Survey: Pets

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aWben8Up1admySF

10 The Grand Finale

This week I learned how to create a game for classroom use using only PowerPoint. I created mine using a template from the internet which made the process extremely simple. I only had to input my own questions based off my standard and change some of the elements to meet the assignment criteria. I want to teach kindergarten so I aligned my game with a kindergarten level standard. These games will be so fun to use in class because competition is great motivation for doing well.

After reading classmates blogs throughout the weeks of this course I found it the most interesting that we all have had such different experiences in school. Some of us went to private schools, some public. Some schools have had lots of access to resources, some have had access to very few resources. Simple differences like this shape our perspectives when we complete our assignments, specifically our blog posts. Many of these experiences have shaped how we view and use technology. 

I would like to learn how to use the technology itself and the software associated with SmartBoards or things similar. My mom has one in her classroom now and I have seen them in every classroom in Leon County. I have seen teachers use them effectively by downloading games and interactive software for use in class and I have seen them be used ineffectively like a fancy chalkboard. I would like to learn all the uses for them and how to integrate them to the best of my ability in my future classroom. I feel like SmartBoards are the new white boards, which were the new chalkboards. Every classroom will have a SmartBoard, or something like it, and it will be used daily.

To achieve my ed tech goals, I think it is important to stay on top of all the new technology coming out. We have the wonderful resource of the tech sandbox at FSU, so we have the unique opportunity to experience many of the new technologies in person while learning about them in classes like EME 2040. Taking advantages of every seminar, workshop, and exhibition will allow future educators and current educators to gain the knowledge needed to learn about new technology and how to apply them to class. EME 2040 has been especially beneficial for this process since every week I learn new things about new technology and even old technology I was not super familiar with.

9 Flipped Classrooms, Professional Development, and PowerPoint

According to page 238 of the textbook, a flipped classroom is a style of teaching where the lecture portion of classes happens at home through videos and other resources, and actual face to face class time is used to work on assignments. Assignments are sometimes individual and sometimes group projects. The teacher is present to help the students work through what they learned in their virtual lectures. Here is a link to an online resource for flipped classroom lectures.

PBS TeacherLine is an online resource for professional development for educators. On the page titled Why PBS TeacherLine, the website provides reasons they think their software is beneficial including that you can receive graduate credit, the courses are based on standards and can be customized to align with your district, experienced instructors, and their content is created through a partnership with educational leaders like ISTE. Reviews on their testimonial page were all positive and hit points of the website being high quality and easy to use.

Courses are offered in 1-5 hours, 15 hours, 30 hours, or 45 hour levels in grade levels pre-k, k-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The categories of the course include instructional strategy, instructional technology, math, reading/language arts, science, social studies/history, and leadership. One of the courses offered is even about flipped classrooms! The courses offered are often work at your own pace which is wonderful for teachers who have to work during the normal school day hours and spend their evenings planning or grading tests. The courses vary in price for enrollment, and for an additional fee you can use the course to receive credit at some universities listed beneath the course descriptions.

This week through the powerpoint assignment I learned how to create a master slide, use a template from the internet, create smartart, and set a picture as the background of the slide. I personally prefer software like prezi as opposed to powerpoint because they are more interactive and interesting to look at. Many of my teachers use powerpoint to put up the schedule for the day or lecture notes, which is probably how I will use it in the future as well. I want to teach kindergarten and/or social studies in the future so I decided to align my powerpoint with a kindergarten social studies standard. I realized halfway through my work that this was kind of silly since kindergarteners cannot read well yet. I decided to finish the powerpoint with the standard I had previously chosen, but I do not see the merit of using powerpoint in primary classrooms.

8 Advancements in Technology

After reading chapter 12, the technology with the most promise for classroom teachers is the 3D printer. Many students are visual learners who will excel by seeing and feeling diagrams or models of things they are being taught about. A quote from page 291 of chapter 12 says, "Three-dimensional printers open new possibilities for educators who want to use models of otherwise inaccessible objects such as historical artifacts, dinosaur bones, math manipulatives, and even molecules for their students to touch, examine, and manipulate." I believe the best type of technology for a classroom is technology that will allow students to experience things they otherwise would not be able to see, feel, or experience.

I noticed that the chapter had similar things to virtual reality, but not specifically things like the Oculus Rift virtual reality helmet that we interacted with at the Tech Sandbox. This product revolutionizes how students can learn in a classroom. Since field trips are expensive and sometimes a hassle to coordinate, having virtual reality software can allow teachers and students to "travel" to the place they are discussing in the lesson without actually leaving the room. This software also will allow students to travel to places that would be unrealistic or impossible. Students in a classroom in Kansas would be able to travel to a jungle in Africa. Students in a classroom in Arizona can travel to the deepest parts of the ocean. Students in South America could travel to the inside of the human body. While these field trips would be impossible to achieve in a normal classroom, they can be done with the help of virtual reality.

As outlined in the podcast, the digital divide is defined as the gap between those who have or do not have access to technology. I am, and always have been, part of the side that has had access to technology. My house has always had at least one computer and internet access. As technology has developed, I have accessed laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc. Every school I have attended has had an open computer lab for use as well. Since I have never been on the other side of the gap, I will never know first hand what it is like to not have technology. As a future educator, I need to prepare to teach to those who do have technology at home and those who are inexperienced with technology and do not have access at home. This means my assignments will need to be able to be completed without technology, so as to not favor those who do. It is also important to allow students to access and experience technology during the school day so they are being prepared to enter the world using technology to their advantage.

Because We All Want To Be A Ninja

Most people are guilty of using really distracting transitions in PowerPoint at one point or another, especially as a child. This Slide Share gives some basic rules and outlines how to properly use transitions in a PowerPoint.
 

How To Be a PowerPoint Animation Ninja from BrightCarbon

7 PowerPoint, Adaptive Technology, and Web Design

The levels of Bloom's Taxonomy are evaluation, synthesis, analysis, application, comprehension, and knowledge. A person could use the Microsoft Office application PowerPoint to support student learning at each level. For every level, PowerPoint is a great platform to display information. By displaying information you find, you can show what theories you have assessed, compose information in creative way, organize your ideas, apply your knowledge, summarize information, and recall information in a PowerPoint presentation. Powerpoint covers all the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Assistive, or adaptive, technology is  outlined on page 70 of the textbook as "hardware and software that is designed or can be used to support the needs of exceptional students". These technologies can be reading tools, like recorded books or text-to-speech software. The book and the podcast outline several tools. For computer use there are alternative mouse and keyboard devices, keyboard labels, and screen readers. For composing papers, there are word prediction softwares and talking spell checkers. One of my middle schooler teachers had a daughter who was blind. She had a very large braille typewriter to take notes during class. She wrote her papers on speech to text software as well. The typewriter was very loud when she pressed the keys and many students expressed that it was a distraction. I think it is so important to incorporate ESE students into the classes they can mainstream into. I also think at a certain point the assistive technologies that come along with that can be distracting to "regular" students, like the braille typewriter. Some of the other assistive technologies involve speaking or listening to someone speaking. This could also be distracting. Instead of not mainstreaming the students, I would like to find assistive technologies that do the same job without distracting the "regular" students.

At first I was very confused on how to use Weebly. In the classroom setting the website was not reacting to my commands and it was quite frustrating. At home, the website worked well and I finished the project easily. I learned how to organize a class website and also design websites using the Weebly platform. I will be able to make aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and informational class websites for my future students and their guardians.

6 School Websites

I visited the school websites for two different schools. The first school I looked at was the high school I graduated from, Titusville High School (Grades 9-12) in Titusville, Florida. This site was posted through Edline as a host. I could not access any class pages since I did not have my own log in. I could only find basic teacher contact info, county wide information, and a calendar. The other school I looked at is called Astoria Park Elementary School in Tallahassee, Florida. I am a mentor at APES once a week for two hours in Ms. Sherman's kindergarten class. I could access more through this website than THS's website. I could see class schedules and a meet the teacher page. There were links to other sub sections, but they did not have any postings in them. It was still interesting to see a classroom website posted.

I really love learning about new tools for my future classrooms during this class. I have used class dojo for an ILP. Through that project I learned that I really like the tool and I hope to use it in the future. I will definitely use the Microsoft Office Suite, as outlined in the Podcast, on my computer very frequently in class and out of class to prepare lessons, rubrics, grades, worksheets, etc. I love the idea of having class blogs through a safe website like Kids Blog. I would love to incorporate Edmodo since it is a fun way to submit assignments and collaborate with other students. I will also need to use obvious other resources like e-mail to contact parents and colleagues. I want to create a class website independent from the school's, if allowed, using something like google sites so all of my resources can be easily accessed in one place. Through these tools I will be more organized in my classroom and more efficient as a teacher.

Through the Web Resource Evaluation assignment, I learned more in depth about how to use google sites. I used it as a platform to post media files and connect it to blogger in my last ILP. It was interesting to collaborate with two other people on the site. The only thing I did not like was that only one person could work on each page at a time, so we would have to take turns working on the front page introduction instead of all writing at once. I also learned about what criteria can help decide if a website is credible. It was interesting to see that the criteria can change slightly based on what age group and subject you are teaching. I hope to use this new knowledge as a base to design a classroom website in the future. I also will use this knowledge to create my own web resource evaluation cheat sheets for my future classes.

5 Web 2.0

The podcast list several different web 2.0 tools, which all seem useful in their own purposes. I think using social media in conjunction with instruction in a classroom is a great idea and my favorite from the podcast. It makes the real world more relatable in a classroom setting so students can be prepared to be polite and safe on the Internet. Collaboration is an important aspect in schooling. I think my second favorite would be YouTube. It is a great tool as well since you can do things like show an educational video or a virtual field trip. Web 2.0 tools are more interesting to students since they are more interactive. One of the most important tools a classroom will need is a computer with Internet access, a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen (pgs 90-95) so that students can access the proper Web 2.0 tools. Peripherals will allow students to save, scan, and print their work and bring it home and work on it on other devices, which are also called peripherals (pg 97). Electronic whiteboards are my favorite peripherals. My mom has a smart board in her classroom and I always loved interacting with it.

I chose to go into depth into the Web 2.0 tool kidblog (http://kidblog.org/home/) since we have discussed blogging in this class frequently and we have blogs for this class. This website is easy to step up and free for teachers and students. You provide your email address, name, and a password. Once you sign up you confirm your email address. Then you are brought to the home screen where you can create classrooms with specific descriptions like "6th grade science blogs" or whatever grade or class you are teaching. You can search through blogs by name, tags, categories, and members.

The posting itself can be started by clicking new post. You can choose a header image for your post to correspond with the topic. You choose a title, a background color and texture, and the usual font settings. You can then post to the page with tags sort of like a twitter account and also you assign categories they can post their blogs posts to. When you hit post you get to choose your audience, either teacher, classmates, connections, and public. You can also choose to pin the post. Based on your settings, people can comment on your blog postings. This website is an easy way to monitor children's collaboration and teaches them real world skills.

I am an avid user of concept maps in writing. I use it to organize my thoughts before I start my first draft. I did not like the idea of using it to create study guides. It was very difficult to make it flow and fit correctly because the information was so broad topic wise. I learned that using linking words helps the chart flow better. In my future I will try to limit my topics trying to be fit onto one concept map for my students. If I make another concept map I will try to make it flow better and be more spread out.

Independent Learning Project: Design a Podcast

I kind of did two Design ILP through this project. First, I created a podcast on learning styles and study tips through Garage band on my Macbook Air. Then I realized blogger does not easily allow you to upload video files. Through some research I discovered that Google has a function called Google Sites that will let you create a free website that you can use to display information or, in my case, drop files. I created a very basic site for the use of this ILP but I hope to create a more complex one soon. Visit this link to access my podcast.

References

G.K12.6.1.2a. (2014, February). Retrieved from http://www.cpalms.org/Public/PreviewStandard/Preview/7444 

What Type of Learner Are You? (n.d.). Retrieved from               http://www.montana.edu/gallatincollege/programs/tools/type.php

4 Teaching with Standards

• The social studies, American history, standard for fifth grade, SS.5.A.1.2, discusses historical inquiry and analysis by utilizing time lines to identify and discuss American history time periods. 
• If students would like to view time lines of American history time periods a simple google search will pull of thousands of images of the time period they need. To learn and apply this standard, students can go to http://www.myhistro.com/ to create free interactive time lines with information with facts from American history lessons. 
• I would have students create their own time lines as we go through chapters of information so that they have a place that is a visual representation of the events we learn about. 
• This website fits the Chapter 8 category of a content specific software since it can only be used to outline when events occurred in a social studies or history setting.

The Internet is almost always a great resource for researching. The Internet provides access to web pages, journals, articles, photos, videos, blog posts, and so many other great resources that are all in one place. Sometimes, the Internet provides false information so it is important to back your research up with many other sources. While the Internet is the best tool for research, I am a firm believer in physical books and going to libraries. I want my children to use the Internet for research, but I also want to have my students experience research the old fashion way. The Internet is always useful, as long as you cite your sources and have extra resources as backup for your thoughts.

To evaluate resources, I used the tool easybib. When you copy and paste a link it tells you whether or not the source is credible. I also stayed away from things like wikis/wikipedia since people can edit them which makes them not as reliable for accuracy. I prefer to use things like peer reviewed journals from databases since they are definitely reliable. Through the podcast I learned about Author Bias Content Design Technical elements acronym for evaluating websites. Another important factor is how stable the website is, or how likely it is to change. Reviewing domain name, following the links you provide, and viewing advertisements are important to judge how reliable the source is and make sure it is safe for students to view. I did not know many of the ways to judge a website but I want to utilize these in my classroom in the future and in my daily life.

By working on the web hunt, I learned that there are many ways to simplify googling so that you have a more specific results. I learned that many online tools meet standards that I can use in my classroom in the future.

Web hunt challenges:
Find a picture of a cat that you could reproduce on t-shirts and sell at your school.
Find a website that provides a free graphing calculator online to use in your math class.

3 Websites, Software, and Newsletters

For my website critique I decided to critique Edmodo since we used it in class and I found it to be a great tool. I decided to use the Website Evaluation Rubric from Chapter 9 of Teaching and Learning with Technology on page 222 of the text. For almost all of the ratings of Edmodo I would give them 5s, an excellent rating. The goal of Edmodo is clear as being a way to collaborate with students, teachers, and parents as well as teaching students about social networking. The design is easily navigable and user friendly because the design is simple and efficient. It includes a site map and search engine as well as easy to read elements. There is a copyright date at the bottom as well as dates for each post and reply visible. Content varies by what the teacher decides to connect with their page, which allows for the content to be more relevant to the topic being covered. Teachers can provide a link to another page to make the content more specialized to the area and provide access to other tools. The only item I would rate lower than a 5 would be handicapped access. While you can link to videos and things that work with sound but you would need to read the text to access the page, for that reason the website is mostly text based. For this reason I would give it a 3 for handicapped access. Edmodo can be found at www.edmodo.com.

My classroom will implement use of computers the most using basic Internet applications like e-mail, search engines, viewing educational videos and pages, and generally surfing the web. I would also like to implement discussion boards and collaboration online with Edmodo or the like. Blog posts, like the ones we do for this class, are a great tool to check understanding of material so I would love to implement them too. Chapter 9 has a list of web tools that are useful for classes. I would like to implement a Learning Management System like Moodle for a virtual classroom. I would like to implement Class Dojo to in my class to monitor behavior. Social Bookmarking tools like Diigo will allow me to share websites with colleagues and describe their usefulness (218-220). Digital citizenship lessons are so important to teach because of how often technology is integrated into class. I will teach them to be polite and kind on the Internet even if they disagree with another person, be careful to protect their identity, be cautious and report inappropriate actions online, be respectful of intellectual property, collaborate with others to learn, as well as learn through their own actions(224-225).  

I learned how to organize word into columns, use word art in titles, and use shapes as borders through doing the newsletter assignment. These skills will be useful in my future classroom so I can create newsletters or other projects through word effectively and creatively. I struggled with formatting the page back to one column after my three column middle  section, but I ended up liking the way I formatted it better for design purposes. 

Independent Learning Project: Teacher ToolBox on Class Dojo

Check out my Independent Learning Project: Teacher Tool Box on Class Dojo through voicethread at this link! I choose this tool because it had been mentioned in the instructions and in an example through the textbook so I became very curious on how this tool was used.

https://voicethread.com/new/share/7038961/

2 Microsoft Word, Copyright, and Twitter

As a student, I use Microsoft Word almost everyday. It is a great place to write papers, presentations, or notes since you can save them and access them at a later date or share them through the Internet with other people. The most common ways I have seen teachers use Microsoft Word to write up notes for an event, instructions for an assignment, or rubrics for grading.  As a teacher, I would probably use Microsoft Word in a very similar way to my former teachers. I think having typed up notes regarding classroom activities or field trips will allow more formal communication with the parents. Giving out typed up instructions to my students for assignments will help them stay on task. Rubrics will help students see a clear reason for why they received a certain grade. I would also ask my students to use word for typing papers, presentations, and notes.

As a student, I am relatively familiar with copyright laws. I was an active member of TV Production in high school. When we would enter videos into competitions we would have to be very careful to get permission to use any music in the video or find music without copyrights for free use. I am also familiar with creating a works cited page and using in text citations in papers and presentations to cite work and photos. As a teacher I will continue to be careful to cite work, music, and photos in my presentations. I will also strive to give presentations to my students on how to cite material properly and use free use material. I will be careful to make sure my intellectual property is properly copyrighted to protect my ideas and work in the future. Copyright laws are addressed in ISTE Teacher Standard 4.

Twitter is a tool that I have not frequently used. It did not appeal to me. I think using Twitter for scholarly purposes, like for EME 2040, is a great idea. It is a great way to network and share information with peers. As a future educator, I think it would be great to have a class twitter page to share updates and photos from my class with their parents through social media. I look forward to learning more about Twitter and other social media for educational purposes.

1 Digital Natives in a Modern World

Computers are now completely essential to learn in today's world. Computers are for research, communication, writing papers, or submitting assignments online. There is not a way to avoid technology in a classroom or learning environment. Therein lies the problem. If you do not have access to technology or for some reason your technology malfunctions, you cannot succeed in your courses. What do you do if you cannot afford a computer and do not have a car to go to a library or cyber cafe? What do you do if your WiFi cuts out? Your paper doesn't save? Your printer breaks? In any of these situations, your grade could slip because you cannot use your technology. It is so important to use technology in a classroom but until it is one hundred percent reliable it should not be the only source or option for communication, assignments, and research. In the chapter there were four challenges outlined: finances to provide educational technology, time to learn to use the technology and teach about it, school culture allowing the technology, and the shift from teacher to facilitator of learning. I agree that these four challenges are prevalent in our schools and need to be considered while planning to use technology in my classroom.

I am excited to implement technology in my classroom. For some children, school is the only place where they will have the opportunity to use technology. I hope to have a classroom set of computers that my students will use for research for projects or for added knowledge. I hope to have a Smart Board or some similar technology to use for lectures and instruction because they allow more interaction than a classic computer and projector provide. By the time I enter a classroom as an educator, I hope that iPads or other tablets will be used instead of text books because they are lighter than textbooks to carry and also have all information in one place. Many tablets can also access the Internet which will give my students technology accessible at home. This class will give me ideas on how to use the Internet for classroom tools to teach my future students. I am excited for the future to see what technology will be available to use in a classroom setting.

A digital native is someone who was born into a world where technology always existed and was accessible. I am considered a digital native because I do not remember a time without technology, granted the technology was not as modern as today's. I agree that this title is fitting for my generation and those coming after because our world has always been a digital one. Those coming before my generation immigrated into the digital world and had to learn as they went have technology is used. All of the teachers I have had have been digital immigrants. Many times a teacher would ask a student to help figure out how to use an application like PowerPoint or how to find things on the Internet. I know that as a future educator I will be asking for help from my students as well as technology evolves in the near future.

0 A Bit About Becca

Technology has always been a huge part of my  life. I have had a computer and a printer in my home my entire life. I attended a small Catholic School in my hometown where I took computer technology classes from kindergarten to eighth grade. During this time my mother, who is a music and social studies teacher at the Catholic School I attended, received a donation of a Smart Board for her classroom. This went way past the standards of normal classroom technology. This technology made learning fun with the interaction with the lessons by drawing right on web pages or playing games on the screen. During my middle school years I received a prepaid cell phone, and then a real cellphone,  an MP3 player, and then an iPod, This gifts of technology were amazing because they were completely mine to learn and play with and progressively became more advanced.

I finally received my first real cellphone in seventh grade, and an iPhone in ninth, where I could start texting and calling my friends and with an iPhone I could have the functions of an iPod as well as a cellphone. During my high school years I was very active in TV Production where I used cameras, computers, editing software, microphones, etc. The best piece of technology I received was a Macbook Air in eleventh grade. I could work on homework like a computer, contact friends like a cellphone, and have fun playing games and listening to music like an iPod all in one tool which belongs completely to me. I have been blessed in my life to have always had access to the latest technology to help me learn and improve myself.

In this class I hope to learn to apply my love for technology in a classroom setting. I want to give my future students the same opportunities to learn with technology and inspire an interest in them. I hope to hone my own skills and pick up pieces of information that I may have missed learning in previous classes. The sad truth is many people do not have easy access to technology in their homes. When these students come to school in my classroom or in other classrooms I hope to have them receive the gift of technology and the resources to succeed.

I learned today that my learning style personality is Reflective-Intuitive-Visual-Sequential. Being reflective means I prefer to work alone and think quietly about facts or ideas before I apply them. Being intuitive means I work fast, I am innovative, I am abstract in my thinking, and I enjoy new possibilities and relationships. Being a visual learner means I thrive with pictures, diagram, charts, timelines, films, demonstrations, etc. Finally I am a sequential learner where I learn things in linear steps progressing off of the step learned before. Knowing this about myself will give me the tools I need to thrive in all classroom settings