Blog Journal 8

There are many new skills that I learned from working with Diigo these past couple of days. One of these skills is being able to filter different categories in a group by selecting bookmarks or topics only, or all at once. This application can be useful in my classroom in order to narrow down what is being searched in a group more easily. With team members, different links can be posted so that others can view what has been discovered and highlighted by another team member. In regards to my individual professional efforts, an application that can be used in Diigo is posting questions on the topics section that others can answer through discussions.

PowerPoint can be used to support student learning at each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy in a particular lesson in a variety of ways. Analyzing is one of the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and PowerPoint can be used to support this through one of its layouts. There is a layout that includes two text boxes below the header that are side by side. Because of this feature, analyzation can be incorporated to compare and contrast information using these text boxes that are right next to each other on a PowerPoint slide. Creating is another level in this set that can allow students to make their own designs when using PowerPoint to develop projects in a lesson, for example.

Technology is being advanced each and every day and contributes to education by being incorporated in classrooms for learning. Teacher professional development is important in many ways, including technology, since it shows that educators are putting in the effort to improve their skills in what they do. One of the many sites that I can use to stay informed of technology trends is EdTech Update. This site brings together the best content for education technology professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders for individuals such as myself to stay updated on what’s new. Attached is a link and a screenshot of the site.

https://www.edtechupdate.com/tools/

Blog Journal 7

While using Twitter, what I have learned so far is that you are not able to go back and edit a tweet. I tried to do this after realizing a hashtag I forgot to include and quickly became aware of how what has been tweeted can’t be edited unless it’s completely deleted, or a thread is created to explain a correction. However, the benefits of using Twitter are being able to see the tweets of other, liking them, and even replying to them. In regards to any issues I’m experiencing, not being able to make edits is honestly the only issue I have had; other than that, my experience with Twitter thus far has been wonderful!

Some new skills I acquired from the Web Design assignment I recently completed were the ways that I took my audience into consideration. Creating the web design required me to always be cautious about how appealing it would be for parents and students accessing it and how it would be helpful to them. What I liked about the web design was how I was able to make it my own, personalised website where I can make my own arrangements within it. However, what I didn’t like about it were the difficulties of adjusting images to be formatted correctly around the text. What I learned from this assignment can help me to improve next time and in my future career by making it a better resource for students and parents when they encounter my class pages. Attached is a screenshot and link to my website.

Assistive technologies are used to support learners by giving them the tools to use based on the disabilities they have as individuals. On the other hand, adaptive technologies are used to assist with completing activities of daily living. The challenges I perceive using adaptive technologies in my classroom would be that there is a chance of them being rarely used by students who are not familiar with the advancements made in technology that are meant for most people to adapt to. If some students don’t have access to upgraded forms of technology, they won’t feel comfortable using adaptive ones that are incorporated in the classroom.

http://tjlangarts.weebly.com/

Blog Journal 6

During my personal experiences in my classes, I have never really been familiar with teacher pages on a school website. It’s such a coincidence that I have realized this very recently because of the field observations I do for my Introduction to Education course. The school that includes the teacher pages I’ve seen previously is the Florida State University Schools which consists of grade levels K-12; however, the grade of students I have been focusing on are middle school students, which are 6-8. After visiting class pages of this school website such as the one made by the English teacher I observe, I’ve seen many kinds of public information. There is an About section that lists the teacher’s personal data, educational background, and professional experience. Other sections are categorized by the specific subjects that are taught, which include syllabi, expectations, lesson plans, and units. Attached are a couple of screenshots and a link to the site.

I envision myself using technology to accomplish my professional responsibilities more efficiently and effectively in many ways. Referring back to the class pages mentioned before, I would be able to create my own websites for professional uses as well in the workforce. Since I have plans of becoming a teacher in the future, this would be beneficial for students and parents to gain more information about myself and what I would be teaching in my classes. Having a website would be more structured as well and convenient for students in this generation who are more familiar with the use of technology.

Visiting the Technology Sandbox was a great experience that allowed me to have a better understanding of a wide variety of tools that can be used. I believe that many of the technology I learned about could be used in the classroom. One of them was the SmartBoard, which had the feature of being able to touch the board with your finger or the markers attached to make your own creations. This would be helpful for students to be more engaged and active in the classroom while using this board to solve math problems together, for example, as well as for teachers to display online information for everyone to view. Another technology was the Merge Cube, which enables you to scan a cube of codes by using a smartphone in order to display an interactive image on the phone screen as a result. This can be used in the classroom during lesson plans for teachers to elaborate how certain things work more in depth such as the human body, the solar system, and much more.

https://www.fsus.school/Page/987

Blog Journal 5

With my initial experiences using Diigo, there are many things that I liked and some things that I didn’t like. One of the things about Diigo that I liked was the ability to work with others while not necessarily having to be in each other’s presence. I also liked the feature of being able to highlight information in articles, annotating, and commenting on the annotations of others since we’re able to view what they highlight and annotate as well. On the other hand, something that I disliked about using Diigo was having to redownload the Chrome extension every time I log back into the computer I use. It would be much simpler to just have this extension permanently installed on the computer, but overall this hasn’t been a big deal to me.

I have had a lot of experiences with blogging so far that I found to be very interesting. Something I like about blogging is how it’s similar to journaling, but in a different way since it doesn’t require the traditional method of using a pen and paper. There’s nothing that I necessarily don’t like about blogging, because I genuinely enjoy every aspect of it! What I have learned so far during the blogging process is how it can be personalized, which was mentioned in one of the Web 2.0 tool articles I read in class. Unlike other tools such as social media, blogging can be someone’s own, individual tool that they can customize and edit at any time without any interferences.

All of the Web 2.0 tools that I have learned about recently seem to be interesting to me because of the different features they consist of. However, an interesting Web 2.0 tool that I might use when teaching is Storybird, which is an engaging and easy-to-use tool for creating short, visual stories. Since I’m majoring in English Education and plan on teaching in the future, I would incorporate this tool with my students by giving them the opportunity to make their own creations. These creations can then be published on the web with adjustable privacy settings, and there is also the option to allow comments which would be perfect for me as a teacher to encourage student collaboration. Attached is a link to the tool; enjoy!

https://storybird.com

Blog Journal 4

I haven’t had any early experiences using Twitter before enrolling in this class, since the social media tools that I do actually use are only Instagram and Snapchat. However, now that I am using Twitter, I’m starting to get the hang of it by tweeting, retweeting, replying to tweets, creating threads, and following others. Lately, I have been interacting with my classmates as well as other students who are in this Introduction to Educational Technology class. I have found it beneficial by reading the experiences they go through during this class with the assignments they are completing that are similar to mine. Twitter might be helpful in my future career by possibly using this same method for the students I will be teaching to allow them to communicate with their peers in the same manner.

The digital divide is a term used to explain the great differences between students who don’t have the same accessibility to technology. The digital divide affects student success in schools in many ways, with one of them being completing school work. If certain assignments require using technology that they are not able to reach, this can hinder their possibilities to succeed academically. Some causes of the digital divide may be if a student is a minority who comes from a very low-income family that doesn’t have the opportunity of being supplied with the technology they might need. As a classroom teacher, I may experience having a student in this situation; this will affect my teaching strategies by allowing me to take note of the adjustments that need to be made in homework assignments for example that would be advantageous for these specific students.

There are many academic softwares that are available for students to use and be engaged with during their learning process. One of the many software tools I would like to use in my future classroom is Google Classroom. This is a tool created by google to aid with communication between teachers and students, and I would like to use it with my future students because I’ve experienced how helpful it has been for me while I was in high school. Another tool I would like to use with them is Kahoot, which is a game-based learning tool where questions can be created for students to answer for reviewing purposes. I would like to use this tool as well because of the playful aspect it incorporates that would get my future students interested in learning.

ILP “Design” – Google Classroom

This is my first Independent Learning Project, and to start off I chose design. The tool that I used for this project was Google classroom in order to create an educational content. We have not used this tool in this classroom before, but I have used it previously during my high school years. It's very helpful for teachers and students to communicate with each other, and I can honestly say that I had a great experience creating the content that I made during this first project!

Attached is a link to the Voice Thread of my Independent Learning Project.

https://voicethread.com/share/13097841/