Blog #10

Data Collection and reporting are essential tools for every teacher, regardless of subject matter and age, as it allows teachers to see where their students are at. For me specifically, wanting to teach high school math, this means recording students grades, not just for assignments and tests as a whole but on individual questions as well. This way I can see which questions are being the most consistently missed, by both the class as a whole and by individual students. Once I have this data, I can attempt to tailor the lessons better to each student.

My favorite part of looking at everyone's blogs is seeing all the different ways people think to apply the lessons we learned in class to our own teaching. An example of this is both in the question on Bloom's Taxonomy and the question prior to this. Every one of us has had different learning experiences and as thus have been affected differently in how we will teach. For example, when we had to come up wit the lesson for Bloom's Taxonomy, my mind went immediately to derivatives. However, when I later read other peoples posts, everyone had a different idea on how and when it could be directly implemented. Reading all of their thoughts gave me new ideas on how to improve what my lesson would have been.

The next technology-related skill I would like to learn would probably be how to use interactive whiteboards, such as SmartBoards. I feel like this would be a very useful to skill to have as they are being implemented more and more in schools everywhere. Thus, I find having this skill to be something important going forward. I definitely intend to go to the Tech Sandbox to learn about this as they are very knowledgeable about it and have boards there for me to practice with.

ILP "Participation" - VR

I went to the tech sandbox and received a lesson on potential VR use in the classroom. Then I got to use both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Using the Oculus Rift, I was shown a program called Tilt Brush that allows you to draw in 3D, as well as drawing with materials such as snow or lava. Then, I was moved to the HTC Vive where I was shown the program Universe Sandbox. This program allows you to see the universe and manipulate it by adding mass, altering orbits, and colliding objects. The final program I looked at was Edmersiv, a virtual museum with interactive exhibits on math, science, history, geography, and more. All of these can be easily utilized in an educational environment. Tilt Brush can be used in math to demonstrate 3D images and 3D graphing. Universe Sandbox has obvious applications to science classes. Finally, Edmersiv is particularly interesting for elementary students as it has basic knowledge in all of the areas.
https://www.tiltbrush.com/
http://universesandbox.com/
http://www.edmersiv.com/

Blog #9

Flipped Classrooms are a creative new instructional method where students do readings and watch lectures at home and then utilize their class period to work on projects, activities, and assignments with their teacher. This helps support students by allowing for more practice time in order to make sure the students really grasp the material. It also makes a class more interesting for your students because with this sort of classroom you can assign more creative group projects that they can work on in class. Khan Academy has instructional and educational videos for all of their lessons that could be used in such a flipped classroom.


I've done non-linear powerpoints before, as well as those for information dissemination, and didn't really learn anything new. My history with powerpoint is more of an exception than a rule. Something I didn't like was that powerpoint changed the color of the hyperlinks orange and would not let me change it to any other color. Something I would potentially change would be adding a black outline to the text in my Information Dissemination powerpoint as it could be a bit difficult to read.

Blog #8

You could use PowerPoint at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy for a variety of lessons, but for this example we will use the example of derivation in math. We would begin the powerpoint with a few slides doing example problems on exponents and limits to cover "knowledge". Then we would move on to breaking down derivation in the next few slides for "comprehension". Then, for "application", I would use the limit definition of a derivative to apply current knowledge to what we are learning with example problems and step by step solutions in the powerpoint. Then I would have a slide with some problems and have them try taking the derivative and using the limit definition and follow that up with slides of my own comparison for "analysis". Then, with these comparison slides still up, I would have a discussion with the class on the merits of both approaches and which they preferred to cover "synthesis". Finally, I would have them each write three problems of their own and pass it to the person on their right, and when that person was finished pass it to the right again and have the third person try the other method, and finally pass it to a fourth person on their right to compare the two results for "evaluation". While this method does not require powerpoint, having the problems worked out and organized in their slides makes the lesson much smoother.

There is an edtech subreddit that allows users to post questions, answer each other's questions, and post articles involving exclusively edtech. Users can them move posts up or down based on quality and relevance. This allows a circulation of up to date, curated information.

https://www.reddit.com/r/edtech/

Blog #7

Adaptive technologies are any form of technology that assist those with disabilities in their daily life. This can be anything from a simple screen magnifier to more complicated pens that record as you write. Any one of these technologies is tailored for specific disabilities, for example a person with  visual impairment could use a Braille Embosser but not a screen magnifier. I am, unfortunately, an eternal klutz. I have accidentally injured myself in a variety of ways that has led to all sorts of adaptive technology use, from mobility assisting devices after a leg injury to laptops in class following a wrist injury to screen magnifiers after losing my glasses. In all, after my experiences, I've found that most challenges using adaptive technology in the classroom come from a teacher's reluctance to adapt themselves.  An example of this is a teacher that won't make the aisles between desks wide enough for a wheel chair or person using crutches to pass, and instead forces them to sit in the back, because that "is how [their] classroom has been arranged for the past 10 years and nobody else has ever complained". As long as a teacher is willing to adapt and help their students, these sorts of challenges shouldn't arise or, at the very least, can be quickly resolved.

I had to learn HTML coding in middle school for a similar website creating project, and you would not believe the relief I felt when I realized Weebly didn't ask you to code a thing. That was the greatest part of this project. I honestly enjoyed completing it, beyond the fact that I didn't have to use HTML, for a variety of reasons - like being forced (note the sarcasm) to look through hours of comics to find the perfect ones... then spending a couple more hours on there to make sure they really were perfect. I also enjoyed doing it because I always imagined myself as the type of teacher that told their class information and if they weren't paying attention and missed it, tough luck. However, I could genuinely see myself having a class page as a teacher. There are some things I would change before then though, such as adding a password to certain pages private - like the homework blog where students are posting comments - to make sure people of dubious backgrounds aren't looking through it.

http://syeme2040.weebly.com/

I can see the uses in Diigo - the easy connectivity between students and teachers, the simplicity of group work, and the ease of its use for most. A teacher can create a class group and post articles that students need to read before the next class. In a group research project, group members can post what they've found, already annotated, for the other members to read over. As a teacher, I could have my own collection of relevant information that can be quickly referenced to double check information or share with the class. However, I don't believe it will be something I use often. As a math teacher, there aren't a lot of articles and the like that I could send a student that would be understandable to them in its raw form, and Diigo does not have a math annotation feature.

Blog #6

The school site I looked at was Palm Bay Magnet High schools. They have sites for every one of their classes, even those that have multiple classes on the same material each have their own site. This site is for one of the AP US government class consisting of 11th and 12th graders. Publically, the site has all of the homeworks, bell works, and powerpoints presented in class. There are also some links that are helpful to students and a calendar of due dates. As I went to this school, I know that when you log in you can see grades and more specific class and calendar information.
http://www.edline.net/pages/Palm_Bay_High_School/Classes/1617_21064205JV27

As a teacher, I definitely plan on having a class website that can be multipurpose. For example, Weebly has the option to add a password to your entire website or certain passwords to certain pages. I plan on having my own page, with its own password, as a part of the site where I can log on from any computer and access my lesson plans, any documents I plan on handing out or referring to in class, or enter my grades. By having this easy accessibility I remove a lot of the hassle of carrying around papers, organizing files on my computer, and carrying around a flash drive. Not only that but if I made a page with personal passwords for each of my students, I could post grades for them and their parents to check at any time with personalized comments on assignment.


All of the technologies in the sandbox can be used in the classroom, some directly and some you have to be more creative with. An example of something that can be used as is would be the SmartBoard. Many textbooks have interactive programs to be used with the board, so a math teacher can flip through the pages of the textbook on the SmartBoard and underline things, add notes in the margins, and solve problems by hand all at the same time. An example of a technology that may need to be thought in the more abstract is the 3D printer. While it may not seem entirely applicable, due to its flexibility it can definitely be useful. To continue the math example, there are a series of mathematical concepts that are provable conceptually but difficult to understand in reality, such as the möbius strip or the umbilic torus. With a 3D printer, a math teacher could prove these concepts on paper then print out and show their students these objects to better grasp the reality of it.

Blog #5

I believe that, though the podcast supported it, Twitter is not the best Web 2.0 technology to be used in the classroom. I agree that, as the podcast said, it is useful for keeping up to date and contacting people. However, the question of privacy is a very big one when it comes to minors. A Web 2.0 tool that I definitely support is Prezi. Most of you students will have to create presentations in the future, be it in higher education or in the workplace, and Prezi is a great way to make creative and interactive presentations that stand out from the typical MS Powerpoint presentation.

Something that I will definitely use when teaching is Google. This can come in a variety of forms, from the knowledgeable and peer-reviewed Scholar to the interactivity and ease of Google Drive, Docs, Slides, and Sheets. Google Scholar has been known to have advanced and current research in all of the pedagogical areas, from neuroscience to music theory. Meanwhile - Google Drive, Docs, Slides, and Sheets are all easily accessible to multiple people at once, making group projects painless as well as allow you to reopen your work from any device to allow you to easily switch computers. I would willingly assign my students a group project presentation reviewing any article that interests them from Scholar.

I believe online learning, in general, will become a very big part of education. From the rising popularity of MOOC to state mandated online classes to learning tutorials on YouTube, many students have taken to the ease of learning online. It allows students to find a variety of different teaching methods on the same subject until they arrive at the one that works best for them. As an educator, this could possibly be used by putting together an archive of helpful tutorials and pages to supplement each lesson and help students with homework.