Blog 10: Technology and Me

Data Collection and Me

I think that data collection would be a good way to get to know students in the beginning of the class, as well as getting parents numbers and other important information. If I were to send out a Google Survey I would be able to compile an excel sheet with all my students information and their preferences early in the year. I would also always have access to it which would be helpful. I could see Excel being an important part of keeping grades in a orderly fashion. The excel tricks we have learned would be extremely helpful in creating and coding a grade book that would make calculating grades easier if the school does not already have one.

My Classmates and Me

 This year I have just learned about new ways to do things I have done before. I have used Prezi, PowerPoint, Canva, and other applications that my classmates have talked about but there have been a lot of new and creative things that I had never thought of. It was also interesting to learn about my classmates passions through their blogs and projects. I got ideas for classes and subjects that I wasn’t even interested in but can still find useful in the future.

The Future and ME

 At the moment I am trying to learn more about graphic design and picture editing. I will be a teacher next year but in my free time I do enjoy creating new Social media content for myself and others. I want to learn how to do more with Photoshop and illustrator so that I can create my own content . I think that these skills would be helpful in allowing me to have multiple incomes and do multiple things that I love at once. I usually use Youtube or Lynda to teach me the specific skills that I want but I have been thinking about enrolling in a class. I also ask friends for help which makes for fun and easy to learn lessons. Overall I would like to continue to learn more about technology and its different applications in my life.

ILP 2

For my second ILP, I watched a Lynda.com video on Visual Strategies. I found the video to be a breath of fresh air compared to the tutorials that take up most of Lynda.com. I learned a lot about how to embed visual learning strategies into everyday teaching techniques. The video allowed me to understand a topic I hadn't even thought of before and master it within 20 minutes. I will definitely be using Lynda.com again to learn more about subjects that are important to me.

Blog 8

Diigo

In using Diggo I have been forced to learn more about how to analyze writing more. While using it in class we usually have to make comments and think harder about the information that we are actually reading and processing. I think this would be helpful for young students learning how to cite as they can make comments and save the bookmarks they are using depending on things. I do think the overall idea of Diggo is a little outdated and not as necessary. Considering students can annotate in other ways but I think as a bookmarking extension it would be convenient for people writing a paper.

PowerPoint

Growing up I remember being mostly taught by PowerPoint so I think it does a great job at teaching students what they need to know. I also think that I understand PowerPoint and am pretty good at it. In looking at Bloom's Levels I think that Comprehension and knowledge would be best shown on PowerPoint. You can have recap slides of lessons before the actual new content. Synthesis and Analysis would also be easy to do with critical thinking questions that allow students to take time and think about the material they may have just learned or are about to learn. Evaluation and Application may be hard to do. I think for the application you may think about creating a quiz or jeopardy game but that may still be hard to really check students application skills. Overall I think PowerPoint will always be something that is used in the classroom.

Professional Development

I think it is super important for teachers to be in touch with what’s happening in the world of technology. They need to be in touch with what their students are doing and the best way to do that is by keeping up to date with what is new and happening. This will, in turn, help them learn about new professional development opportunities in the realm of education. They can find out about new opportunities to learn about how to develop themselves professionally. The website that I found here: https://elearningindustry.com/educational-technology-trends-top-right-now has a lot of tips and I think it can be a website that a teacher looks at regularly to make sure they are up to date with the trends.

Blog 9

Open Education Resources are free resources open to educators to help them with learning. I think they are important for educators because their jobs are hard and tend to pay little so having readily available information with supplemental information in lesson plans.  I found this website called OER Commons which has resources for educators to learn more information. You can also build lesson plans and modules on the site. Along with that, you can find material that matches your specific needs and look through the criteria for your specific lesson plans that you may need.

Most of the new skills I learned from Powerpoint where related to the second powerpoint assignment. I always knew you could do more with powerpoint but I never knew it could be so easy. It was cool to learn about the fun applications that non-linear powerpoints can create. Powerpoint is usually used for simple information dissemination and the second project showed us what it can do past that. I think that as a teacher I would attempt to include more nonlinear presentation styles into my lessons so that I can keep them engaged. I think that my particular project came out good but I would have liked to have made it longer or more elaborate if I had the time. My first project was simple enough that I feel like it could be a cool lesson for my class but I don't think it would keep them as engaged as a nonlinear project.

Assignment 4

Assignment 5

ILP #1 Design - Kids Passport

For My ILP I decided to create a Kids Passport using Canva. Canva is one of my favorite tools to create graphics and other digital mediums. I love how easy and effective it is to use. It also allows me to be creative while helping me get things done in a timely manner. My Kids Passport that I created is something that I would use in my geography class as a way to get my students excited about what we are learning about. Students would be able to write a little bit about what we have learned so that they can also remember everything when it comes time for a test. I think that creating and designing small graphics like this can be a fun part of being a teacher. It allows you to be thoughtful while also creative. I would hope my students found this to be useful, but if they didn't I would be able to make changes to it since I created it myself. Overall I think designing your own educational tools is more beneficial than paying for them or finding them online. My Kids passport, in particular, is a great way for students to understand what they have learned and then take time to reflect on it before a test.

Journal 6

Class Page

For the Assignment, I decided to take a look at one of my old teachers Class page. Mrs. Cucurullo was my eighth-grade history teacher, and one of the most eccentric teachers I have ever had so when I went to her page I expected that to be reflected. The class pages on my alma maters website are all a little old school and not very elaborate. They all have the same layout with a few different additions to them. Mrs. Cucurullo particularly has a lot of information that I assume parents would want to know like Test Dates, Class Rules, and an About Me section. I think those are all essential parts for class pages because more than likely that will be the place where parents try to understand what is actually happening in the class. There is also a place where she puts homework and upcoming assignments that would benefit both parents and students. Currently, she is teaching 11th grade US History, so she has older students who probably have more control over there academics, which could be a reason why she doesn’t have as much information as some teachers might have.

Technology in My Future Career

I envision technology being a big part of my career and future. I am not sure what I want to do professionally but I know that I will need to do something that allows me to use the social media skills that I have picked up and love. I see myself using social media as a way to make a partial part of my income or using my podcast as a way for people to hear my voice and opinions. My short term professional goals are to work with Teach For America where I will be a Middle School Teacher. I think I will implement a class page where students have access to seeing what is coming up, and Parents have the opportunity to see what is actually happening in class. I think it would be a cool idea to have students create a weekly blog that goes out so that they can reflect on what they have learned that week.

The Tech Sandbox

The Tech Sandbox was a really cool learning experience in general. While I don’t think many of those technological tools would actually be feasible in most classrooms, the overall ideas are really cool and could probably enhance the everyday learning experience. As someone who loves traveling and will probably be teaching either English or Social Studies, I think I would have to get creative in how I used some of those tools. For example, I would love to use the VR as a way for my students to look at new places that we are learning about that week. I would take them on trips to Africa and show them the pyramids when it was time to talk about that place and then have them write about what they saw. This would be an interesting way for them to learn and see about different countries and they could also say they traveled there which I’m sure young students would enjoy.

Journal 5

Diigo

I think that Diigo is an interesting application to use. It can be helpful to annotate on the web in certain aspects but I do feel like mostly it would not be necessary. I think this would be a great tool for Graduate students and researchers who are always trying to remember what website they used, and what points they wanted to make about something. It could actually just be used for anyone doing a research assignment. I do not like how the bookmarks show up on the page, I think it could be a little more clustered and categorized. However, I do like that you can put things into groups that you share with other people because that would be very helpful for collaboration. I think overall I would introduce Diigo in the classroom as an idea, but not make it a mandatory part of my student's projects and papers.

Blogging

I have blogged, mainly for other classes before and I usually enjoy it. I love putting together websites and having fun with my designs so that my website shows my personality and my messages. In this class, Blogging has not been as fun as it usually is in other classes. I think It has to do with Blogger and how hard it is for me to get my website to look the way I want it too. Overall I think the actual Blogging is going well. I enjoy writing about education and the different intersections it takes with technology. I have learned about how important reflection is as a way of making sure you learn and understand information.

Web 2.0.: Kidblog

 I found the website kidblog.org, which provides an atmosphere for young students to create and work on blogs. I wasn’t able to look at the site as much as I wanted to because you do have to pay to use it but from what I could see the site seemed extremely efficient. They have free lesson plans to help teachers, and support staff available to live chat if you need it. Kidblog also has ways for administrators to monitor students use, but also give them a safe place to publish their work. I think for middle and elementary students this would be ideal because they may not have the best technological capabilities yet, and also their parents may be worried about them being on the internet. Kidblog seems to be an appropriate and safe alternative to have students create their own blog on a site like Wix or blogger.