Blog Journal 7

So far my experience using Twitter throughout the course of the class has been positive. I have enjoyed seeing what my peers post and how they feel about what is going on in the class. I have learned that Twitter can be used in a professional manner rather than in just a social manner. I have also learned that there are many accounts that I can follow about education and educational technology. I have also learned how to be more interactive on Twitter through replying to people and commenting my thoughts about a tweet. I think it can benefit in helping you keep up to date in your field and what new things are happening. I also think it benefits in making sure you are interacting with other people in your field to get more information.

I learned a lot through the Web Design assignment. I learned how to make a website which I had never done before. I also learned how to make it creative and use different effects to make it more appealing. I also learned what is important to put into a website and what is not important. I think I could improve next time by making it more cohesive throughout the different pages. I realized that I used different color schemes and layouts throughout which I think made it a bit confusing. Next time I would try to use the same theme throughout and the same colors. 

My Website!

I know someone who is a special education teacher who uses adaptive and assistive technology often in her classroom so I already knew a bit about it. These technologies are used to help special learners whether it be to make something more accessible for their needs or formatted to help them in the future. I think these technologies are definitely necessary not only for special learners to learn subjects but to also teach them to be independent in the future. I think if you know how to deal with the technology and take the time to understand it before introducing it to a student the challenges will be less restricting. 

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ILP “Participation” – Lynda.com

For the 1st ILP, I decided to participate in a class on Lynda.com. The course was called Educational Technology for Success. I decided to take this course because I thought it would help me learn about more technologies and how to apply them in the classroom. I also took it in hopes of helping me understand why technology is such an important for students. The course was very thorough and I feel like I learned a great deal throughout. Check out my Voice Thread below to find out more about what the class entailed and how it helped in my professional development.

Voice Thread ILP #1

Blog Journal 6

I chose to look at the teacher pages for Jackson Elementary School in El Dorado Hills, California. Each page was very similar in how they were set up. Each page had the same header with the teachers name on it. None of the pages had any pictures of the teachers or their classrooms. Most had links to important documents. They also all had reminders set up for things coming up in the class. It also seemed as though a lot of the information had not been updated since the start of the year. It says that they send home newsletters and use the RemindMe app to relay information to the parents. Here is an example from a teacher named Ms. Hadden.

Link to Ms. Hadden's page: http://www.myjacksonelementary.com/subsites/Hadden/

Link to main teachers page: http://www.myjacksonelementary.com/Teacher-Pages/

I plan to use as much technology as I can in my future career. I think it can be used to make things more easy and efficient in an classroom. I really like SmartBoards and the fact that students can use them with the touch screen. I think it would be a fun way to play interactive educational games in the classroom. I also think I will use Twitter to help the parents stay updated. As I want to teach elementary level students they will most likely not have access to a Twitter account but if I could make one for the parents I think it would be great. They could also you it to ask questions so that everyone can see the answer!

I really enjoyed going to the Tech Sandbox this week. I got to learn about a bunch of new technology that I knew little about. It also got me to think about how I would use certain things in my classroom. I really enjoyed learning about and getting to use the 3D pens. I think they could be fun to use with the students once or twice a week so that they can be creative while also learning. I could try to incorporate them into a lesson for example having the students try to draw something we are learning about with the 3D pens. They could also all display what they made afterwards. 

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Blog Journal 5

My initial experiences using Diigo have been positive thus far. I think it is a good way to interact with the class through annotations and comments. I also think it's interesting to see people's opinions on certain topics when they annotate. I think it could be used in a classroom setting to annotate readings. I think it would be more beneficial instead of using books or papers because other students could see their peers thoughts. Overall, there has not been anything I disliked about Diigo.

I have come to enjoy blogging since starting this class. I think its a great way to post about what we are learning about and how we feel about things. I also like reading other people's posts and seeing their thoughts on the different topics. I think I would obviously like blogging more if I had a choice on what to write about but overall it has been a positive experience. I think it has made me think more about the topics throughout the semester as well. I also think it allows the class to be creative in how our blogs are set up. 

I think a Web 2.0 tool that I would potentially use in my classroom is Skype. Skype is a software through Google that allows people to video chat online. I think using it to have experts in a certain field talk to the students about what they are learning would be beneficial. I think it opens up possibilities because you can talk to anyone even if they are not local to you. I think it would also benefit in group projects to allow the students to collaborate outside of class. I think it would help to make the classroom more collaborative and innovative. 

https://www.skype.com/en/

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Blog Journal 4

Voice Thread Link!

https://voicethread.com/share/12131787/

Blog Journal 3

As I want to teach elementary level students I researched the ELA standards for grades 2-4. Looking through the standards they all seemed relatively simple to me. The standards were things like "use abstract nouns" or "capitalize appropriate words in titles". All of the standards are skills I use on a daily basis to do homework or communicate with others. I feel as though I would be very comfortable teaching the standards to students. There are a few standards that I understand but am not sure how I would go about exactly explaining or teaching them. An example of this would be "Choose words and phrases for effect". I understand what it means to do this in writing but I am not sure how to help young students acquire this standard.


The CPALMS Educator Toolkit has a wide variety of lesson plans and resources to help teachers in every grade level. I think this toolkit would be especially helpful to teachers in their first few years of teaching that might need help with lesson plans. The tool I would probably utilize the most in my classroom is the instructional resources. It has many fun lesson plans to help students learn while staying engaged. It also includes virtual manipulatives to be used in lessons. I think the virtual manipulatives can be used to help add technology to my lesson and keep the students more engaged in what they are learning. 

The Newsletter Design assignment was something that helped me use Word in a more creative way than I am used to. I also made me think about design and how others would view the layout and colors. I learned things like borders and columns that I knew very little about. I think I could have improved on the overall layout of my articles within the newsletter because I don't think they look very uniform. I also think I could have improved on using different colors throughout because I mostly stuck to one or two. Overall I am happy with how my newsletter came out and hope I get to use Word in a similar way soon. 

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Blog Journal 2

For the most part I have used Microsoft Word to write papers or essays throughout my academic career. I usually use it to just write paragraphs about whatever topic I am studying. I have very rarely been given an assignment through Microsoft Word where I got to be creative and have fun. I have also very rarely seen teachers using Word for anything other that writing out assignments or rubrics. I think this is especially true in college. There are very few classes where Word is used for anything other than writing in my experience.

I feel like a large majority of the materials I have been given throughout my academic career have been copyrighted by my teachers. I have been given several copies from workbooks or textbooks as assignments. I have also seen this happen a lot when a teacher is absent for the day. They would make copies from something to work on because they were not there to teach. I haven't seen this happen much in college so far. Most of the assignments come directly from the professor sometimes with an aid from a textbook. I think it is important to use aids to teach some lessons. I think as a teacher I will make most of my lesson tools and assignments. I think I will also use aids from other teachers if they are beneficial to my lesson.

I think to combat copyright problems you just have to do proper research. You have to research and see what the laws are against copyrighting documents so that you can avoid it. I think also researching the specific restrictions and licenses on different documents or books. Privacy issues are definitely something you want to avoid especially when children are using technology. I think making sure all of your accounts are protected by passwords and other privacy measures. Also making sure that the students are using websites properly and not putting any of their information that could be seen by people outside of the classroom. Cyberbullying is always something you want to avoid with students using technology. Unfortunately you can only do so much to protect students while they are in school but once they leave it is hard to control. I think monitoring what students are saying to each other online while using the technology in school is important. I think you should also have consequences set in place so the students will know that they can not use technology to bully others.


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