Education and Business

We have an intersing discussion tonight. In this discussion, we talk so much about relationship between education and business. Personally, I think that there are a strong relationship between them.

My Power Point assignment

In my country, I used to prepare my lecture by Power Point; thus I thought that Power Point assignment is not problem to me. However, I feel little confuse when I use newest version of Power Point-Power Point 2007. This face-up is very different from the older versions. Sometimes, I don’t know where some fictions store. For example, I have to spent about 10 minutes to find how to “Save as…” because it is hidden beside “Home”. But, after finishing this assignment, PP 2007 becomes familiar to me and I start loving it :)

Power Point 2007 is very convenient with many extra fictions. For example, I like its Smart Art. It enables me to create graphics easily and fast. I think that I should not talk more about how more useful PP 2007 than older versions because, I do not want to advert for Microsoft :)

I am a chemistry teacher, so I chose Sulfuric acid as the content of my PP assignment . I hope you like it.

Week 4 reflection from discussion

In week #4, we have a long class discussion. For me, class discussion is more difficult than online discussion because of language barrier. My listening skill is not good, thus I don't catch many opinions from my classmates. But from these opinions, I can get an initial view about class room in America and the way teachers use technology in teaching and learning.

My concept map created by Inspiration

From class #3, I know how to creat a diagram by using Inspiration 7.5. Inspiration is a poweful but friendly, simply software. (Our instructor say that it is cheap. It's a good new! :) Inspiration provides many kinds of diagrams such as concept map, idea map, storymap...depending on users' aims, so it is suitable for many periods of learning and teaching process. I know this software is very interesting and useful for me in the first sight. There fore, I do my Inspiration assignment keenly. I try to use as many functions as possible in my diagram. I make notes, I insert suitable graphics, relevant hyper links... I also post my diagram in this blog. Hope you like it!

" Power Point is a evil"

" Power Point is an evil" is an intersting idea but I think it is not complately right. Power Point its self is a good tool for presentation, its bad effects come users. Let's image how presentation looks like without Power Point. Back to the time before Power Point was created and becomes popular, speakers had prepare mass of materials such as large papers, overhead projectors, videos,...for one presents. Now, they have to bring only personal laptop and very small projector. If you can choose, which will you choose, presentation with or without Power Point ?

Favourite websites and Inspiration 7.5

In class #2, we have 2 presentations about favorite websites. All 4 websites presented are educational websites. I think that favorite website presentation is a good idea. It provides a large resouce of educational websites which are useful for my career.
However, some of them are strongly related to presenters' major. For example, Sarah Cook's major is Art Education and her favorite website is http://www.getty.edu/ - an interesting and useful website for her job but it seems not to be much useful for my job as Chemistry teacher. In my opinions, it is better if favorite websites are shared among people who have the same major. Therefore, I will use this action in my peer coatching.
These presentations make me think about my favorite websites. I have some education websites which I usually use in my teaching progress. But the problem is that they are Vietnamese websites. It sounds that I have to find some other "favorite" websites to presentation in coming weeks.
After presentations, I was instructed about concept map and Inspiration 7.5. Sometimes, I have to build concept map in my teaching and the only tool I use is Word. My concept map looks pretty good but actually, I have to spend a lot of time to build it. I have to use drawing taskbar to draw every node, draw every arrow, fill text, search and insert pictures, group all of them. So much time for only technology!
Now, Inspiration 7.5 makes this mission easier. I can fast draw a concept map. With some simple clicks, I can draw nodes, arrows between 2 nodes, chose many picture for my map. I remember that my teacher in Vietnam has a research about concept map and this software will be very convenient for her.

Blogging for Education

To me, Blog is a good tool for educators!
In my country, many young people know about blog and use blog everyday. But I myself thought that blog is a tool for relaxing, sharing, chatting...I have never thought about blog as a tool for educator.
As a teacher at Hanoi National University of Education in Vietnam, I contacted my student frequently. I usually used some technology tools for my teaching including YahooGroups to contact my student. YahooGroups is a convenient communication tool but it lacks many advantages that a blog possesses.
Attending this class, I found out that blog is really a good tool to communicate with the students which attracted me at the first sight. In the class#1, I have learnt the way to set up my blog. It was quite difficult for me at the beginning but it is so interesting that I learn quickly. As you see, my blog is quite beautiful, isn’t it? I think that now I can instruct my future student how to set up a blog.
In my point of view, blogs are very useful for class discussion. Teachers and students are able to share their opinions via their blogs. Teachers can give topics via his (her) blog. Students can post their opinions about the topics; get comments from their classmates and teachers. In addition, blogs are very useful for class reflection. After lectures, teachers can ask students to post their reflection. By reading students blogs, teacher can evaluate not only the learning process but also teaching process.
This is my first opinions about the educational meaning of blog. I hope that I will discover more uses of blogs after our class discussion.