Post 10

In high school I went to a school of technology, so we always had computer labs, laptops, and Netbooks available to us. It wasn't until my senior year that the school decided to implement iPads into our everyday learning. Every student received an iPad and the teachers were expected to know how to do implement iPad use into the classroom.I believe this goes to show that all of my senior-year teachers used iPads as a professional development tool, which promoted long term learning in the classroom. The teachers had to go to countless seminars to learn was apps were good to use, and to learn different ways to make iPads part of everyday learning. This was important to do, because our world is becoming more and more technologically advanced, and it helps learning if everyone knows how to use technology appropriately and to their benefit.

Every few years there will always be a major technological advancement that I, as a teacher, will have to be aware of and figure out how to use. Since I have been around technology my entire life, I do not think it will be that hard to pick-up and learn new technologies as a teacher. As long as my school provides me with the money and resources necessary to get the new technology, I am very confident I will be able to integrate it into my everyday curriculum and finds ways to make it beneficial for my students.

One technology that I recently heard about from a friend is a website called Paperrater.com. In the website, students can upload their essays/research papers and the website grades them based on plaigarism/originality, grammar, spelling, sentence/word strength, and the use of transitions. It tells students what to fix, what is good about the paper, and a model grade of what they might recieve, based on other students' papers in that grade level. Paperrater is a very helpful tool because it allows students to check their papers for simple mistakes such as grammar, but also check to see what percentage of the paper is plagiarized. I think it will be a very useful tool since I have many, many more papers to turn in throughout the rest of my college career.

Post 9

One example of a teacher who uses technology as a management tool to organize resources is my current English teacher. He keeps one class blog (where everybody in the class is a contributor) and can respond to our weekly blog prompt all in the same blog. Within the blog, our instructor has uploaded numerous websites and links to helpful sources that may assist us with our assignments for the class. It is very helpful to have all links, videos, blogs, and prompts in one place. Allowing the students to be contributors to the blog gets them involved and makes them feel like they are very important to the class since they can help run the class blog. This encourages more responsibility and credibility from each student, and helps them get a more hands-on experience with the class. Having multiple links and sources for the students to use also helps diverse learners find different ways to learn and expand their knowledge on their own.

I do feel capable of providing a domain such as the one I just mentioned. It'd be important to ask my students how they feel about doing blogs and see if they like the sources I provide, as I find that getting a students' opinion about each assignment is the best way to improve the assignment and make it more beneficial for the students.

One technology I have learned about recently is a website which lets students make notes on an electronic piece of reading. It is called eMargin and basically it allows an entire class to log in at the same time and edit make comments, thoughts, and opinions about a piece. All you have to do is highlight the area of the piece you want to make a comment about, type out your response, and then the entire class can see it and even comment on your comments to create a class discussion. I think this is a great way to get the class involved with long, boring readings rather than having each individual student make their comments separately. This website is an awesome way to bring the whole class together and an easy way to create class discussion.

Post #8

I believe that teachers who use technology as a means of motivation find that their students are willing to work much harder to get the reward of technology. This is especially true in younger children, as reward systems generally work better with younger kids. In elementary and middle-school aged kids, allowing them time on computers to play educational games motivates them to get their classwork done quickly and correctly; if the teacher only allows them to use educational games on the computer, then essentially they are getting double the learning. There are a myriad of websites that have fun, educational interactive games for kids to use; there are also many popular apps for iPads and Tablets.

Having a school that provided me with computers or iPads/Tablets for all of my students would be the first challenge to overcome. If my students did have technology available to them, then I think it would be very easy to set up a reward system that allowed them to use technology upon completing their work; I think a system like this would be very helpful in motivating them to get their work done. If my school was not technologically equipped in any way, then obviously it would be much harder to incorporate technology into the classroom as a motivational tool.

A new technology that I have learned about recently is making a Google Survey. I think these are very helpful tools in the classroom because they are an amazing way to get feedback from students (especially when they are anonymous). Surveys can be used to check students' understandings, get their opinion on topics, and see what needs to be improved in the classroom. Learning how to do Google Surveys will definitely be helpful for my future classroom!

Blog 7

I believe online surveys and tests that evaluate a student's understanding of a concept are very useful. When teachers gives online practice tests to see where the class is at in understanding and what topics need improvement on, it is a great way to see what topics need to be covered more in depth. As a student I used to like when my teachers gave me online practice quizzes that gave us the correct answer/explanations when we got a problem wrong. It was a great way to gauge my understanding of the course materials and a way to see what I need to improve on.

I definitely think as a teacher I will be able to create quizzes to see what my students need to improve on. Aside from using Word to create my own quizzes, there are many websites and forums that allow teachers to create their own quizzes, or use quizzes already created on the chosen subject. I think it'd be important to stay current on what websites are useful to other teachers and keep in mind the opinions of my students.

One technology that I recently heard of and thought was neat was a website called Glogster. It is a website used for presentations with a lot of information. There are tons of different borders, stickers, and other themed animations to add to the presentation and make it visually appealing. Students are able to add links, videos, and pictures to help enhance to the presentation as well.

Post #6

One of my teacher's from high school, Mr. Dill, heavily believed in using Twitter as a form of communication. It allowed us to tweet at him and communicate with him even after school, and get more of an immediate response than through email. Using a class hashtag we could share our thoughts, comments, pictures, or anything else with him or the entire class. Many times he would require us to watch something such as a Presidential speech, and communicate our opinions about it through our class hashtag. It was also a great way for parents who had Twitters to stay involved with the class and see what assignments were being completed, and become aware of any upcoming projects in the class. It was an all around great medium of communication for the students, the parents, and the teacher.

I definitely think I will have a class Twitter when I become a teacher, because I think it is an easy and simple way to create communication inside and outside the classroom. While I don't think all apps/social sites are a good form of communication between teachers and students, I do think sites that allow class discussion and create easy forms of communication are great. If I do choose to use social sites as a from of communication in the classroom, I will definitely take into account my students' opinions of the site that they are using, because I can speak from personal experience that a lot of my teachers required us to use sites that were not fun and often had any problems.

A technology that I have been using a lot more recently is Blackboard, and during my senior year we had a program very similar to it called Canvas. I really love how these apps give us a way to submit our assignments, see our class calendar, and see any announcements our teacher has all in one place. A lot of schools do not use technology such as Blackboard/Canvas, and I think it makes it harder for the student to stay up to date on the assignments, and it limits communication between the teacher and the student. Coming from a student perspective, I can honestly say that having a program such as Blackboard is great because I love being able to submit all my assignments in the same place I check my grades, see my teachers' emails, and check the syllabus.

Blog Post 5

I went to a school of technology, so the teachers always tried to include technology into the lessons as much as possible. By the end of my high school years, we were all even required to have an iPad. There were many apps that could be used in a variety of ways to enhance learning. In math, we used an app that served as a graphing calculator; in English we used Websites to check for grammar and plagiarism in papers, and used eBooks to avoid having to buy textbooks; in economics we used interactive games to learn the ins and outs of economical stability. There wasn't a single day that at least one of my teachers used an app or website to enhance our learning experience and provide an additional resource to the students. We would also frequently use YouTube videos, Powerpoints, or online interactive websites as alternate/hands-on ways of learning.

Honestly, I feel like I am more than capable of incorporating different uses of technology into the classroom. I have "grown up" with technology and feel that I am able to learn different uses/techniques very quickly. There's always tons of blogs/websites which provide new ideas to teachers, and teachers testimonies on whether they liked the new technology or not. It will be important to pay attention to the students' feedback on each source of technology used, and see if they find it beneficial and useful. I think being born into the Technology Era makes me naturally more "tech savvy" that those who were my teachers, and I think as long as I am able to find technologies that my students actually enjoy, it can be very beneficial in the education system.

Honestly, I really liked the concept mapping tool we used in class! I like how the Inspiration program lets you build your concept map, and then turn all the info into an outline with the click of a button. When I teach little kids I could definitely see me using this tool to help explain concepts, and I like that I would be able to include Hyperlinks and cute pictures to help the kids understand even better! So far, I think Inspiration is a great program and will actually be very beneficial to my teaching career.

Blog #4

One of my favorite educational sources on the web is the ever-popular Khan Academy. When learning new subjects in school teachers can go very fast and it is easy to miss some of the information, so it is nice to have another resource to cover the lessons you don't understand. Khan Academy provides videos with explanations of a wide variety of lessons. In high school I frequently referenced their videos about math and chemistry. The videos cover such a wide variety of subjects and always the views to pause, rewind, and rewatch all the videos, giving each person total control over their learning. https://www.khanacademy.org/

I do believe the internet for student research is a great idea and useful way of learning. I know from experience, I remember information better when I am forced to look for it myself rather than simply being told the answer. If students know how to properly use search engines and know which sources are credible, then they will be able to find really great information on their subject. I think Websearches/Webhunts are great for learning, because it prompts the student to look up multiple things and read all about a subject. I think the only time the internet can be harmful for students is for example if a teacher gets a paper online and all the answers are online (so the student can just copy the answers) or if the students get information from unreliable sources. 

While my methods of judging internet based sources aren't quite as extensive as the ABCDT method mentioned in the podcast, I do agree with everything she said to look out for. I agree that author plays a huge role in judging if a source is valuable or not, because I have learned that .edu, .org, and .gov sources are the more reliable sources. I also agree that design and content play a huge role in how credible a source is, because generally you can tell how reliable the information will be based on how good the website looks. Also, I definitely think bias plays a huge part in finding good sources, because it is important that a source should not only be one sided and only provide strong arguments for one side. After doing research for many years you learn what websites feel credible versus ones that you can tell right away are bad.

Post #3

Link to website used: http://scied.ucar.edu/shortcontent/stratosphere-overview

Rule #1: The website incorporated a picture into the text that helps explain what the text is about.
Rule #2: There aren't any headings to break up the information... It is a bit overwhelming when there is multiple paragraphs and no headings to separate them.
Rule #3: The text is all left justified, however the author of the website didn't indent any of the paragraphs.
Rule #4: The website only uses one type of text, so the entire page feels very coherent and concise.
Rule #5/6: The two colors used were yellow and blue, and since they used the same colors throughout the entire page, it really brought together the website's theme.
Rule #7: Unfortunately, there was only one picture on the entire page. I definitely think the page could have been enhanced and easier to understand if there were more charts/pictures.
Rule #8: All the content on the page was necessary.
Rule #9: The upper vs. lower case rules were followed correctly.
Rule #10: The sentences on the site weren't that long, however the paragraphs were.
Rule #11: The book says to skip a space between each line, but to not indent. The site followed this rule, however I didn't know it was a rule!
Rule #12: The page that I was on was only one page, and all the information was right there in plain site, so it was very well structured.
Rule #13: There was only one idea on the page. The entire page talked about the Stratosphere.
Rule #14: There was no use of italics, underlining, or bolding.
Rule #15: The site used a somewhat higher vocabulary, but the site wasn't hard to follow, no matter who the audience is.
Rule #16/17: There was no flashing text or bullited lists,
Rule #18: The navigation buttons are all the same on the top and bottom of each page.
Rule #19: There was no stacked text. Everything is formatted into paragraphs.
Rule #20: There was only one graphic, even though there was multiple paragraphs.
Rule #21: The website looks very concise and organized, and is not visually distracting.
Rule #22: All font is the same size, so nothing stands out or seems more/less important.
Rule #23: The graphic is at the top of the screen, which emphasizes its importance.


Before listening to the Podcast, I had no clue what open source or open content was. After hearing the podcast, I do thing open source and open content are both very important in the education field so teachers can share and adapt work within the teaching community. I also think it saves money, while allowing teachers to customize each piece of content to fit their specific needs. I like the idea of open content/sources because it seems very useful and convenient, but I don't think I would ever contribute to them. I would most likely adapt them to fit my class' needs, but I wouldn't adapt them for any other teachers.

For the Newsletter assignment, it was fairly simple to do since Word provides an outline of a sample Newsletter. The sample even has directions on how to create columns, or how to add pictures. Having the outline and directions together made it a very easy assignment. I thought there were too many elements/instructions for the assignment so it took a long time, but it definitely wasn't hard and I don't have any recommendations for change.

Post #2

As a student, I generally use Microsoft Word to write essays, resumes, or other documents which involve writing many sentences or paragraphs. Occasionally I would have to use Word to compose creative projects such as making quizzes for other students, taking class notes, or compiling a document with pictures. My teachers often use Microsoft Word as an avenue to type out the instructions for a class assignment, a syllabus, or flowcharts for the class to fill out. My teachers often used to do "fill-in-the-blank" notes and type them all out for us on Word.

Many times my teachers would complain that they could not pass out or make copies of certain documents because of copy right issues. If they did make copies, they would have to collect them after class so none of us took them home. I found copyright issues very annoying to deal with, because I love having copies of my own and being able to keep physical hard copies of all my papers/notes/documents. As a teacher, I would search the internet and find other sources to use and provide my students with other online options, that don't involve copyright. Another way to avoid copyright would be if instead of making copies of a paper and handing them out to my students, I made a Powerpoint of the material and taught it in a different way with pictures and my own interpretation of the material. Avoiding copyright can be tedious and annoying, but it is important to make sure all copyright rules are being thoroughly followed inside and outside the classroom.

The one new thing I learned in the Word and Graphics 1 assignment was the date/time feature. I do think that is helpful, and will come in handy in the future. Everything else we used for the assignment I already knew how to do, but it was a nice refresher, and that was the first time I've had to apply all those skills together. I think it was good that we did that assignment, because when I am a teacher I know I will have to make many, many quizzes for my children. Generally none of my teachers ever put graphics into my quizzes, but I really like that we were required to do that, because I realized the graphic really brings together the questions the quizzes are asking. I will be more likely to include graphics or Wordart in my future quizzes, thanks to this assignment!

Blog #1

I believe our world is becoming more and more technologically advanced, and people are beginning to use technology/computers at earlier ages than ever before. Computers can be very helpful in the classroom: typing essays is quicker and more efficient, the World Wide Web is wonderful for researching, and computers provide a way for teachers and students to communicate outside the classroom. Tools such as PowerPoint and Prezzi can be very useful for group presentation, and providing a different learning style than just lecturing, As chapter 1 states, having computers in the classroom also helps to prepare students for the work environment, where most companies use email as the best form of communication, or use Excel spreadsheets to track incoming and outgoing data. I do agree with the book that the "human side" of technology must be taught, meaning some kids will go into the classroom having no experience with computers and need extra help, or some kids will use technology to bully or hack the school Network and disrupt the learning process. While I believe technology can be an amazing tool that greatly enhances a child's education, it can also have many downfalls that create challenges within the classroom environment.

A Digital Native is someone who grew up with technology and it is not a foreign concept to them. Yes, I would agree that most of our Youth could be classified as Digital Natives, because the majority of them have technological toys as infants, learn to use computers when they are a bit older, and most even get cell-phones as soon as they enter middle school. The youth today grow up with ever-changing technology and they are easily able to adapt to learning how to use it. Most teachers are considered Digital Immigrants because they did not grow up surrounded by technology, they were forced into learning how to use it in the classroom and it often takes a lot more effort for them to learn how to use it compared to kids who pick up on new technology very easily. Teachers who are Digital Immigrants usually are slower at learning new things and often call upon the kids in the class to help them if there is a problem. If there is a more complicated problem, generally all of my teachers immediately ask "Tech Guys" for help, rather than trying to figure it out themselves. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes a teacher's lack of understanding for technology can slow down the process of class or even create a harsh environment if the teacher gets flustered when the technology doesn't work.

1. I attended a school called McKeel Academy of Technology, so I would consider myself very comfortable with technology. Since before 6th grade I've been using computers, iPads, iPhones, and other forms of technology. The most common types of technology I use are apps on my phone, the internet for search engines, and Word for school essays. I use technology every single day and I find it very useful and convenient for everyday living.

2. I am taking this class because I want to become a teacher, and it was a required course for me. And while there isn't anything new I necessarily want to learn, I hope I can improve my technology skills and learn new ways that technology can be used in the classroom. I'm coming into the class with an open mind and I really just want to learn ways to improve the technology skills I already have.

3. I am a very hands-on learner, as I like to be creative and try to figure things out for myself. I don't consider myself an auditory learner whatsoever, because it is often hard for me to pay attention and comprehend my professors when they begin lecturing. On occasion, I do enjoy group work because it allows me to hear others' ideas, opinions, etc. and allows me the opportunity to learn knew things from my peers.