Blog 10

Creating a survey has proven to be a lot easier than I expected it to be and I hope to use surveys often as a future educator. I think that surveys can have many uses in a classroom. The main thing I believe I would use a survey for would be learning checks. These would be like zero stakes quizzes for my students that would allow me to better understand what topics still need review and what topics have been mastered by my class. These would be very useful as an elementary school teacher because many students are embarrassed to ask for help when they know their classmates understand the material. I think I would also use surveys similar to those used at FSU at the end of the year. I would like to regularly ask my students what they like about class and what they think I could do better. This is extremely important as a teacher because it is easy to think you are doing everything right when no one is correcting you and no one knows your class better than the students in it.

I often read my classmates' blogs and find information I didn't know beforehand. The most interesting thing to me however, is the different ways we have experienced this class. I often go to my classmates' blogs for inspiration and find that we have completely opposite views about parts of this class. Many aspects of this class I find important or interesting are completely ignored or disliked by many classmates and some things they enjoyed I disliked. For example, many classmates really liked using Diigo while I felt it was hard to navigate and unappealing to the eye.

I believe a skill I need to learn or really improve upon is Excel. I do not have much experience in it besides following the video to do the survey assignment. I feel as though it is very important to use as a teacher and I can barely navigate it. I hope to learn more about Excel through my own experience or from future classes. I also would like to improve my skill in making presentations for teaching. While I know how to make them, I feel as though they are lacking in creativity and interesting content.

Blog post 9

 Distance learning has been a very odd experience for me. It has been extremely difficult but also fun in a way. I enjoyed having the flexibility of online classes, for a while it was much easier to stay on top of my assignments. After one semester however, it became very hard to keep up and motivate myself to do assignments. Not being face-to-face with your teachers and peers definitely takes a toll on your learning ability. Not physically seeing my professors every day made classes feel imaginary so I stopped doing assignments. Myself as well as many others became more and more depressed during this period of school. I felt so tired from staring at my computer all day and so upset at myself for not doing schoolwork. I'd say as a future educator, if online classes are used again, I will try to motivate my students and remind them that their school work is still important even if it doesn't feel like it.

Open educational resources are free resources that can be used in teaching and learning. They are extremely useful to students and teachers alike because access to textbooks and databases can become very pricey. A brief article on Edutopia describes these and provides resources to find OERs. They also explain that while they may be convenient, some OERs are not as reliable as others. 

https://www.edutopia.org/open-educational-resources-guide

Doing the two PowerPoint assignments have definitely helped me develop skills I can use as a future educator. Making a game on PowerPoint was very fun and I hope to be able to do that again for actual students. I learned to create hyperlinks to different slides in a presentation which can be useful for many different things besides games. I also worked with different transitions and animations which make the presentation more interesting and easier to follow.

Blog Post 8

 I really appreciate the skills I learned while making this website. This was the first time I have ever made a website so that's the first new thing I learned. I also learned how to use Weebly to create a unique space for myself and my students to view. I was able to create hyperlinks and attach them to any text or image I chose which is something I did not know you could do. Overall, I feel that I may use Weebly in the future to create an actual website for my class.

http://edudelanie.weebly.com/

Diigo is an interesting tool but it is definitely not my favorite. I find Diigo hard to navigate and unappealing. I did learn how to better connect with my peers and share resources with one another which can definitely be useful. I believe this site would be useful if I ever became a high school teacher but I do not see myself using this tool otherwise. 

Technology has become extremely important to teachers and classes in general. Teachers use technology to connect with other teachers and stay up to date on changes and new software. I believe keeping up with technology is extremely important for professional development in education. I believe using sites like Twitter could be very useful in staying aware of changes in the education community. Twitter is used to stay on top of specific topics and news. 

Twitter.com

Blog Journal 7

 As far as I know, teacher pages are where parents or students can go to read about teachers and get their school contact information. Teacher pages tend to be very simple and to the point, with very little information on the teachers. The ones that I have seen are typically alphabetical lists of all faculty at a school with each teachers subject of teaching and their email. These pages were very useful to me in high school for finding and contacting my teachers about assignments and missing classes. 

I have learned about a lot of useful technology while taking this class and I hope to use most of it in my career. I believe many of the tools will help me be more efficient in my work. I definitely see myself using more Web 2.0 tools to connect with other educators in order to make lesson planning simpler. Things like Twitter can be so useful for finding others in the same field as you and sharing experiences. I also hope to use Canva to create content for myself in the classroom. I have already used it to create a personalized planner that helps me stay motivated and on track.

Working on a wiki platform was definitely a new experience for me. The layout of PB Works is somewhat confusing when you first open it. At first I wasn't sure how to set up a page and organize everything, but my group worked together to figure it out. After figuring out how to use it, it was very simple. I liked using the platform to share information we had learned in class with others and hope I have a reason to use it again.

Blog Post 6

 Using Diigo was definitely an interesting experience for me in the beginning. The site is pretty easy to navigate. I like being able to engage in discussions with my peers and see how everyone feels about certain topics. I feel like it is a very useful tool and could be used for students to discuss readings required outside of class. The only thing I don't like about Diigo is how bland it looks. The site is just not appealing to me and I believe it wouldn't be useful for students younger than middle school age.

So far, I have enjoyed blogging about my experiences with technology. I feel it is a way to keep track of everything I have learned and I like being able to look back on the milestones. I have learned a little bit about blogging from doing it for class. I have learned how to edit my blog to make it appealing to any viewers it might have. I have also learned to use blogging as a tool for myself as well as others. I can use my blog for my own benefit but others can also look at what I've posted and learn from my experiences.

A Web 2.0 tool that I know about and have used is Google Classroom. I used this during high school to keep in touch with teachers and classmates about certain assignments. I really like Google Classroom because it allows conversation between students and also keeps all assignments in one place. I believe that I will try to implement this tool in the future, especially if I am teaching elementary school. This could allow parents to keep track of what their child is learning in class and give them an easy way to contact me with concerns. 

Link to Google Classroom: https://edu.google.com/products/classroom/

Blog Post 4

 One of the technology standards is LAFS.K.W.2.6. This basically states that you must be able to use online or digital resources to create and/or publish works. I feel like an example of this would be creating a newsletter or blog to reach the parents of your students. Currently, I do feel capable of achieving this standard thanks to the few assignments we have done in this class. I have used digital design tools and word to create a newsletter. I also am able to use Twitter and a blog to publish things to whoever needs to see them.

I found a resource for Kindergarten classrooms in the CPALMS Educator Toolkit. This resource is a video teaching students to wash their hands and count to twenty. It first reviews counting with examples and a picture of students on a bus. I think this would be very useful in a classroom especially after what we’ve experienced with this pandemic. I would like to be able to use this resource to help my students wash their hands effectively while also practicing counting. Hopefully by using this resource or something similar, I will be able to prevent the spread of germs and sickness in my classroom. It is especially important for children to learn how to stop the spread at a young age so that it becomes a habit they perform daily.

As a student, Internet searching has become more and more important to succeed in classes. I have learned to find a useful article in a small amount of time just from doing research papers. I believe that as a teacher, I will have to know how to Internet search in order to learn the best ways to teach certain topics in my classroom. Having the Internet as a resource will make my planning easier as a teacher as I will be able to view the many different methods for teaching each subject. I believe using a reverse image search can become a very useful tool in certain classroom scenarios. I think during a science class, reverse image search can be used to find the species of different animals easier than typing the physical characteristics. I think another important skill to use when Internet searching is learning to search exact phrases and exclude certain results. This is something I do often because I’m looking for a very specific answer. For example, I’m trying to search a specific dog, I don’t know what it is but I know it’s not a Dalmatian. I am able to use the internet to search for a dog with spots that is not a Dalmatian; this allows me to narrow my results and get closer to the correct answer.

Blog Post 3

 Copyright is a person's legal right to make copies of something, whether it be art, a movie, or a paper. For example, when we get pictures taken, we have to get the copyright for it in order to remove the watermark and print more photos. Fair use is the idea that certain things may be copied directly with permission from the creator. This is what allows us to cite words from other authors in our research papers and presentations in college. As a teacher, I believe it will be very important to discuss these topics with my students. I would define the words for my students and explain to them that copyright infringement is a serious legal issue. When creating instructional materials, I will hopefully get help from my coworkers to create new assignments or purchase worksheets from a reliable source. 

There are many problems with using technology in schools and I believe the two biggest ones are academic dishonesty and cyberbullying. I hope to combat academic dishonesty by ensuring my students are able to learn and understand the material that I am teaching; this should pull them away from the need to cheat on tests in class. I also plan to have many open-book or open-note tests in my classes to allow my students to use the resources available. In my experience, I have retained more knowledge from open-book tests than from tests where I was required to memorize just about everything in the chapter. As far as cyberbullying, I hope to create a safe space for my students. I would like them to know that they can come to me with any issues they may be having. This way cyberbullying between my own students can be handled in the classroom before it goes too far.

Working on the Newsletter Design assignment was a really fun task for me. I've used Canva before but it was years ago and now the site is so much easier to navigate. I was able to use my graphic design skills and play with all of the different options that Canva gives you. After completing the assignment, I actually went on to create a personalized planner for myself since many planners don't have everything one person may need. I could improve my newsletter by adding more color and better fonts. I believe my newsletter was to the point but not very visually appealing. I noticed on Canva they have templates for just about anything, including lesson plans. Hopefully, I can use this to my advantage and use Canva to develop the most effective lesson planning method for myself.