Blogfolio - 26

Introduction Video
1. NETS-T 3c: Teachers communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.
2. This assignment meets this standard because creating a YouTube video introducing ourselves is way for students, parents, and colleagues to get to know the teacher through a form of digital-age media.
3. I think this would be a great assignment to use in my classes for the future. It is a great first day activity. If I chose for my students to keep online journals or kid-friendly blogs of their own, I would definitely introduce this the first day as a means of me getting to know my students as well as the students getting to know each other.
4. I really enjoyed this assignment. It was our very first assignment for this class. We just had to make a video introducing ourselves and could take liberties with it. I liked that it gave me an opportunity to show my creative side. I loved creating the blog post in general because it allowed me to share my voice on why I want to go into teaching in a very creative format.

TED Videos
1. NETS-T 1b: Teachers engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.
2. The TED videos usually have a person discussing an important political or educational topic. Showing these videos to a classroom can open the floor for discussions on the real-world issues discussed in the video.
3. The TED videos I watched were mainly directed towards educators, so I don't know if I would necessarily use them with my students as much as I would use with my colleagues (other teachers and administrators). I think the TED videos will be great for meetings. I think they would provide inspiration on how to address certain topics, issues, or situations in the school and classroom.
4. I had never heard of the TED Talk videos until this course. I wish I had because they are very informing and entertaining. They choose great people to come and speak at the TED seminars. I even went home and watched a few more on YouTube. I cannot remember the name of the first lady that we watched on the TED video, but she was just so inspirational. She was so passionate about helping students learn, and she was hilarious while delivering her speech. I really enjoyed watching them.

Concept Map
1. NETS-T 1c: Teachers promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.
2. A concept map can be used to help teachers and students brainstorm and plan lessons, papers, projects, etc. Concept maps organize ideas to help us understand certain processes or main ideas.
3. I think concept maps are a great way for organizing ideas. I have had to do several concept maps in different courses this semester, and they have proved to be very useful and helpful. I would use them in my classroom to help students organize information before writing a paper. In Stacy Reeves' CIR 306 course, we were shown how students can use them to organize main ideas, supporting ideas, and examples before writing a paper. This will help them to focus on the most important part of what they will write. I thought it was a great tool.
4. The concept map activity was challenging but a lot of fun. I had a great time with it. It was challenging at first because I had never composed a lesson of my own, much less integrated another subject in that lesson. It was another opportunity for me to be creative, especially since it was getting closer to Halloween; that provided a lot of inspiration for my activity and lesson. I chose to do a lesson on writing and publishing a Halloween narrative using an online tool to publish the narrative. It was a great way to not only learn how to write a narrative and use online tools appropriately, it was a great way to incorporate learning about a holiday.

Do Not Track Me
1. NETS-T 4a: Teachers advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.
2. A teacher using the DoNotTrackMe software acts as an advocate for the software. They are modeling how to use the appropriate tools to protect one's self online.
3. I am not sure if I would use this with my classrooms. I think it's just because of my experience with it. I feel like it is important to educate my students on why this software is out there (because people are trying to get a hold of their personal information), but I think I could find something a little more computer and kid friendly to do so.
4. I had a little trouble at first with this software when installing it on my computer. It messed up several things that I had installed on my computer that were really important. I read about people who had success with the software, and from their experience, it seemed to be helpful as far as blocking hackers and people trying to track your "virtual footsteps" so to speak.

Augmented Reality
1. NETS-T 3d: Teachers model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.
2. Using the augmented reality apps greatly enhances and facilitates a student's learning experience.
3. I would use this app in my class for field trips. I think it's a great tool to use when visiting places like a museum or art gallery. It enhances the student's learning experience and provides a fun way for them to learn while on a field trip.
4. I think augmented reality apps are a great tool. I have not had much experience with them; however, I had to do some extra credit for my science class at Lake Thoreau. I had to video record several classrooms walking through the nature trail at Lake Thoreau. Each of these groups had an iPad. On the iPad was an app that the students were using to tell them about the destination they were at on the trail. It was an augmented reality app. The children seemed to really enjoy it, and I could tell that using the app enhanced their learning experience.

Voki
1. NETS-T 3b: Teachers collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.
2. Teachers can use the Voki avatar to communicate with parents to let them know what is going on in the classroom. The students can refer back to the avatar if they are unsure on due dates. This is a great tool for collaboration and communication with parents and students.
3. I would use the Voki in my class for students to create their own, personal avatar. I think it would motivate them to get on a classroom website more to check for information if they have something on there that is a reflection of who they are. It's also a great tool for teachers to use if they want to communicate with parents/guardians on what is going on in their classroom as well as inform them of events coming up.
4. I enjoyed creating my Voki. It was fun to tell a little about yourself through a cartoon. I am a little kid at heart, so it was something that definitely engaged me.

Web 2.0 Sites
1. NETS-T 3d: Teachers model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.
2. This assignment showcased a variety of new, inventive websites and tools that support the research and learning experience.
3. There are so many of these sites that I added to my favorites on my laptop. I especially loved the PearlTrees and Edmodo websites. PearlTrees, which was similar to Pinterest, would help students collect information on research projects. Edmodo was basically a Facebook for teachers. I think that would be a great way for teachers in the same school, more specifically teaching the same grade level, to connect and collaborate on ideas.
4. I liked watching all of the presentations because it gave me a lot of ideas for websites to keep in mind to use for when I start teaching. It was also a great assignment because we had to present the websites we were assigned. We became the "teacher" for the duration of our presentation and had to address certain students who may not have been paying attention or acting out. We were sort of put to the test on how we would handle these students if they were in our classroom.

Online Safety Website
1. NETS-T 4c: Teachers promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.
2. Creating an online safety website is way to use technology to inform students about how to responsible, digital citizens when using the Internet.
3. I think this assignment is perfect to use when teaching kids about online safety. My website was directed towards elementary students in the classroom. I used links to fun games that they can play all while being educated on what it means to be a good, digital citizen.
4. Once again, I enjoyed this assignment because it allowed for creativity. We had to create a website that was dedicated to online safety. It could be anything related to online safety (cyberbullying, digital citizenship, privacy, etc.). I had an array of subtopics for mine, which gave me a wide range of options. I liked doing this assignment because it taught me how to build a website. At first, I was overwhelmed because there were so many templates, tables, and other things that could be used and edited. Once I figured out how and what to use, it became a fun project.

Movie Maker
1. NETS-T 2a: Teachers design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
2. This assignment required us to use our ability to create a story, then publishing that story using the digital tool, Windows Movie Maker. It promoted creativity because we could create any story using a variety of music, transitions, and captions.
3. This is a fun assignment to use in the classroom. Depending on the age range, I would use it more with older students (6th grade to 12th grade). With younger students, I feel like it would be a little too complicated for them, but I would definitely find an alternate, kid-friendly website for them to use. I would use Movie Maker or another software like Movie Maker for my kids to tell a story, like we did in class. I think it is way more fun to teach the sequences of a story (beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion) as opposed to just have them writing all of the time.
4. This was my favorite assignment from this semester. I enjoy putting together projects like this. It was fun and not stressful because we could make the movie on whatever we wanted to do. It gave me the opportunity to create a video for pictures I had been meaning to put together, anyway. I enjoyed presenting my movie to the class. Overall, it was a great experience for a final project.

Course Reflection
There are so many things to take from this class and use during the rest of my academic and teaching career. I learned about different tools that I could use for future projects and assignments that I had never even heard of before taking the course. For example, I ended up using Inspiration 8.0 for a concept map that I had to do for my science lesson in SME 432. I learned how present and express my ideas and information through various forms of social media such as Blogger and Voki. I do not feel as if the assignments were pointless or "busy work". I learned something important from each assignment that has helped educate me more in the field of technology. My favorite part of the course was our classroom discussions. Even though this was a computer class, we had open discussions about different things concerning education and technology. I loved talking about important issues that teachers are facing today. For example, we would discuss our personal views on the Common Core State Standards. I loved hearing everyone's opinion on this matter. These discussions really forced me to listen to what people had to say because I was being informed on information that will affect me as a teacher in the future. There were things brought up in our discussions that I had never heard about, but after the discussion, I became well informed. Our classroom discussions helped everyone become comfortable with speaking to each other. It broke the ice, and our classroom, I felt, became close-knitted. My strong points for this class would have to be doing creative assignments. As I had mentioned above, I loved doing the introduction video and movie maker because it allowed me to express myself creatively. I was always thought that was sort of my forte. My weak points were keeping up to task with the blog posts. One of my biggest flaws is that I am a procrastinator. I put things off until the very last minute. Even though I get things done before the deadline, it makes me rush through my work. As a result, my final draft or project is not that great or there are careless mistakes. I plan on working on my procrastination skills before I actually enter the workforce. I know procrastination and bad quality work will not cut it when I become a teacher. I just need to discipline myself and start on things early, so I do not feel pressed for time and end up turning in bad-quality assignments. I definitely plan on integrating technology in my classroom. Like I said, I have saved the web addresses for various websites and tools that I plan on using. I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to websites and online resources to use in my classroom. I know one way I will use technology is for my students to use remedial game websites. I think the best way a student who is struggling with a particular subject is to play games that improve their skills in that subject area. For example, I found a math website, APlusMath, that has different games for children to play with that involve math skills. Overall, this course was a great experience for me. I learned a great deal without feeling overwhelmed. Dr. Beedle did a great job on sparking my interest in each of the assignments we did - mainly because he showed his passion for technology and teaching, and that is something every teacher should have - passion.