Post #5

The evaluation of education technology is very important for several reasons. Educators can rely on a variety of resources to help them identify and evaluate the appropriateness of educational technologies, including resources available from school districts, state Departments of Education, professional educational organizations and Web sites. Evaluation tools include checklists, rating scales, rubrics and teacher observations. These are all valid assessment tools for technology-based student projects. Student projects should be evaluated for content, planning, and creativity; planning tools include flowcharts and concept maps, which provide visual tools for brainstorming and understanding the attributes and relationships of the main subject. In order to integrate technology into the education system, teachers are required to rethink and redesign activities and create new teaching and learning strategies.
After completing the entire MS Practice Skills Check, I acquired a number of new skills and concepts I never even knew existed withing the program. While I found some of the concepts to be rather simple, such as saving documents, creating blank pages, deleting text and changing fonts, I found many to be rather challenging. For instance, prior to this practice test, I never knew how to use the find/replace buttons, create tables, use the shading techniques, change the view, insert 3-D borders or use Word Art. After completing the practice, I fully mastered all 120 concepts and feel as though I can use the program much more efficiently.
I really enjoyed chapter 7 in the textbook because I think it will apply to every single one of us as future educators. Just think about how much technology has changed since we were in elementary, middle and even high school and imagine how much more it will until the time we become teachers. We are going to have to deal with constantly making new lesson plans primarily for technological reasons throughout our entire career if we want to be successful educators.