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.