Blog Post #8

First I would like to just say how cool that tour was! I am so glad we got the opportunity to see all the different types of technology that I have never heard of! I think the piece of technology in the lab that would be most beneficial in my classroom would be the article, book, work reader. For an elementary classroom, some students have a hard time understanding what they are reading and/or paying attention. I think by having the computer read it to the student and the words being outline as it reads is a great way for students to connect the word from hearing and reading it. 

There are 6 levels of Bloom's Taxonomy- create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember- that all can be supported in a PowerPoint presentation. As a teacher you could create a powerpoint with your students. Someone times this will help them understand the lesson more when they are "in charge" of making it. It will also help them be creative. There are different tools on powerpoint that can be helpful with teaching math. You can create interactive problems for the students to apply their knowledge and evaluate it on the smart board! Also with powerpoint you can bold certain things that are important so students will better remember it. A teacher can put up different pictures, videos, etc to help the students understand the material better. Lastly, if you put different sources helping understand the same information, the students may better analyze it by comparing it all. 

I think Facebook is a great site to stay informed of technology trends. Any social media that people use on a regular basis and is "up to date" itself, will help you stay informed in what the latest trend is, especially technology related. 

Blog Post #7

I had a great time learning about adaptive technologies! I didn't even realize how many different tools were out there to help all sorts of people. I mean between having a desktop reader for people who are blind to a pen that records lectures while you take notes on special paper for people have trouble concentrating or note taking, there seems like there is a tool for all sorts of people with different challenges. Throughout middle school and high school, I knew a girl who was almost death. She wore hearing aids to help amplify the little that she could hear, but it wasn't much, and it was still extremely difficult for her in class. So her family donated a type machine that was placed in a classroom that she was in a lot. This machine was basically a speaker, but it was put on the celling over her seat, and the teacher wore a microphone around her neck, and her voice would come through the speaker above the students desk. I know this helped the student out a lot and it was a good way to not make a big deal in class because most people didn't even know it was there, and she didn't have to ask the teacher to speak louder, go slower, say something again, etc. The only problem I can see with using adaptive technologies in my classroom is being able to understand them myself and knowing about certain programs to help out a certain student the most. I will have to spend a good amount of time playing with the tool myself so I can explain it in the best way to my students.

Basically everything I did with making this website was a new skill for me! I have never made a website before and I was really excited to do so. I ran into a lot more problems than I thought I would with formatting and adding different tools I wish were available to me, but I am very happy with the finally product! There are many different things I would want to do with the website to improve it, for example making an active calendar instead of just writing out dates, but I just couldn't figure it out with it being my first time. And also, I'm sure the more I use the website, the more I will learn about things I didn't even know were possible that I would love to have apart of my website. I'm not sure if I will actually make a website for when I am a teacher, but if I do, it would be a good place for parents and students to go and have all the information in one place. The only reason I say I'm not sure I want one is because I think there is a easier and more appealing system to have.
http://sydneytomko.weebly.com












I think Diigo is a great tool to share with older students and for sure with other teachers. It would be a great way to share different tools and websites with other teachers as you find them. You can just create a group with fellow teachers and every time one of you find something, you just post it in the group and everyone can see it and benefit from it. I say older students rather than younger because it is a little complex and doesn't look appealing. I think for younger students, the teacher needs to be able to have a list of websites easily laid out for them and an easy way for them to get to it. Also younger students aren't really going to need to share websites or tools with each other.

ILP Design- Edmodo

For my ILP assignment I created an Edmodo account. I believe this is a great tool to have because it's an active feed, like twitter, but it can also hold different folders and tabs to put important information in. I want to be a 2nd grade teacher and my main communication is going to have to go through the parents. This way the parents can go on Edmodo and find exactly what they need.

First I created a set of tabs inside my group:
  
Comments and Concerns would be a place for parents to post questions they might have and be an active community where all the parents can talk and I can also go on there and answer certain questions by commenting on their original post. Helpful Game websites is a place I would post good websites I think would benefit the students to use if they need any extra help on the lesson we are learning in class. In homework assignments, I will be posting an electronic copy of the homework so if a student forgot it at school or if they want to redo the assignment to study for the test later on, there will be a blank copy for them to print out. Lastly there is school calendar. This would be where I put all the events the school maybe having or any events that are happening in my classroom, from a test date to a class party. This is extremely important information for parents with younger kids to keep track of.






I've already made two post on my group intro page:

One post is a link to my website that I'm working on and another link is to my active twitter account!

















Then I started working on my personal profile so parents can learn more about me:

I have a picture of me, where I graduated college from, what my degree type is and degree title is, the year I started teaching, a little "about me" paragraph, and a link to my twitter account again.





Lastly, I put a quick layout of the days and times my class has extra activities like PE, music, Spanish, art, lunch, and recess. I also uploaded four different types of websites I think will help my students learn and have fun all throughout the year. (These are different that "helpful website games" because they aren't for particular lessons or chapters I am teaching at the time. These websites can be used whenever through out the year.):

Go create an account and use my group code to join my class!:
https://www.edmodo.com
Group Code: 

xypir7

Blog Post #6

I went onto Leon High School's website (http://www.leonschools.net/leon) and they had a tab available for "Teacher Websites Directory". In alphabetical order, you can find whatever teacher you are looking for:



After looking at a couple different teachers most of their tabs were the same:

• Welcome
• Meet the Teacher
• Student Resources
• Announcements
• Assignments
• Important Documents
• Class Calendar

Most of the teachers I looked at had blank pages, but there were a couple that changed the tabs a little and uploaded their syllabus or their expectations for the class:

. 

I think this is a really good tool if the teachers decide use it. It would be a place for all the students at the high school to go to see all of their teachers in one place. The teachers can edit the tabs to make the information apply to them and then inside the tab they can add whatever information they think is important for their students. I definitely think this is a great place for syllabus like the teacher above did.

I envision myself using my own personal website a lot. I am planning on being an Elementary School Teacher and will need to be able to stay in contact with the parents more than the students when it comes to school plans. I will have different tabs like Class calendar, Homework, Helpful websites, etc. This way the parents will be able to have everything at their finger tips whenever they need it. I also think it is extremely important that if I do this I need to stay on top of it and make sure it is constantly updated. There is nothing my frustrating, in my opinion, than a teacher having a tool and a parent or student trying to go use it, and there isn't information on it or it is old information, so it doesn't do them any good!

I didn't go to the Technology Sandbox :(

Blog Post #5

There are many different Web 2.0 tools that teachers use in their classrooms. Many are useful depending on the grade level or the subject they are teaching. As a student I know a couple of the most useful tools that helped me out that my teachers used were youtube, powerpoint, and google apps. With youtube my teachers was able to show us videos about whatever subject we were talking about. This is helpful because sometimes it is nice to hear the material being taught to me by different people so if I didn't exactly understand what the teacher was saying, I got another perspective. Also if you find a good youtube video, the material can be presented in a fun and easy way of interpreting it. Powerpoint is also helpful because this way the teacher can put the information on a slide show so the students can see the material and not just hear them talk about it. This is very useful for students who are more visual learners rather than auditory. Some tools that I don't find helpful in a classroom setting is different types of social media platforms like twitter. I don't think students really use it when it is there. If they have a question on an assignment they are more than likely not going to tweet for help. Also when you are dealing with middle school and high school, it can be taken as unprofessional. I think students need to be responsible enough to look on portal, or whatever website the school has, and check for their assignments. I think by a teacher having twitter to put announcements up, it takes away that responsibility from the students and doesn't really help them.

I definitely will be using google docs in my classroom when teaching. I love that with it you can log in on any computer and you will have all your notes, assignments, powerpoint, etc. right there for you. There are many different tools within google docs that you can use and still have them in the same place instead of having to use a bunch of different softwares. For example, you can choose from a word document, a power point, a spreadsheet, etc. and it all saves to you google docs folder. It also is a great tool to share with other teachers. You can start a word document, share it with other people, and they can add or edit things in the document. This is a great way to share information and ideas with your coworkers!

I think Cloud Computing will be one of the most successful tools in education. Like I was saying before using the example of google docs, it is very helpful to teachers and students. Students will be able to have all their things in one common place, so if they needed to work on something at home and then you decided to start working on it in class, they can just log on and use it. The students will also be able to share their assignments with teachers at any given time so they can read it, make edits, and help make sure they are on the right path.

Blog Post #4

The people I interact the most with on Twitter are my fellow classmates and my teacher. Twitter has been pretty beneficial to me because it is something that is easy to check, it reminds me of things we have done in class and upcoming assignments, and it is a super fast way to ask my teacher questions. When I had a problem uploading an assignment to BlackBoard, I was able to DM my teacher off twitter and I instantly got a reply. I think that is the greatest tool about Twitter, how instant it is. Social Media is so popular in this day in age, that you have to keep up with it. This will be helpful in my future career because it will be something my students all use and like, making it easier for them to want to use it and making them more active. It's a great way to stay involved.

I believe digital divide is a big problem in schools. The number one reason being the social class disadvantage. Some students may have higher technology skills over other students because they have more tools at home to help them with it. Tools including: newer versions of technology, internet, parent support/knowledge themselves, etc. As a classroom teacher there could be a huge divide between students who can do the assignment with no difficulties at all and another set of students who don't know how to do the basics of the assignment. If this is the case, you would be caught up trying to figure out a good mixture of still making it interesting for the students who are advanced, but still making it do able for the students who aren't. A good strategy to help the students who need a little more help would be to set up types of "office hours" to explain and teach them more about technology and also giving them more time to practice. These office hours could be before or after school, or even during lunch or free time.

Since I am planning on being either a 1st or 2nd grade teacher, I think academic software would be the beneficial to me. Especially in lower grades, it's very important to be active while learning, so the kids can stay focus and want to learn. With academic software, there are many resourceful tools to help a teacher accomplish those goals. You can concept map, play games, make tutorials, have drill-and-practice software, etc. Those are great advantages to have in the classroom. One software I don't see myself using a lot is graphics software. It seems very beneficial for higher grades, but maybe a little too advanced for younger elementary school students.

Blog Post #3

One of the ELA technology standards that I feel that I could teach with my prior knowledge would be W/WHST.2, "Write to explain/inform". One thing that I strongly believe in is to make the information that you are giving your students as easy and simple as possible, so they will understand it best. Organization is key to this. There will always be a good way to introduce things. It should be in a good order so the students have an easier time understanding the concept. I also like to use graphics and figures to get my point across. It helps me a lot personally when I can actually see what I'm suppose to be doing. One ELA technology standard that I definitely need to learn more about is W/WHST.8, "Use Multiple Sources". I sometimes jump the gun, don't plan enough time to research for extra things, or really not know how to find a lot more of reliable sources. Normally I would say I get lucky when I google something to get the one or two sources that I do and use them pretty much the whole time! I would definitely like to improve my skills in this area.

I plan on using PowerPoint a lot in my classroom. Especially when we learn how to make games from them. I plan on teaching lower elementary grades, and I think if you do it right, PowerPoint can be a great tool and really interactive. I could have the kids do multiple different activities and games through PowerPoint to grab their attention and even make them think its fun! Although I plan on teaching in elementary school, PowerPoint can really be used for any type of age group. I'm in college and still use it in almost all of my classes. PowerPoint is all up to who is designing it so it can fit any type of age group or audience.

I acquired a lot of new skills by working on the Newsletter Design assignment. I learned how to make columns and how to make a picture appear on top of another picture of a text box. That has always been a problem of mine! I liked that we were able to get practice in something that I could really see myself using one day as a teacher. I also liked the opportunity of designing it! Next time I think I would want to improve the amount of time it takes me to do it. If this is a tool I will be using in the future, it needs to be something I can do in a easy manner and simply.