Blog #8

Ahoy!

Todays topic is Diigo. Although we didn't have class last week, the week before we did a bunch of little tasks with the Google Chrome extension of Diigo. We learned how to annotate articles, and bookmark certain things in those articles. We also learned how to make sticky notes and comment on our fellow classmates post. The whole thing was very efficient and made the process of finding information and sharing it with others easy and attainable. Especially because there was a page where the whole class could go to see other people's work. I apprecate the attention to detail I could pay to other articles found by my classmates, and to be able to comment on them. Collaboration is something I continually hear when it comes to education. I love that in the future this is one of many ways to communicate ideas with fellow educators and share thoughts. Together we could create a group based on a certain topic we are exploring and share our findings in an accessible way.  In terms of my individual aspirations I could use Diigo to organize my specified research and keep it in a place where I can always go back to if I need it.

In other news, I have been learning about Blooms taxonomy in my other education class, and all that it entails. There are six distinct levels to build a solid foundation for "effective learning". In this class we are continually introduced to all the helpful technologies that we can use in our future career of teaching. A big one is Powerpoint. One of the few things I already knew about and had extensive practice with. From my many run Ins with powerpoint for various assignments, I have learned of so many ways that it provides useful. In terms of Bloom's Taxonomy, allow me to make a few connections. For starters using power points in a lesson can prove successful for all parts of the pyramid. Say this was a powerpoint for the first day of school. Starting at remembering, the kids could have to remember a list of directions in a powerpoint and do them at a certain point In the lesson, like following certain classroom rules. They would then need to understand what is expected of them for the next year. In the powerpoint slides, they could explain what the new year prepares the students for, and get them excited to learn. Another slide could talk about relationships in the classroom and how to solve problems, by including different scenarios, or issues in the classroom that could arise. Getting the students to recreate these scenarios and determining how they would handle it themselves. Another slide could include any article about classroom management that the class could analyze together. Before breaking into groups and determining the key points and coming back together as a class and sharing their findings.  The students could then evaluate each group and what main points they drew from the article. They could either argue or defend weighing in with their thoughts. Last but not least the powerpoint could include a slide with a first day craft that the students could complete and design themselves following basic guidelines! Powerpoint is like a blank slate, educators could use it in so many ways.

Link to ELearning: https://elearningindustry.com/educational-technology-trends-top-right-now

Now switching gears to talk about the topic of teachers and teacher professional development. Teachers have a big list of things they have to accomplish when it comes to educating the youth of tomorrow. One of the many requirements is that teachers are able to introduce different types of technologies to their students that are not only useful for the future... But also aid in future learning by being innovative and more efficient. A really helpful website I found that teachers could use to keep up to date with the best educative technology is called "ELearning". The website is continually updated with the newest technology trends, and teachers can subscribe to the newsletter to be aware of new things they could use in the classroom frequently. There are links to different tools and articles, and even a way to comment and share this material wth other educators. The website includes things from custom learning experiences, to the opposite end of technology with implementing virtual/ augmented reality into learning. Overall it's a very informative website and I think many teachers could benefit from using it. 

   
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Blog #7

Konnichiwa!

Let's just hop right in to blog number seven and talk about the big elephant in the room which is Twitter. Something I never was able to be a part of. I just lacked interest, unless it was to look at AP testing memes because those are gold. When I first learned that I would have to make a twitter for EME2040, I was majorly confused. What the heck does a twitter have to do with education based technology? Boy was I mistaken. Not only have I looked forward to tweeting something new often, but, it's actually a great source of information, sometimes controversial. But that's what makes it interesting. The influx of educational accounts that I follow range from being interactive with their following in different challenges and links. I also really like how these accounts act as a source of news. They provide the educational news and they offer their views and opinions. It's a way to see how others perceive education and all it encompasses. I recently completed a Edutopia twitter challenge and got a large amount of notice from other people following the account, it was interesting to see how they felt about the things I was saying. I have learned so much about how to make social media informative from using twitter, and how to connect with other educators who may/may not share the same views as me; basically building a network. So far I have not experienced any problems with twitter. Smooth sailing!

A recent assignment we had to complete was designing a website. Let me tell you, this was actually so fun. Getting to pick my template, import pictures, and create under the persona of a kindergarten teacher was a hub for innovation. I liked getting to play with different fonts, and the freedom we had to create our own content. Putting in the Google calendar was a nice touch. It made things seem more legit, although I wish it would only stay on the week I made instead of being so legit and changing with the days, but that is just me being nit-picky. There were not many things that I didn't like about this assignment. The only thing that I would change for next time is how the website input some of my photos. It would be nice if they were more proportionate and matched the text more. But I realize that this is something I would have to manually do. Basically I'm lazy and I wanted the website creator to do it for me haha. In my future career, I now know a free website I can use, and how to use it, I definitely want an extensive classroom website. So the things I learned making this website will be helpful for the future when it's the real deal!

My website: http://msrayana.weebly.com

This week we are learning about Assistive, and Adaptive Technology. Which are the beautiful advanced creations that aid people with impairments or disabilities to make the tasks they are trying to complete easier, or just more attainable. These pieces of technology in classroom settings not only make learning easier...  But by accommodating students who need it, they then can feel more comfortable knowing that they will be able to complete the work they are given just like the other students. It creates a sense of equity in the classroom which is so important for individual growth. I have never personally used any assistive or adaptive technologies, but I do know of students in the same classes as me who have needed longer time on standardized test, or a different color font for their essay prompts. Which was a setting in the computers that had to be adjusted, as well as text to speech processors. These things helped with issues as minor as headaches, or major inhibitors. Teachers usually tried to make the learning environment as nice as possible for all their students; which I really admired in Elementary/ High-school. Using adaptive technologies in a classroom of my own I think the hardest challenge will be explaining to students who don't need those technologies, why their fellow classmates do. Especially with how young I plan to teach, there will definitely need to be a conversation, so that the kiddos are aware and respectable!

   
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ILP Participation- Lynda.com

Link to Voice Thread: https://voicethread.com/share/13120697/
Link to Lynda.com: https://www.lynda.com/in/linkedin-learning

Salve!

For my Second Independent learning project, I did a professional video participation. I decided to go with Lynda.com as my source. Not only were there enough topics to make your head spin, but it was all accessible if you made an account. Of course it was a subscription service, but you get the first month free which is very nice! I watched a video on assessment types and their effectiveness in a classroom setting. The different types and how to apply them for the best results from your students. It was very cool to have so many helpful videos at my fingertips. They not only could potentially help people to accomplish their personal career goals. But simply stated they are extremely helpful. I was able to take notes on the website that I could export and keep forever along with the pdf downloads the specific video provided for guidance in future teaching endeavors and strategies for assessment testing. This website is a diamond in the rough that i think anyone could benefit from using.


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Blog #6

Hallo!

This week we are looking at different class website pages, I decided to look at my old elementary school website. Roberts Elementary was my literal childhood. The schools usually have pages for their teachers and those teachers sometimes have websites for their class which is nice for the parents. to get to know the teacher and keep up with classroom updates. I specifically looked at the kindergarten pages. I noticed that kindergarten, and grades like fourth-where the curriculum gets tougher-were the most developed in terms of the teachers having websites. Majority of the kindergarten teachers had websites that included things like: meet the teacher, classroom resources, announcements, and class calendars. The younger the kids, the more involved the parents are, and they want to know what is going on with their child, that is why it is so helpful to have a place for them to go to indirectly check up on what is going on. There were pictures of them, as well as links to their email and website on the faculty/ staff page for easy navigation of curious parents. Some teachers even had links to the lesson plans like the Pre-K teachers. Many of the teachers also had links to educational websites so the students could go home and practice more online. Overall the class websites were very helpful and another way to reach parents, besides sending home hard copy information in the students Friday folders.

Link to Roberts Kindergarten Webpage: https://www.leonschools.net/domain/5754

When it comes to using technology in the classroom to promote efficiency and effectiveness in terms of my professional responsibility, I will definitely make use of a class website. I imagine myself with a website that not only covers the basics namely, about me, resources, etc. But I want to have a website that has a different page for each student where the parents can go for weekly updates on their child and know what they personally need to work on in terms of skills and behavior. Similar to that of what they get on paper each week but more updated. An easier way to reach out to the parents; which helps with the process of learning in their children. I know that the website will be very high maintenance especially with the vision I have. However, the time I waste rightly so in that area will hopefully be made up by the lack of phone calls form parents because they will have all the information they need right at their fingertips. For the most part. If I can make sure that the students learning doesn't stop just because they left the classroom for the day, then I will be able to successfully fill the role of a teacher who not only teaches, but encourages the students to apply what they learned no matter where they are and no matter how young they are!

Switching topics up a bit, this past week the class went on a field trip to Tech Sandbox.  I'll admit, even with my very public decree of how much I hate technology, everything there was out of this world amazing. From the virtual reality sets, to the 3d printers, and pens. Lots of the things were not only fun to play with, but they could prove very useful in a classroom setting. There was a whole corner devoted to Coding of all types. At first I was intimidated, but then our very helpful guide broke it down and explained the basics. These different sets could range from using apps and physical pieces for making music, and connecting different things that formulated commands over the various mini robots. Coding is something that encourages the students to think about what they are learning and apply critical skills in the process, reaping some really rad results. If I was teaching the kids about science, the Merge cubes-which turned into completely different 2d things on the phone-could be helpful in teaching students basic facts in a new way. Not only would the kids be blown away, but they would want to learn more. There was also the Smart board, that was essentially a big monitor screen that could be placed flat, similar to the look of a table, where the kids could gather around and try different things and learn new lessons. The whole thing could situate an entire group of kids and facilitate group lessons and small projects or just occupy fun in some cases. I think everything in the Tech Sandbox could be used in someway to enhance a classroom atmosphere. I'm so glad I got to go see it all! Below I included some of the pictures I took...

   
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Blog #5

Ciao!

 Another day another marvelous blog. I'll admit I'm getting used to doing this every week to the point where it will be weird when I'm not using it next semester. But that is a sob story for another time. I can't reiterate enough how much I'm enjoying this Education tech class. I guess it's because the class is based on the career I want to pursue. Whatever the case, I'm not complaining haha. So last week the class was introduced to Diigo. I never even knew it existed. But let me tell you, this website is so useful for teachers. Not only is it a great way to communicate and share ideas with other teachers, but it is also very easy to navigate and branch off to other websites of choice for further development. When I first made my Diigo account I was a tad confused about what it did, until the whole class started including our specific sources and commenting on each others post. That was when I realized how effective it was. The entirety of the set up is that of an annotation website. A direct way to find sources and cite them accordingly. Getting to mess around with the different components like highlight, and page markers was very interesting. But there was one thing I really didn't like about the website, and that was the difficultly to add on to my previous post without it refreshing my comments to the top of the list. I know there was a way to keep all my thoughts in one place, but it was hard for me in particular to pick that out. So I kind of gave up and just let my posts be sprinkled throughout the rest of the page. There were so many comments to the point where it was hard to pick out certain things I wanted to look at. To that extent I feel like a little more organization would help the layout of the site more. Other than that I loved getting to use Diigo for the first time.

As for the concept with blogging, as I kind of grazed over the topic earlier. I love it! I like being able to talk about things in an informal way and share my opinions on the different educational resources we are learning in class. There are so many perks to blogging. It helps me to find the words to my thoughts. I don't like that I can't seem to indent my paragraphs, but I don't want to bash the whole concept of blogging based of my insistent need to be punctually correct. I shall let that slide... Back on the topic of how much I love blogging. First of all I have tried to blog In the past and I thought you had to pay for a fancy website and get a subscription for all the perks. But Blogger lets us have it all. There is so much to decided between, from layout, to the style of my blog and I think that is so cool. I like how simple it is because of course I'm not technologically inclined. I prefer to have my hand held during the process and this website does that. So far though blogging, I have learned how to embed links into my blogs, as well as the creative licenses. Doing these blogs weekly means having a chance to learn about different educational tools and share my feelings on them. In short, blogging is awesome.

 Web 2.0 tools include the resources I just talked about, as well as things like PBworks, and Twitter. All the things we've been introduced to in class. But there are mountains more of 2.0 resources that I find are very useful. For example a website called Edmodo. A website that I majorly used in high school to keep up to date on what my teachers wanted us to know. Edmodo is similar to Canvas but without the grading. It's a way for teachers and students to contact each other, and for teachers to include links to further information that they may be teaching that week. There is even an app. Teachers can send pictures of worksheets, and students can comment, or like the "posts". Within the app students can have different sections like a planner, a place for notifications, and even a discovery tab where they can search endless educational games, and created content. The website online has the same components and more, aiming to help teachers manage the classroom and engage with their students. Even parents can have an Edmodo and use it to stay up to date on what their students are learning!

Edmodo.com


   
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Blog #4

Yasou!

Blog number four is all about Twitter, and online resources. I never thought of it, but Twitter does count as an online resource, and is used for more than just memes. I've never used twitter before this class unless you count googling AP test jokes. But it actually has some cool people on it with a lot to say, like the influx of educational accounts that I follow. They not only include open discussion, but they also are a great source for information. So far I have been interacting with my fellow classmates, and enjoying their tweets. I have retweeted a couple of educational articles that I have found to be interesting, and twitter really is an outlet to hear different opinions and formulate your own. Having a page where I can spread what I believe about education in the form of simply liking a comment, or even linking different articles are all unique ways to learn something new or reach my intended audience. In the future as a teacher, I could use twitter not only for opinions, but to spread facts and if I ever got a large enough following, a place where fellow educators can come together to help comment on things going on in the teaching world. A place for "collaboration" as we learned in class today.

The digital divide on another note is something that affects the ability for some students to learn. Its the large separation between those who have access to technology and those who do not. It as simple as a teacher who may assign online homework, and the inability for five of her students to get it done.  If these kids cannot complete the assignment, then they cannot learn and develop in their ways of thinking. Some causes can include, geographical diversity, low income households, or even social problems. Either way to ensure the best results, and give every child the equal opportunity to learn; starts with making sure they can all access the material, rather that be at home, or in school. In the classroom it is certainly not uncommon to have students that may not have access to technology, and because I will be teaching at the elementary level, they may not have technology at all, especially not arbitrary things like phones. To ensure that my student still get optimal education, I will make sure to implement procedures for completing online assignments, In class only. If it needs to be done at home, maybe hard copies for those who need it.

In my class room I will definitely implement smart boards, not everyone can be on the classroom set of computers, and because technology is becoming so advanced... I will make sure the students get at least a little bit of experience In the technology field, whenever there is free time, and monitor them to make sure they understand the importance of technology and use it for things like reading and math practice online. Kids need to be exposed earlier now, because technology is taking over, and we want our future leaders to be prepared. I will also try to implement a class website that will be interactive and available for the parents to have open discussion to talk about any questions they may have, and to keep them updated on what skills their students may need to be learning for that day/ week. Overall I will focus on making things more efficient.




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