Blog Post #8

The more we work with Diigo the more I am understanding the benefit of its features. Like I said before, I was skeptical about it because I had never heard of anyone else who had used it. Now that we have learned how to take screenshots and how to bookmark whole sites, I do see myself using this in my future classrooms. If my students have to do a group research project, this would be a great way for them to share the resources they find and their thoughts on it.

I believe I will use PowerPoint a lot as a teacher and it can help me target the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. For example, consider a lesson on the solar system in a science class. For the remembering level, I can put information on the slides and repeat fact I want students to remember throughout a presentation. Along with the facts on the board, I can have the notes at the bottom of the presentation in order to elaborate on a topic and help the students understand the information better. I could also use the PowerPoint to show how to apply the information via diagrams to compare sizes with blank spaces the students can fill in. PowerPoint's features allows me to be creative, so I can make a compare and contrast game on a slide so students can analyze the information they received in the lesson. Sometimes science can have ideas people disagree on, so I can include a slide showing these and then allow the students to debate or criticize these thoughts to reach the evaluating level. Finally, with the creating level I can create a visual out of shapes on a slide to represent the solar system, and then allow the students to take what they learned and draw the solar system on their own.

Even as a student in high school and middle school, I heard a lot about teacher professional development. Despite that I assumed this was completed only by teacher meetings during school. After further research I understand it is much bigger than that and teachers can take proactive initiative to make sure they are up to date on technology on their own. I found an interesting website called EdTech, where articles are posted constantly talking everything education. The website includes a lot of information I otherwise would not have known about, and I hope it can help me in my future classroom.

ILP #2: PLN

For my second ILP, I used Pinterest and created my own education board. I was able to search through the application to find ideas and pin them on the board I made. It was actually really fun because I also got to explore other people's pages and their boards. There is a large community of teachers on Pinterest, and it can be really beneficial for other teachers at all stages of their career. If I do become a teacher I fully plan on using it to learn more classroom ideas. Here is a link to my Voicethread where I discuss my experience with Pinterest, feel free to check it out!

Blog Post #7

At the start of class, I was nervous about using Twitter. It is the one social media outlet I do not use personally very much so I had to learn a lot about it. I realize now why it can be beneficial, even in the professional world. I learned that people can connect with strangers in the same field from all over the world, which I think is the neatest feature. In the beginning it was a little hard for me to find other educational accounts and hashtags I liked, but with some time I was able to find some that I can relate to and enjoy interacting with.

This was the first time I had ever created a web page. One thing that did help me was the knowledge and experience I had with creating and designing my class blog. I was able to take some of the skills from that and apply it to the website design, so I was not coming in completely blind. Despite that, I still had to learn about a lot of features. If I were to create another one I think I would be able to make a much better website in terms of the visual aspects. Below is a screenshot of my website as well as a link to it if you wish to check it out!

Website

Personally, I think assistive technologies are the most important technologies we have. They are giving people the ability to do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Someone who is paralyzed can drive a car due to technology in vehicles allowing them to only drive with their hands. People without hands are now able to have a prosthetic that can allow them to write. I have family who uses hearing aids to hear. I love seeing how technology is helping people with disabilities, and I hope advances continue to be made and can even be applied in classrooms.

Blog Post #6

My experience with teacher websites had been pretty limited until I got to Florida State. The teachers at my high school and middle school put the bare minimum on their website, so it was not beneficial for me to use. Each teacher was required to have a syllabus on their site, but that was all they would post. For example, I went to my high school's website and clicked on a random teacher's page. The teacher's page has a tab for each class she teaches along with the syllabus for each class. The only other information included on her page is her contact information. I hope to keep a more thorough website when I become a teacher because I think it will help remind students of what work they must have completed while allowing parents the same access to see what their child is learning.

As we have learned, technology has allowed us to connect with others easily. As a teacher I want to take advantage of this by using available softwares to post classroom information for the benefit of both students and parents. Younger children generally need more help from their parents than older students in completing homework on time. Rather than relying on the students to tell their parents of their assignments or sending home papers to be delivered, it can be a lot easier if all the information was available online for those parents. I will do my best to keep my website as updated as possible because I think it will improve students' overall performances.

The Sandbox exposed me to a lot of technology I had only heard about before the visit. I want to be a math teacher, so I think the most relevant technology for the type of math I want to teach were the smart boards. Generally there is more than one way to do a math problem, and other students can benefit from seeing the different ways their peers solve a problem. With a smart board I can have a student come to the front and complete a problem while showing all their steps. This is something my math teachers in high school did and I want to apply the same strategy to my own classroom.

Blog Post #5

I am going to be honest and say I was skeptical about Diigo. I didn't think it was very necessary and I didn't really understand the purpose. It was easy to install the extension, but a little more difficult learning the tools. After exploring the features I began to understand the purpose more and more which made the activities we did in class better. I don't really see myself using this in the future as of right now, but it is good to have this in the back of my head should I need a program like this in the future.

As of right now I have mostly good experiences with blogging. Blogging was completely new to me coming into this class, but the explanations in our lectures early on were really helpful. I enjoyed the ability to personalize and organize my page the way I wanted. I haven't run into many issues, except for when I am trying to add images, links, or other aspects like the twitter feature. I understand it better now, but if I was attempting to create the blog on my own I would have struggled to figure it out. Overall the website is easy to navigate, but steps could be taken to make it easier for new users.

One Web 2.0 website I currently use and could use as a teacher is YouTube. I can find videos to help with my learning even as a college student. There are so many videos on YouTube explaining a topic in different ways that has helped me a lot. In my future lessons I hope to use this tool for the same reason. It can be good for students to hear a lesson from a different voice or point of view, especially more difficult or complex topics.

Blog Post #4

Personally, Twitter has never been a social media I use frequently. I have had a personal account for a few years, but I got it long after everyone else my age did. I would use it in high school to get updates on sports. Our local newspaper would post their articles on twitter, so I enjoyed reading about how my school's teams did the night before in sports. In addition to the article after the fact, the news reporters would attend the game and live-tweet updates throughout the games. If I teach in a high school setting, this would be helpful so I can relate with the students and briefly discuss their events with them before starting class.

I think the digital divide continues to affect students more and more each day. Classrooms have continued to increase the amount of technology use in and outside of classrooms, thus creating it even more difficult for students with limited technology access. Some classes don't even have a physical textbook anymore so students have to own a computer to view it online. A lot of the time this issue is because of money issues within families, and I am sure I will have students in the future with various socioeconomic statuses. I will try my best to be aware of these differences to make sure that all the students have the materials they need despite their access to computers or the internet at home.

I think the main software I want my students to use is Microsoft Word. The software is extremely useful in both educational and professional settings. It can provide them with lifelong skills like writing an email, or skills needed in school to design project reports. Another software I think I would want to implement is the online thesaurus. It is something that helped me a lot through school, and can help improves students' writing immensely. There are so many softwares available for students and I would expect my students to use those resources as needed.

ILP #1 Design - Canva

The website Canva allowed me to create a quick but organized info card that could be used in a classroom. There were templates available for use as well as other design options to create original pieces. There are so many ways this website could be used in a classroom, especially for younger children. Below I attached my Canva piece which is a flyer informing parents about the upcoming classroom Valentine's Day party. This is just one of many uses the website has, and I hope I get to use it in my future classroom.

Canva Piece

Voicethread