Post Ten- Technology as a Professional Development Tool

As I was pondering different technological tools teacher can use for professional development, many things come to my mind. I have seen a variety of examples that teachers in my past and present use that improve their work as a teacher. One tool that I can think of is Pinterest. I currently work in a pre-school as an afternoon teacher assistant and I can say that 100% of all the teachers at the school use Pinterest. The teachers use Pinterest for ideas to use in the classroom when it comes to arts and crafts, but they also use Pinterest to look up ideas on how to teach their students different concepts during lesson plans. Pinterest is a great online source where anyone can sign up for free. It consists of multiple pictures, blogs, ideas, and links that someone can “pin” on their virtual board. All of the pins show up on a newsfeed so others can find these ideas to pin onto their own boards. Some examples of boards would be “Teaching Ideas,” “Recipes to Try,” “Fall Trends,” and many more boards. These website is a great example of a professional development tool because it allows educators to share and view others ideas when it comes to improving themselves in the classroom. Another great professional development tool would be the website Discovery Education. This website has so many amazing tools such as blogs, videos, pictures, and factual pages that teachers can look up to learn about certain topics to introduce to their students. I remember when I was in middle school science, my eighth grade teacher had us watch some videos from Discovery Education about the ocean and different animals found in the ocean.

When I become a teacher one day, I know I will be able to work with these types of professional development tools. I am actually excited to use these different tools because I believe it will make teaching a lot more fun! When you continue to learn in life, it makes you feel more empowered and satisfied. Education is constantly changing so I can’t wait to use these different tools to make my classroom a positive learning environment.

One technology that I have learned about recently is an app called Study Blue. This app is pretty cool and I have actually used it to my advantage now for my college courses. Study Blue is an app where students can access class notes, make flashcards or study guides, and chat with other students in their class or students who are taking the same class elsewhere to help better their learning. This app would be great to introduce to more students if you were a teacher because it makes studying much easier. It allows you to study on-the-go with your mobile device. This app will better enhance learning because it is available at your fingertips and the app is free to all!

Post 9

When it comes to teachers using technology as a management tool, I have seen various examples of teacher doing this. When I was in middle school and high school, I had teacher use the school website to create their own personal page where students could check for homework, grades, upcoming assignments, and announcements in the class. While being in college, Florida State uses a site called Blackboard. Blackboard is used in many different universities. Blackboard is a great management tool for teachers because it is used for the same purposes of uploading assignments, making announcements, and releasing grades to the students personal account. Blackboard has come in handy to me as a student because it has helped me become organized with all my classes. For a teacher, this site is very helpful because it allows teachers to manage all their different classes and each students progress in their class.

I feel that I am capable of performing the tasks of using Blackboard like I used in the example above. I feel that a tool like this would really come in hand to a teacher because it is very organized and allows teachers to maneuver around the site very easily and upload different things for their students to see. I hope to be able to use a site like Blackboard one day when I become a teacher because it is very easy for students to log into and upload digital assignments. It is great for managing communication among your students as well.

One technology that I have learned about recently is a Xbox One Kinect. I tried out this technology a few weeks ago and it was an amazing tool! This Xbox One is equipped to play games, such as sports game or video games, but you can have your body actually connect with the screen to track your body movements so your character on the screen can move with you. This technology is very cool because it would allow students with disabilities to play virtually in a sport or have students learn about different things in their field of education. The Xbox has many different sports games, such as tennis, football, and soccer.

post 8- motivational tool

When I was in Elementary School, I had many teachers who used technology in several ways as a motivation tool. Many times I would have my teachers using a reward-punishment system to motivate us in our learning. This method did work, especially for this age, because it pushed the students to work to their fullest potential. When I was in elementary school, there was not as much advanced technology as there is now, but we did have computers which everyone wanted to go on to play computer games or try out educational programs. In my classroom in third grade, my teacher had a “Red light, Yellow Light, Green light” system in her classroom. She had these paper cut outs of traffic lights and we had little popsicle sticks with our names on it. When we scored above a 90 on any of our homework assignments or quizzes, we could move our popsicle up on the traffic light until it got to green. I do not remember the exact rules my teacher had, but I knew when the students reached green, we were able to spend 30 minutes on the computer on Friday playing a computer game or educational game. Many of the students in the classroom worked very hard because they wanted to play on the computer.

When I become a teacher, I believe I am capable of using technology as a motivational tool. It is important to get your students engaged and feel that if they work hard, there is a good end result, whether that be an A+ on a quiz, getting to play a game on a computer, or even getting into college! I believe that anyone can achieve success with the right motivation. I will make sure one day that my students feel that they can succeed and can reach their full potential. I am a patient person and I have the quality of being able to engage others which will be beneficial in the classroom.

One technology I have learned about recently is an online web tool called PosterMyWall. This website can help students create very artistic and creative posters, photo collages, albums, or calendars. They can use their own photos or find photos from the Internet. This is a great resource for students especially with technology is constantly changing. This allows a student to go paper-free and create a project through this web tool. It has many different features to make a lively poster that can be used for a project in the classroom! I will post the link below:

http://www.postermywall.com

Post 7- Technology as Evaluation Tools

Growing up, I don’t recall a teacher specifically who used technology as an evaluation tool but I do know that using technology for this can be extremely useful as an educator. Teachers have to deal with many struggles with being in and out of the classroom whether that be working with colleagues, communication with parents and students, grading papers, and balancing the curriculum in his or her classroom. If a teacher were to use technology as an evaluation tool, it would minimize time for their workload especially when it came to assessing student performance and improving their own practice. There are many different kinds of technological programs such as Smart Board, Internet Resources (such as teach.com) and many more programs to assist a teacher in the classroom. There are different online programs such as Aroga that help with assessing students with disabilities. The Oculus can help a teacher in evaluating how a student with visual disabilities is doing in comparison to other students as well.

I feel that I am capable of using technology as an evaluation tool. I believe that using this technology to my advantage in that way will enhance my instructional skills and better help my students in the future. The skills I believe I can bring fourth to a classroom with this is knowledge about different technologies, patience with students who may fall behind, and the ability to find different programs to fit my students needs.

One technology that can be used to help support learning would be a program called Diagnoser. I read about this program online when it comes to evaluation tools in the classroom. This program is designed to give an instructor insight of how a student conceptually understands science related course work. The program does not only pose questions to the students, but it works through different steps to see how a student came to their answer. This tool is very effective because it would help a teacher understand where their students heads are and therefore better the teachers instruction in the future. This can help students because it allows them to work through different steps so they can critically think about a problem which will better their learning.

post five: technology as a productivity tool

From my experience with teachers using technology in their classrooms, I had one teacher in high school for my Journalism class that used technology as a productivity tool. My teacher was successful in the way she used her accessible technology because she kept her class engaged and excited about the content she was teaching. She would use different kinds of programs on her computer to teach the class, such as Powerpoint, Prezi, and PhotoShop. In her classroom, she used computers, laptops, IPad’s, IPhone’s, and cameras to teach the class. My teacher had a smart board in her classroom, as well. She would use the Smart Board to have students interactively teach the class on certain topics of the week that they would research for a project. Her technology usage was appealing in that she included visuals and graphics on her Powerpoint’s and Prezi’s. She was successful because her class was excited to be there everyday and respected her because she made the class interesting through her skill of technology.

When I become a teacher, I feel confident in my ability to keep my students engaged through technology. I know I will be able to use technology as a productive tool because I am learning about the different types of things I can use in my classroom one day to help better the students learning. One thing I will definitely implement in my classroom one day is using technology whenever possible to complete tasks or to do minute tasks, such as taking attendance. We live in a world where technology has taken over and students will relate more to technology use than a textbook. Instead of using physical textbooks in my classrooms, I want to use e-books to use together in class for discussion. I feel that students will be more interested than reading an actual text.

One technology I have learned about recently is Oculus. This technology is a headset that allows someone to see a virtual reality more intense than through a regular screen. It allows someone to be completely withdrawn into its domain and feel as if they were actually there. This technology is incredible because it can change the way students experience things in the classroom. It would be really great for students if they wanted to see a different country but couldn’t physically travel there. Through Oculus, a student could take virtual field trips to see what they are actually learning about in the classroom. This technology would be helpful for students with exceptionalities too.

post four: web-based recourses

http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration

One of my favorite educational technology web resources is Edutopia. This website is filled with many articles focusing around education and its evolving changes throughout time. It is a resource that students and teachers both can utilize to help improve themselves in the classroom. This resource is especially helpful to teachers because it includes insightful articles about certain technologies that have been used in the classroom and are changing the way students learn. The link I provided routes to the Technology Integration section of the Edutopia website. This section has many articles ranging on “Blended Learning with technology in the classroom,” “8 Free Apps to stay organized in the new year,” and several videos of researchers talking about how to utilize certain technology in your classroom that better helps your students. What I really enjoy about this website is that the articles are easy to read and can relate to anyone. They make the content understandable and enjoyable for the reader. One of the articles I enjoyed reading was called “Ten Tips for Personalized Learning via Technology.” The link to the article is here: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differentiated-instruction-ten-key-lessons.

When it comes to the internet for conducting student research, I think it is a great idea. Ever since the Internet was created, it has been a vast resource for finding information within seconds. Although some websites on the Internet are misleading, there are several places on the internet that can help students find scholarly articles, online books, and journals. There are resources such as JSTOR and University library websites that can find scholarly resources a student may be looking for. The Internet can be used as a great advantage if it used the right way, but when it comes to research, it is important that students use reliable sources from the Internet rather than sources that may not be credible such as Wikipedia.

In my past experience in school with Internet research, I have usually used Google as my main source to find information I need. Not all my teachers in the past required me to use scholarly resources so I would at times use websites like Wikipedia, About.com, and other websites that gave general information. In college, I have used FSU’s library database online to find articles for certain research assignments I have needed to do which has come very handy in trying to find information that is credible. In the podcast “Evaluating Internet Resources,” I realize that I used the techniques that are used in finding internet resources of the ABCDT method. I have definitely checked the url when viewing my resources because the ones that are more reliable contain .edu, .gov, or .org. It is crucial to check all revenues when finding the right resource during research online.

post 3: visual graphics

The website I chose for my visual critique is Tallahassee Democrat. The link is http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2015/02/09/familys-nightmare-chiles-freshman-killed-car-wreck/23153399/. This website is the online version of the Tallahassee local newspaper. It updates the community about local events, people around the city, and other things that are important for the Tallahassee community. It includes many articles under the categories of sports, obituaries, FSU, politics, and opinion based. I think the way the website is set up is visually pleasing. There is not too much variation in style types. It looks like the website uses about three different font styles; although this is more than one should use, it does not come off as busy. I believe it doesn’t look busy either because the size of the text is appropriate for the size of the page. As for the color of the page, they use two main colors: black and green. The green on the page directs the reader to certain headlines which makes it easier to read and navigate. The headlines on the page are very short. As a reader, this makes this more approachable to read because the shorter the headlines the more likely a reader will be drawn to it which is mentioned in Chapter 6. This website is very easy to find your way around and the articles they post are actually very entertaining.

When listening to this weeks podcast, I can completely agree that open source and open content are important for educators. With open content, I think this can be beneficial for teachers especially. Through open content, teachers can share ideas with one another to improve themselves as educators. It is important to keep growing as an educator and through open content, educators are able to access and learn new things that they may not have been able to do on their own. As with open source, I think having access to softwares can be beneficial with the classroom. Having open access to certain softwares can help an educator guide students to learn more effectively and understand the material better because of a more advanced software that is accessible to anyone. I think it is great thing when schools allow students to access lectures and power points so they are able to study at home or even if they missed an assignment to catch up in their own time. I plan on contributing to open content one day when I become a teacher. If there are things that have helped me become a better teacher and I have added onto it, I will want to share this with others like me so they can help their students succeed.

With working on this weeks Word and Graphics 2 assignment, it was tougher than I originally thought. There were some things I had trouble finding like making a header and making borders around certain sections. I did learn how to make a background color on a Word sheet and I learned how to put borders around certain paragraphs. It was fun to work with different fonts and colors. There was nothing in particular I disliked about it, but it was definitely a challenge at times! It made me really appreciate that there are templates though so I don’t have to go through all that in the future if I want to make a pre-made newsletter! If I were to make another one next time, I would keep in mind the rules for visual design more so and not make it as busy as I did.

post 2: using Microsoft word

From being a student in school, Microsoft Word was something that I used a lot. We constantly used this program for writing papers or doing small homework assignments that required us to do some kind of writing. In high school and college, I have this program to write research papers, narratives, small paragraph writing assignments, and short stories for my classes. In my ENC classes here at FSU, I had use Microsoft Word all the time. We used it to write drafts for our papers and writing prompts to send to our teacher. This program is very effective and has helped my development as a student. It has become an easy and accessible tool that I can use to send documents to other people or to write in an electronic format. Not only have I used this program for writing papers, but I have used this program to paste photos to send to myself for scrapbooking or other personal needs.

When I think about my experience with copyright, this is something I was always taught in school that was very important. My teachers always stressed to us as students that we must always cite something if we got it from another source. They always told us that if we didn’t give something credit, it was basically like stealing from a store! Even in college, now that we are all adults, it is even more important that we give credit where credit is due. If we fail to do so, this could result in legal punishment. I was taught in school how to cite different sources, make bibliographies, annotated bibliographies, and quoting the correct way. When I become a teacher, I want to make sure I completely educate my students on the correct way to deal with copyright issues. I feel that is is important to to let your students know why this is important, especially. As a teacher, I will use different online programs like Purdue Owl to show my students how to properly cite other sources. I will implement activities in the classroom that help the students learn how to cite sources the correct way. I had teachers in high school that thoroughly helped us with this type of thing. To this day, I feel knowledgable about citing sources and I feel confident in my ability.

From working on this weeks assignment, Words and Graphics 1, I learned some new things that I wasn’t sure how to do before. I was never sure how to start a proper header or footer, but now I understand how to get it by going to the view menu. I also learned how to properly make a new table and to find new graphics, such as bar graphs and pie charts. I didn’t even know Microsoft Word had these features before! I did like this assignment. I thought it was fun to make our own quiz. I made my quiz about Florida State and its history. Next time, I would like to try different graphics to implement into my word document to try out. On this assignment, I used a pyramid chart. Overall, I enjoyed the assignment. 

post 1: computers in the classroom

When it comes to educational technology, things are changing before us even faster than we think. Technology is becoming a part of everybody’s lives, whether through personal use or in a classroom. We know this to be true because of statistics backing up how many people around America use a cell phone or have a computer in their household. I found an interesting table in the textbook “Tech Tactics: Technology for Teachers” that showed how many people have a computer in their household with different variables such as age, gender, and household income. The study found that 68.6% of children have a computer in their home. That is crazy to me! That is way over half of the population of students. Because of this overwhelming number of children who have this type of technology in their household, it makes it even more imperative that our modern day educators are even more informed on what technology means and how to implement this in our classrooms the most effective way possible. I believe computers are a very important aspect when it comes to education. I can’t remember a day in my schooling when I did not use a computer for some sort of assignment or activity. Computers are used constantly, especially for communicating, transmitting information, and retrieving information. Students use computers probably everyday in their learning experience, especially with programs like Word or Powerpoint. The book talked about the three kinds of computer use which I highly agree with. These uses included computer literacy, using the computer as a teacher for the students, and as a cognitive tool. I agreed with the different points made about these uses because it shows how computers can be used to help in the learning processes in schools. When students have a teacher that is knowledgeable about up-to-date technology or can transmit information to the students that better help their learning, it helps the whole environment. You start seeing teachers becoming more confident in their skills and students learning even more than they thought.

In the podcast “Digital Natives,” I learned that the term digital native is a person typically born after the 1970’s who is a child, teen, or young adult who has grown up in the ‘technology world” and does not remember a time when computers or cell phones were not around. When I think about myself as a digital native in comparison to teachers I have had being digital immigrants, there have definitely been obvious signs of who is more aware of what the technology is used for. I remember being in high school where some of my teachers were not even sure how to turn down the volume when watching an educational video in the classroom. In these situations, a classmate would have to go up to the podium to assist the teacher with the problem they were facing. It was a bit embarrassing for the teachers who were unsure how to use the computers because they are the ones in charge of the class yet they couldn’t get control of the tools they used to teach. I have, however, had teachers who are more than knowledgable about technology. I had a teacher in twelfth grade for my Journalism class who used technology constantly, such as computers, cell phones, cameras, and programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Her knowledge about the technology made it a lot easier for us as students to relate to her and understand where she was coming from when she was teaching. I do agree with the term digital native because for myself I have grown up knowing what technology is and how to use it. As young as I can remember, I was using a cell phone or even showing my own grandma how to take a photo with her cell phone.

learning

When thinking about my prior experience dealing with technology, I begin to realize that I use technology more than I would like to admit at times. Technology is everywhere. It’s always around use– whether it be on a computer, a phone, a tablet, or even watching a movie on a Smart Board in a classroom. If we think about how often we use technology, it’s pretty crazy actually. For instance, how much time do we really spend on our phones everyday?

For myself, I have been using technology probably my whole life. Ever since I can remember, I have been using a computer for my school work or using a phone to call my friends. I have been using a cell phone since I was twelve years old (right around the time the IPhone became popular.) Ever since, I have always been a big text savvy person or always up to date with the “best” social media sites to use. I have used Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. I always have my laptop on me, and whenever someone has a question about how to use it, I always hear “Taylor, can you help me with this?” It was pretty normal for me because I was up to date on the newest software or how to use any type of computer. I was around a lot of technology in my classrooms as well, such as Smart Board, desktops, or IPad’s. I remember my high school library always had IPad’s students could rent out to use for assignments or anything relating to academia. I currently use a Mac Pro laptop and an IPhone 5S that I constantly use. In my early learning, I took courses that focused around a lot of different technology such as Computer Science and my Journalism class. We used technology such as computers, scanners, printers, high-tech cameras, and other up to date technology.

I am happy to be taking this class this semester because I hope to be exposed to new technology that I have never seen before. Our society is constantly changing and we have to stay on track with the way things evolve over time, especially when it comes to technology. Technology is taking over the world, to say the least. We us technology wherever we go; in our homes, our classrooms, and even in our own hands walking down the streets! I hope to learn in the class how to utilize technology to my advantage and to become more knowledgeable about it so one day when I become a teacher, I will be able to use that to my advantage when teaching my students or to help future colleagues. I would like to learn more about different shortcuts on computers to utilize my time (because as they say, time is money!) I’m excited to learn more in this class about technology and how it intertwines with education.

Today, I took a quiz on what my learning style is. I was not very surprised about my results but the results were more balanced than I expected. In the quiz I took, the results told me that I was leaning more towards an active and visual learner. When I reflect back on my own studying techniques, I have always used different techniques such as graphs, pictures, or videos to help me learn more effectively. It has always helped me to visually see something to understand it because words can sometimes slip right over my head. On the scale, I was a 3 leaning on the visual side. As for the active learning, I have always worked with groups and been a leader in discussion. It helps me to speak out loud to understand things or talk things out so I can comprehend a topic better.When I work with another student or a group, it helps me because I can see all sides of a topic and that helps me grasp the overall meaning of something. On the learning scale, I was a 5 leaning towards the active side. For the other learning styles, I was in between for all of them which made sense.