fit their specific needs, which they know better than anyone else. Windows 10 is an example of open source software that students can use. open source software

     For the first PowerPoint assignment, I definitely learned a lot. I learned how to manipulate the slide master in order to customize the slides to fit my needs. I also learned how to voice over a slide and then save it as a sort of video. I feel that this may be helpful in the even of sharing lectures with students online. I did not like how long it took to create the PowerPoint. Formatting everything took quite a bit, but I think it turned out well. I also learned a lot from the second assignment. I had never thought much about using PowerPoint to create a game until this assignment. It is not as hard as I thought it would be.