Blog #7

Maintaining a course website:

As an English major, I have some experience creating websites through Wix and have found them to be quite handy and easy to create. I personally believe that maintain a course website is extremely beneficial to students and would like to have one for my students in the future. I believe that you can make a simple but informative website and update with ease and so they are worth the little bit of effort to keeps students on track and informed. I would definitely choose to include a calendar where students can easily access due dates as well as information on large assignments. This was if a student is confused or needs a question answered, they can refer to the website to get most of the answers--this would save me from answering a lot of repeat email questions from students I think.

How I envision myself using technology:

As the podcast mentioned, even after graduating college we cannot possibly know everything and will continue to learn and continue our professional development. I believe that in the future I will continue to use blogs to receive tips from experienced teachers. The teachers who blog likely have faced situations that I will encounter as a teacher and can give useful feedback. I also can see myself attending webinars to expand my knowledge in an affordable way.

Web Evaluation Assignment:

I felt like the web evaluation assignment was a really great refresher course on how to analyze sources and choose the most reliable ones. I found the powerpoint very informative. I had never thought about creating a web evaluation form to hand out to students for when they are doing a research assignment and really like the idea of this. I did struggle some with the assignment however because I felt like the instructions were somewhat unclear to me personally.



Comments:

I commented on Erika's post in regard to how we envision ourselves using technology in the future. I also commented on Mallory's post about maintaining a class website.

Blog #6

Class Pages

I googled local schools within Leon County and looked at Leon High School's website. The teacher's pages were easily accessible and alphabetically organized by name. Obviously Leon High School is home to many students in the grades 9-12. The teacher websites included a lot of helpful information including syllabus, assignments, calendars, student resources, and even pictures!



Digital Divide

The digital divide in regard to education essentially refers to the unequal experience that various students have with technology. For example, a student from a wealthier family may have access to lots of technology at home and excel in technology based learning while students without this same privilege may do the opposite. As a teacher, I would be inclined to allow students to do more technology based assignment during school hours when it is ensured that all students have the same resources and paper assignments for homework to be fair.

Twitter

My experience with Twitter has been very beneficial so far. I had no idea that there were so many academic and teacher based Twitter accounts and would never have thought to use this particular social media platform as a PLN. I have mainly interacted with my classmates but also with academic accounts. The main struggle I have faced is keeping up with all of the posts but I believe this can solved by turning on post notifications. I believe Twitter will continue to help me in my future careers as I can continue to use and expand this PLN!

Comments

I commented on Kemory's post in regard to the teacher websites on the Leon High School website. I also commented on Brittany's post and focussed on her experience with Twitter.

Blog #5

ELA Technology Standards

The standard LAFS.5.W.1.2 (5th grade) ensures that students are able to create an informative or explanatory text in which there is an introduction, development of the main topic, connections between ideas, and a conclusion. It also requires that students use accurate formatting and precise language. While the technology used to do this can be as simple as Word, it can also be more complex and include a variety online video, poster, etc. creators because a text is not always just an essay. I personally do feel prepared to implement this standard because of both my K-12 eduction and also my major in Editing, Writing, & Media.

CPALMS

I had not previously heard of the CPALMS website but certainly see how it could be a very useful tool for teachers. There are plenty of lesson plans, virtual manipulative, student resources, etc. all organized by grade level. One resource I found was a lesson plan for 5th grade students called "Golden Nugget Words". I would use this in the classroom to help students understand the concept of using context clues to figure out the meaning of words that they do not yet know.

Canva

One Web 2.0 tool that I would strongly consider using as a teacher. Canva allows even the most inexperienced individuals to create a large variety of texts including infographics, newsletters, flyers, etc. Allowing students to create infographics themselves about the information being taught in class could be very beneficial to help them better understand it. Also, it would allow me to teach students how to create informative, explanatory, creative, argumentative, etc. texts in more ways than just essays.

Comments

I commented on Erika's post in which I focussed on her comments about the ELA technology standards for Kindergarten students. I also commented on Liz's blog about her idea to use Snapchat is a tool in the classroom.