Blog 8- Diigo, PowerPoint, and Professional Development

I learned that Diigo is great for sharing annotations on websites with other people. This would be incredibly useful for group research projects as a way to effectively share resources. It could also be helpful as an individual for doing research because you can annotate the information you want to use from each of your sources. All of your sources can be compiled with these annotations in one location. I'm not sure how much more I will be using Diigo, but it was really nice to learn about it.

Here is an image of Bloom's Taxonomy along with descriptions of each level. PowerPoint can be a source for notes for students to look back on to remember the learned information. Similar to that, for understanding, PowerPoints can help students understand because it is a compilation of lots of information. For apply, analyze, evaluate, create, having students students make a PowerPoint can help them achieve these things. By putting together the PowerPoint, it makes them decide what is important, they organize the information, and they get to create something that demonstrates their understanding.

As teachers, it is important to stay up to date with technology. I found a website for the Consumer Electronic Show by the Consumer Technology Association. It posts information about events regarding showcasing new things related to electronics and it also posts articles about current things. Even though this website isn't directed at education, it can still definitely apply to teachers. The best part about it is that it is constantly updating. 

ILP #2 PLN Reddit

For this Independent Learning Project, I decided to try using Reddit as my Personal Learning Network (PLN). I went into this thinking that Reddit was only for entertainment purposes, so I was curious to see how it could be used for expanding my knowledge related to teaching and education. I quickly realized that there was more to Reddit than I once gave it credit for. To see more about my experience with Reddit as a PLN, check out the link to my VoiceThread!

Blog 7- Twitter, Websites, and Adaptive Technologies

My Twitter experience so far has been okay. I do see how it can be useful if you have the right connections and are heavily involved in it, but I would not say that is the case for me. I have learned that it is a way that I can learn about current events related to education and see useful tips for in the classroom. I haven't had any issues, but I just don't see myself using it more in the future as I continue to pursue education. I do understand how it can be a great tool, but I am just not very excited about it. I think it is partly because I am still learning to become familiar with it. My experience hasn't been bad, so that is good.

I really enjoyed creating a website because it was creative and productive. I have used Wix before but this was my first time using Weebly. It took me longer than it should have, but that is probably because I wasn't making my website for a real class, so it took me a little while to think about what I should put on the website. I love how there are so many ways to create a website, the possibilities are endless. I learned how to be familiar with Weebly so that could help me with faster creation of a website in the future. I was fairly happy with how my website turned out. Here is a screenshot and a link for it! 

Initially I was a little confused by the difference between assistive and adaptive technologies. From my understanding, adaptive technology is designed specifically for people who are  disabled. Assistive technology can help disabled people, but it can also be used by anyone. I think something like an iPad is an assistive technology. A disabled person can use it to help them communicate and perform tasks, and someone like myself who is not disabled, could also use an iPad to accomplish tasks. Our activity on the device might differ, but it still assists both of us. Using adaptive technology in my classroom could potentially be difficult because it would require me to be knowledgeable in how to use those things as well as help your students successfully use it. I have no issue with helping my students with this, so hopefully I will actually have the time and resources to best help my students with adaptive technology.

Blog 6- Teacher Websites and Technology Sandbox

For memory's sake, I decided to look at the website for my old high school, Leonardtown High School and see what is going on over there. When viewing the list of staff, there is a chart with information about each person and one of the columns says "contact/website". Very few of the teachers actually have a website listed, it just has an email. I am guessing that most of the teachers either don't use a website, or just don't post it publicly for anyone to see, which makes perfect sense. One of my old science teachers did have a website listed, so I decided to take a look at her website. She teaches 4 different types of science and they are all linked under the one website. # of the 4 classes don't seem to have much on them, however one of the classes has a ton of links to all of the modules and things. I don't recall this teacher using a website hardly ever, so this isn't too surprising to me. 

I am completely certain that I will be using technology frequently in the education field in order to accomplish things more efficiently and effectively. I already do this in my academic life with things like Google Calendar, so I am confident I will continue those habits. There are so many tools to help keep us organized. I am a big user of reminders from Google Calendar in order to keep track of when I need to do things. Along with maintaining organization in my classroom, I will likely use a website in order to provide others with access to needed things, and to keep everything in one place for myself.

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to visit the Tech Sandbox. I spent the most time using the 3D printing. At first I only thought it seemed like something fun, but I couldn't quite see the educational benefit to it. Then I started playing with the 3D pen and I could totally see how it could be a great tool for my young students if I have access to that technology. I imagine it being good for practicing dexterity as well as a way for younger students to become familiar with shapes, depth, and volume. I got to look at some pieces created by the impressive 3D printing machine that creates much more intricate pieces and one of the creations was a fish with the braille letters for "fish" on it to help learn how to spell it in a unique way. See the image of it below. It was so cool that a student at FSU wanted to make that to help someone. 3D printing is so cool because it can be used for all ages. 

Blog 5- Diigo, Blogging, and Web 2.0

We used Diigo in class and I really did not like it. I don't think I quite understand what it is for or when a good time to use it would be. I suppose that it is a way to share websites and put annotations and other remarks on it, which is a unique feature/ability that I have never seen before. However, it felt really annoying to figure out. I'm sure if I spent more time on it, I could find better use for it. The concept is pretty interesting though. 

So far I have actually kind of liked blogging. I know people who have personal blogs which I didn't think seemed enjoyable to have. However now that I have this class blog, I understand why some people would like it. I like how you can customize the colors, layouts, and so many other things. Every blog in our class looks different which is really cool. I like that it is a way to share larger pieces of information with people (or small too). It can be used for work, school, or a business. I could potentially see myself using this as a teacher as a way to stay in touch with my students families as well as my students if they are old enough.

I think as an elementary school teacher, a web 2.0 tool I would end up using is Class Dojo. It is a great way to connect with students and parents. This is a website/app intended for communication geared towards younger students. It can track the progress and other information about the students. It can help bridge that disconnect between the school and home. https://www.classdojo.com/about/ 

Blog 4- Twitter and the Digital Divide

Besides for the purposes of this class, I have not really ever used Twitter. I have a personal account but I only used it to follow FSU related groups and events. As far as this class goes, I think I could be a bit more engaged in what is available to me on Twitter. Personally I think it is hard to find people and tags to interact with that would be useful to me because I don't know what to search or how to find them. I want there to be like suggested things to follow. One thing I have liked though is that I have a friend in the online version of this class, so I have been able to see her tweets and compare what her class is doing to what we are. I suppose that Twitter could be helpful to my future career if I can find the right resources on it. I am a big instagram user and I have found a lot of useful education related accounts. A unique aspect of Twitter is that it seems to be more collaborative/interactive though, so that could be very useful in learning from my fellow educators.

The digital divide is a very real problem, especially in lower-income areas. This is referring to when not everyone has the same access to technology. This can affect students because if they are given assignments that require using technology outside of the classroom, not everyone may be able to have access to what they need for the assignment. Although technology access is becoming increasingly more common, as an educator, especially depending on where I am teaching, I may still encounter students that can't access the things they need. In order to address this, if we are doing assignments that require technology, if possible I would try to find time during the school day for all of the students to use technology. 

I'm a little unsure as to what qualifies as academic software for students. When I think of software I think of super advanced programs that not the average person uses. Assuming that this qualifies, I would use Class Dojo as a way to keep track of behaviors and things in the classroom. I would also be really big on using educational games, which is a form of academic software according to my quick google search. I intend on teaching at the elementary level so academic games are an excellent way to keep your students engaged and learning at the same time. My goal as a teacher is to always stay up to date with ways to teach my students and I expect that to involve many kinds of academic software as technology advances. 

ILP #1 Design- Canva

For my independent learning project, I used a website called Canva that I heard about from a friend. I used it to create an infographic for a second grade science class. My infographic teaches about water in its 3 forms, solid, liquid, and gas. I am very proud of how it turned out! Below you will find my VoiceThread where I tell you more about Canva and my project, as well as a link to my actual infographic.
VoiceThread!
Infographic!