Basically there are endless amounts of productivity tools. their main purpose is to help reveiw knowledge, apply knowledge, and to explore new knowledge. however, they are easily broke down by what particular age group you wil be teaching. for me, elementary education, i am somewhat limited to the one's i should use with a younger group of students. for example, refernces such as dictionaries and encyclopedias might quickly lead to loss of focus and motivation for 3rd grader. it would be better to use methods like drill and practice, Educational games, and tutorials. the main thing is making sure the students stay interested in the lesson. in the discussion we were told to make sure we kept up to date on these productivity tools and always stay familiar with them.

Being productive is the main purpose of our class. In the two hours that we are in session, we are always learning something and putting it into context. so far its been very difficult to take in all the information but there's lots of help outside the classroom. we have been modifying our web pages and preparing them for the critique session coming up soon. Meanwhile, in the lecture we have been discussing different styles of learning and how they may change depending on the envrionment of the classroom. as a teacher, you must take into account what kind of class you are teaching. are there any students that are extremely slow learners? What kind of materials do you have acess to? etc.. Another topic that we have been discussing in the lecture is productivity tools and how we can use them to our advantage. Again, theres lots of information being processed so its hard to retain it all. luckily the lectures are posted online along with other helpfull notes.

This week in the lecture and in the discussion we finally went over things that i had some basic knowledge on. We discussed how efficiency, effectiveness, and enhancement are the three main adjectives that should come to mind when designing a lesson plan. Time is always an issue in the classroom so you want things to run efficientally. use programs such as powerpoint to speed up the learining process. being effective means that you are able to help the students comprehend the information and achieve thier goal for the day. there are many technological devices that can help you be effective. Enhancement is making sure the students are engaged in the activity and motivated by it. its imperative that the students are making improvement. this is probably the most important lesson so far because these the "Three E's" will always be used no matter what your goal is for class.