Blog Post #4

            Since creating my Twitter account for this class I have so far followed four educational technology accounts and have been responding tweets. I have found it beneficial to see articles about new advances in education technology. I am quite familiar with Twitter as I have another account that I use to help my career. I network on there and pay attention to industry experts and occasionally respond to them. Mainly I chat with those in my field who are higher up. I frequently engage in Twitter chats, and on Monday night I was one of the featured guests for a chat to promote the release of a project I am involved with. You can find me on Twitter with either @EME2040Bender (my account for this class) or @MikaelaBender. 

The digital divide affects students’ success drastically. If a student does not have access to the technology schools are using and frequent internet access they will not be at the same level technology-wise as their peers when they graduate. In desktop publishing software, where teachers are creating e-magazines, flyers, and study materials that are online, these students may not be able to access them. Graphic software creates and enhances lessons and online learning environments which again some students on the other side of the digital divide may not be able to access. Reference software uses online dictionaries and atlases to help students, but those on the other side of the divide may be left behind. Again this problem arises in tutorials and drill-and-practice software where students can practice for tests and quizzes. However, not all students can use that software. Educational game software and simulation software for enhancing students’ learning are online. With authoring software, teachers are creating tutorials and web pages to email to their class, but for the student without internet access, this is a problem. Integrated learning systems use other software to only set the tech savvy student on the path to success.  Lastly students with special needs who do not have access to technology will not be able to utilize the special needs software that is available.

Sites must be evaluated before implementing them into a classroom. Using the acronym ABCTE is a good way to evaluate a website. A stands for “author.” Who is the author? Can you contact them? B stands for “bias.” Is the site biased? C stands for “content.” Is it current or is it out of date? Are there spelling and grammar mistakes? D stands for “design” and TE stands for “technical elements.” It is important to give students links they can click on to go to a website rather than having them type in the URL as it could take them to an inappropriate website. Also with links, check the links that are listed on the website and make sure where they go is not dangerous. Pay attention to advertising on a website. Are the ads appropriate or inappropriate? I learned a lot from the Evaluating Internet Resources podcast. Personally, I also think it is a good idea to fact check some of the content on a website.

Blog Post #3

            I feel most prepared with my existing knowledge to teach the ELA technology standards of RL. 7: 2, RHST.7: 6-12, and SL.5: 9-12. The first one is using “words & illustrations in print and digital text to understand character, setting, plot.” Words and illustrations, whether in print or digital text are not much different, and words and illustrations have their unique abilities to better understand the setting, plot, and character. Illustrations are easier to understand the setting while words are easier to understand character and the plot. The second standard is including “charts, graphs, photographs, videos, maps, and research data” into history and/ or social studies lessons. With the wide variety of educational technology tools available to educators, it is easy to combine these forms of media into a lesson. The third standard is being able to use the digital media listed from RHST. 7: 6-12 in presentations in order to enhance this. I am currently working on a presentation where I must include some of these tools so I already have experience with it. As far as the standards that I feel the least comfortable with, those would be RL.7: 7 and SL.5: 2. RL.7: 7 is being able to “compare written story/drama/poem to audio, filmed stage, or multimedia version, analyzing techniques such as lighting, sound color, camera focus/angle.” While the first part of this, I can do and feel comfortable with, I don’t know enough about film to analyze the techniques. SL.5: 2 is creating audio recordings of either poems or stories. I am unsure on how to create an audio recording.  

            With my age range of twelve to fourteen, many of those students will just be hitting the age requirements of many websites. I would like to use discussion groups with my students. It would be a good way to teach them about being digital citizens. Teaching and Learning with Technology says teachers need to educate their students on communicating “clearly and precisely without rudeness or inappropriate interaction.” By monitoring the discussions, I cannot only have it be a valuable tool to take learning farther on many subjects, but to teach them how to behave as proper digital citizens. I also would like to utilize blogs where students throughout the year can post their papers after I have graded them, so that by the end of the year they have built an impressive blog. It would also test them on not using copyrighted material.

            Some new skills I acquired while working on the Newsletter Design assignment were how to use columns which is a skill I need to know for a project in other class as well as how to change the background color and to properly format paragraphs for a newsletter. I really like the science fiction look I went with in my newsletter. I feel the theme matches the robot/artificial intelligence field trip well. I wish that I could have been able to better figure out the banner and word art function which at times were hard to use. Next time I hope to better understand the difficulties that I had in order to improve my newsletter design. I look forward to the day where I can keep my students and their parents up to date by using newsletters, especially as they are fun to design. The use of hyperlinks will help when I email assignments, as the links can be for websites that can help the student.

Citations:

McDonald, Jean and Judy Lever-Duffy. Teaching and Learning with Technology. United Sates:

Pearson, 2015. Print.

Cates, Michelle. ““Consuming” Tech Standards.” 2014. Web. 21 Sept 2016.

Blog Post #2

            I have used Microsoft Word for all of my schooling and writing until this school year when I got a MacBook. For the most part I still use Microsoft Word but have found that Pages on Mac is easier and simpler. I have always used Word to write my essays and to do projects. As far as how I have seen my teachers use it, I have not explicitly seen it used by teachers in class but most of my syllabi are in Word documents and any other documents they send out are for the most part in Word.

            I am familiar with many middle schoolers who do not understand the concept of plagiarism and copyright. I have had work stolen by them on the internet. Teachers need to reinforce the concept that copyright respect is important and plagiarism is wrong, and that there are consequences for infringing on copyrights. If they spent more focus on this in schools, then plagiarism in college would not be as big of an issue as it is. As a teacher I will explain to them what copyright and plagiarism mean and tell them the consequences of not respecting other people’s work. Also I will explain to them why I am able to use certain copyrighted materials in the classroom, and how I am able to do so. I will give a test on copyright to my students so they can understand it better.

            Some new skills I acquired from learning about Twitter are how easy it is to connect with other students who are wanting to also be educators and to reach out to them when it is needed.  Also I learned how straightforward it is to connect with educational companies as well as other personal learning networks who have a Twitter account. I can use PLNs in my future career by keeping up with new technology to stay up to date and keep my classroom technology from becoming outdated as many software updates come out often. PLNs are great for sharing new ideas as well.