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.