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.

Blog #4

I've never been a fan of Twitter, mostly due to the content that people put on there and the fact that it becomes public knowledge. When I first found out that I was going to have to regularly tweet, I expected it to be like pulling nails. I am glad to state that it has not been nearly that painful. I've enjoyed interacting with the students in the class, it was even though the #2040FSU tag that I got my idea for my ILP. I am concerned about using it as a future educator, Whilst it is a good way to keep parents up to date, it is also difficult to maintain student privacy in such a case.

The digital divide does not necessarily have to affect student success in schools. If the entire school is in a similar situation, such as a rural school, then the lack of internet and computers is established and technology related assignments are not expected. However, if there is a socio-economic divide within the school leading to some students having technology and some not, then the students without technology would definitively suffer. In either of these situations, as a teacher, I would do my best to provide accessible technology to any and all of my students without access. An example of this would be opening the computer lab for 30 minutes before and after school, as well as longer deadlines for assignments

It is my hope to teach middle and high school math, thus I will encourage my students to use tutoring and videos, such as Khan Academy, at home to enhance their lessons and help with homework. Not only that but it is my hope to make my classes interactive, instead of the traditional lecture, so I hope to include quiz games, like quizizz, and interactive lessons, like IXL. It is my hope that by including fun and interactive methods, my students will be much more willing to learn a traditionally boring subject like math. Not only that but in my lessons themselves, I imagine I will be using excel a lot to create graphics of what I am demonstrating.

ILP "Design" - InfoGraphic

When I was in high school I had to do a project on the effects of politics on pop culture in a timeline. I  enjoyed this project so much that, if given the opportunity, I would assign this project to my students as well. I made this InfoGraphic using one of Venngage's timeline features. I put in an interactive youtube video with my song of choice, uploaded creative commons images relating to the issues discussed, and adjusted the spacing to fit my information. This is not a complete timeline but was made to be more of a guideline for the students on one of the many possibilities of this project. 

https://infograph.venngage.com/p/227119/we-didnt-start-the-fire

Blog #3

The ELA technology standards I feel most prepared to teach with my existing knowledge are the "producing" standards due to the fact that I produce a much greater variety of media in an educational context than I have consumed. Most of the media I consume is either for entertainment or in scientific journal form. Thus, I'm not as confident about teaching the "consuming" standards, particularly the ones involving analysis, like section 5 of RL.7  “Multimedia:” Literature. However some of the "consuming" standards, such as RST.7  “Multimedia:” Science/Technical Subjects and RHST.7  “Multimedia:” History/Social Studies, I am more accustomed to and don't believe I'll have any problems with.
 
I intend to be working primarily with high school students in the math area. This means that we will be working with particularly advanced concepts that can often be abstract. Thus a lot of the software and applications that they will be working with will be visual to explain those abstract ideas in concrete graphs, symbols, images, etc. An example of this is using the graphing functions of JMP to demonstrate applied statistics in pictograph form. Something I will need to particularly address with my students is cheating and plagiarism. Due to the very nature of the programs, students will be invited to create their own hypothetical data then draw conclusions about the analysis of it. Many of my students will be inclined to collaborate on both their data and their analysis, defeating the purpose of thinking critically about math analysis.

I'd never worked with the column function of MS Word before and didn't quite know how to use it at first, but I found it very useful once I got used to it. The ability to create newsletters is very useful to a teacher due to the fact that keeping parents updated about what is happening in their class is very important. However, I am particularly proud of the fact that I managed to address both the parents and the students in my newsletter as, while keeping parents informed is important, so is giving your students a heads up of what is coming. In the future, I would like to use more graphics though.

Blog #2

In my own personal experience, I have done a lot of assignments using MS Word. I've done anything and everything in the spectrum, from pamphlets on made up countries to ISEF research papers. I think the reason most people consider MS Word so useful is because of its versatility and the variety of things that can be done with it. Many of my teachers have used MS Word to type up rubrics and assignment sheets. Some of the more up to date teachers have also used it to add notes and edits to our papers from within MS Word.

Almost every assignment in higher level education requires that students do outside research and have sources. As soon as you introduce this new element, you also introduce the question of what is yours and what is the sources. In my opinion, you should always automatically cite and remove any doubts of copyright even if you don't think you have. As a teacher, I think the best way to deal with these concepts is to stay on top of the laws using the http://www.creativecommons.org and http://www.copyright.gov sites and always cite to set an example for the students. As far as copyrighting your own work as a teacher, I find the concept conflicting. Education, and improvements to it, should be accessible to all. However, I also understand wanting to protect your hard work. For students copyrighting their materials, that is entirely up to them, but should they choose to, I would do my utmost to help them.

We live in a time and place where technology is seen everywhere, but that isn't true for everyone. There isn't always wifi in rural areas or computers in low SES areas. Thus one problem with implementing technology is that not everyone can go home to work on an online assignment. If you are going to give an assignment that requires computer use, you should also give in-class and after-school time for your students to work on it. Cyber-bullying is another major issue but is very difficult to control. The internet and anonymity go hand in hand and with anonymity comes the opportunity to insult and offend without consequence. With older students, I feel that the best way to limit it is to show them the possible consequences of their actions, such as the Amanda Todd video. With younger students, I would recommend talking about how such comments directed at them would make them feel. If I ever caught my students cyber-bullying someone, I would have them reprimanded in the same manner that they would have been if caught physically bullying. The final issue would be ensuring the privacy of my students. Anything they did in my classroom online would be tagged with a unique student ID instead of their names, this way I know who they are but the rest of the world does not. Any in-class computer usage should also be constantly and closely monitored to ensure that the students are not going outside the bounds of what is permissible in school.