Blog Journal 10

    Assignment 5 has been my favorite project in EME2040 to work on so far! It was such a creatively challenging project. I chose to create an Interactive storybook with a fairy tale theme! In the interactive fairy tale you got to choose different paths that would change your story-line and decide your fate! I learned many new tools and skills for technology from this project. I learned how to set up the power point navigation with hidden hyperlink buttons so that it could take you to the correct slide and not just the next slide in the power point. I think for next time I would expand the story-line and make it even better through adding higher quality images, white boxes behind the text so that the text is easier to read and more decorative items and fonts. I feel like technology effects could also be added to enhance the experience such as background music or sound effects. I also think I could have improved more on my target area of learning. This project was to be used for a classroom lesson and my fits the standard for elementary writing, reading, fiction skills needed to be developed in students. However, I think I could have added tasks along with the story to enrich the learning process and make the activity even more rewarding and useful. 

 

    As an aspiring elementary school teacher specifically for 2nd or 3rd grade, surveys are an important tool for teachers to make use of. Surveys are a great tool to ensure honest feedback that can show results, progress and goals for improvement. I think surveys should be taken in all classrooms for all levels of learning K-12. Students understand what they like and don't like but sometimes don't feel like they have the voice, opportunity or authority to speak to their teacher about it. Surveys can be useful when trying out a new program, new curriculum or new type of lesson plan/style of testing. Students can answer questions so that the teacher can see how they should adapt and move forward. Teaching can be a difficult job if the teacher cannot find methods of understanding not just what students are struggling in but how and why they are struggling. 

    As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I talked about how much I have enjoyed writing blogs for EME2040. I really enjoy the opportunity to reflect and write about my past experiences and use that as a part of my learning process. Another great aspect of the blogging portion of this course is that all of the blog pages of our peers are open for us to read and comment on. It creates a community feeling and helps relate to classmates who are going through similar issues. I really liked seeing how everyone's individual personalities shine through on the set up and design of their blog. Classmates use their lives and interests to decorate their blogs and make them come to life! I really liked the blog

    During my time in this course, we talked a lot about digital badges! I had never really heard about technology badges before EME2040. However, I never attempted any badges during this course. I actually wished that I had taken the opportunity to explore badges more and attempt them. I think during the last final weeks of the semester I will attempt to try to do a few! Wish me luck!

Today in EME2040 I got to participate in a technology sandbox tour! One of my favorite parts of the tour of the technology was the two coding activities. We got to play a coding game for elementary school students and we got to control a driving robot through the use of commands that used coding. I am interested in learning more about the science and technology behind coding. I have a little experience with coding because in middle school I took a technology course where we coded for a few small basic projects. I believe coding is a great skill to have and I think I will try to explore it more through online resources as well as courses as FSU.

Blog Journal 9

    EME2040 is the first ever technology course that I have taken on the college level. I took a mandatory technology class at my middle school but other than that all of my technology experience and skill has been self taught. I really enjoy the way this course is designed to teach because I am a true believer that hands on learning is one of the best methods to teaching that will benefit the student the most. Our class was offered as a in person course with a zoom option for students that could not make it to class. I believe that offering the course in person offered a great selection of resources for students to utilize. I can learn not only from my instructor but also my fellow students in the class. Every has different levels of technology experience and skills and therefore we can collaborate and learn helpful tips from one another. Honestly, my least favorite part of the course is how short the actual class is. I wish the class was longer so we can dive deeper into discussion and activities about education and the use of technology and then still have plenty of time to work on assignments. As a future teacher, one thing that I hope to strive for in my classroom is collaboration. I've noticed how well our teacher in EME2040 asks for feedback and suggestions for technology. As a teacher, I hope to learn from my students just as much as they learn from me. 

     OER stands for Open Educational Resources, it is free accessible resources for teachers and students to access through the public domain. This makes it easy for teachers to access technological resources to help implement into the curriculum and strengthen the learning process. Within education it is crucial that there is a system for sharing resources. Education is a community and without the support of one another through resources, teachers will struggle to reach their students and serve their learning in the highest way possible. OER provides a way for teachers to legally share and access materials that teachers have tried, tested and recommended. What is OER? Education Week Article

    Assignment 4 was to create an informational teaching PowerPoint and then record yourself with sound using the PowerPoint. I chose to focus my lesson on a third grade math lesson with the topic of area and perimeter. I really enjoyed the process of this project because I learned how to do a lot of of new PowerPoint skills. The one thing I did not include in my PowerPoint was the name in the footer section so that the printouts have your name on it. Including that step is a great tool for teachers who need to print out their PowerPoint and/or lesson plans. I will use the skills I learned in this project for my future PowerPoint.

Blog Journal 8

     The web design project was a great assignment to gain real skills and experience working with a new kind of platform for educational technology. We used the resource, Weebly, to design and publish our own websites. The great thing about this assignment and most of the EME assignments is how versatile they are. We are allowed to have a lot of creative liberty with our topics, focus and execution of the project. Because of this, we each can design websites that fit our personalities and cater to the area of education we are pursuing whether that be, elementary, middle, high, college, special education, etc. I do wish that I could have dove deeper into the resources and tools that can be added into the site, I just did not have the time or knowledge to do it for this project. However, in the future when I become a real teacher, I would love to dedicate some time into really perfecting a website so that it can be used as an effective and helpful tool to parents, students, and fellow educators. I really like the idea of having a teacher site that offers both student and parent information and resources to assist in the process of school. Education is a community and it takes a whole support team to educate and these websites are a great way to get information around. 

Here is the link to my project which is a fictional class website for a 3rd grade class! https://lexiemitchelledu.weebly.com/

    Diigo was one of those resources that I had never heard of before taking this course. However, I found it extremely interesting method of communicating and educating. The resource works like a bookmarking tool where you can shares articles, blogs, news, etc with your groups and add highlights to key points of the information. I think this is a great source for researching, educating and training. As educators it is key to continue to further your education and training in order to be the best resource for your students. Diggo makes it easy for fellow teachers to work together in accomplishing this goal. 

    Education and access to technology are one of the biggest areas where we are failing within the system of education. Too much pressure is put on teachers to implement and teach technology yet little training, resources nor money is allocated to support this demand on teachers. Many classrooms are severely lacking in their updates of technology due to the school not being able to provide it. And if a school can provide the newest technology, teachers are forced to spend their time and effort in learning a new system on their own. There is so much evolution of technology at such a quick pace that it is easy for teachers to lose track and fall behind.The website, Educator's Technology, is a site dedicated to providing reviews of web tools and resources for teachers. This site is a good tool for teachers to learn about new resources and also easily see what tools other teaches have found success in.

https://www.educatorstechnology.com/

Blog Journal 7

    School pages and teacher websites are another element of educational technology that can really enhance the quality of learning and assistance within schools. In my own education, each of my schools had their own specifically designed website that catered to their students, staff and parents. These websites are a great resource for information and tools. Many of these websites are protected by login systems that allows parents, staff and students to access the website but no one without a login.This ensures that the site remains safe for students to use and prevents confidential/personal information from being open to the public's eyes. I went back to the past for this blog! I visited the school website for my old Elementary School, Stearley Heights Elementary School located in Okinawa, Japan that I went to for the 4th and 5th grade. The website for this school is averagely helpful for educational technology. Most websites for schools will be limited because they have a login system that prevents information from being shared without access. I did not visit my past teachers from 4th and 5th grade because they no longer work there. However, I did look at other teacher's sites and they all offered information and resources helpful to both the student and the parent. https://sites.google.com/student.dodea.edu/stearleyheightses/student-zone/grades-k-2?authuser=0

    As a teacher, I understand how crucial technology will be in my career. Technology plays a key role in how we teach the newer generations of children. Not only are these kids exposed to more technology than we were as kids and our parents and teachers were in school, technology is growing as they are. Therefore, as their teachers, we must continue to learn the newest technology in order to best assist and teach. Each school has it required resources that teachers must make use of. however, personally I can see myself using either Google Classroom and/or Canvas. Both tools are very helpful and easy to navigate as a student so I think it would be useful to use as a teacher. When you are a teacher, you must think as a student and what resource would best serve their learning environment. Canvas is a great resource to post calendars and online assignments to keep students on track. While the Google tools such as Docs, Sheets and PowerPoint are all very useful. I would use Google Docs to plan out my lessons and create assignments and lessons plans. While I could use Sheets to track grades, calendars, planning for ahead, etc. Google PowerPoint could be used to create PowerPoint's to display to the class that help guide the instruction and go along with the lesson plan to keep us on schedule. 

    PBWorks is a wiki platform similar to the very popular wiki platform, Wikipedia. Wikis are publications that are edited and published collaboratively, meaning people can work together jointly to add information. Wikis aren't always the best resources because there can be a lack of credibility and accuracy from the people editing the source document. PBWorks was created for education purposes in mind, such as creating collaborative websites for teachers and students to use. After briefly using PBWorks, I noticed small negatives.The platform itself is outdated and hard to navigate. It's customization is limited. I could use the platform to create my own classroom website that students could interact and add to, like a joint online classroom space.

Blog Journal 6

    Last class, I had my first experience exploring the resource, Diigo. Diigo is a collaborative space to share bookmarks of current resources with your community. A community can be any group of people collaborating for one effort, such as a class, coworkers, fellow researchers, etc. Diigo makes sharing information and resources simplistic and efficient. I really enjoyed the ease of the platform, it was easy to navigate both sharing and looking through resources. I can see myself using Diigo in the future for other researching tasks. Collaborating on research is really helpful because everyone brings their own perspective on life that can be eye opening when working together. 

    I never imagined that I would love blogging. I have always favored English and History over Science and Math. However, I would not call myself a good writer nor a creative writer. I have always wanted to strengthen and challenge my writing skills because I not only really enjoy writing but I find that writing plays a key role in life. Being able to communicate and articulate your feelings through words is a skill that is crucial in life. As students we begin our journey as writers from the minute we begin school. Teachers have us writing out our alphabet over and over until it becomes memory. My goal from blogging was to focus on being honest about what I was learning and experiencing and not writing what I knew my teachers wanted to read. Blogging is a more personal space that gives writers an opportunity to be themselves. I hope that one day, I can make another blog about being a teacher. I have learned from blogging that creating a community is really important for our schools and careers. Communities allow for engagement, interaction and sharing advice that can really encourage and support someone. I love being able to read my classmates blogs to see what they found helpful or difficult.

    Out of all of the Web 2.0 tools the one that I was always interested in was YouTube. Growing up we used YouTube for so much! We watched YouTube videos for fun, we watched instructional videos in class. I still use YouTube at least once a week for either, entertainment, instruction or educational purposes. For teaching, I think that showing YouTube videos can be a great way to educate and entertain students at the same time. However, it should be stated that YouTube is not a replacement for instruction or teachers, YouTube is merely an added resource to the classroom. I found that during the Covid-19 pandemic when schools were completely virtual, YouTube was a great source for my own learning. The beginning of the pandemic occurred when I was a junior in high school, taking 3 AP courses, AP US History, AP English Language and AP Psychology. I needed to be prepared for these upcoming AP tests with little daily instruction from my teachers. Therefore, I turned to YouTube to add another resource that would strengthen my learning and skills that I needed for the tests. As a future teacher, I think that YouTube will continue to be a helpful resource that students respond well to. YouTube is super accessible because it can be watched on any kind of device for completely free. I think it would be even helpful if as a teacher I uploaded my own videos to instruct students and encourage future and/or current educators.

Blog Journal 5

    Twitter is a great social media site for all kinds of communities to interact and share information among one another. Using twitter, you can find your interests and explore posts and creators that share similar interests, values, career fields, passions, etc. In my past experience with social media, I never used twitter for my personal social media. I always felt like in the past, I had trouble navigating and keeping up to date on the never ending posts. However, I realize now after using Twitter as a resource for EME, that it can be a great source for helpful tips, tricks and quick information. I followed my classmates, instructor, the FSU College of Education as well as a few other teacher social media creators. For my future career, it will be beneficial to follow the social media pages of my school district and community of teachers to stay updated. Following other teachers is a great way to be inspired, encouraged and supported in a demanding field. 

    The digital divide is a huge accessibility problem that needs to be addressed more. In my own personal experience, I saw how the lack of access to the internet and technology can put students a great disadvantage to their education and opportunities in the future. During the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, my high school had to face the problem of the digital divide. During the shutdowns of the schools across all of the United States and the world, schools had to figure out how to continue education without falling behind. The greatest resource during a world wide school shutdown was technology. Schools could live stream/zoom class meetings and use online resources and school websites to assign, track and grade student work and progress. However, this structure of school was not ready to implement in all areas of the world, even in the U.S. In my own school district, students did not have home access to stable internet or devices to complete school on the daily. Libraries and coffee shops which are known for having free WiFi for customers to use was no longer an option for students during the pandemic. Therefore, my school attempted to decrease the digital divide my providing school laptops to students in need and working with the local internet provider to pay for students home WiFi during the pandemic school shutdown. I myself, benefited from the school's support. My family was gifted free WiFi during this time because of our lower income. This made doing school and work from home not a stressful home environment or a burden on our source of income. The digital divide is much more common than you would think in our world of expanding technology. As a future teacher, it's important to understand the digital divide and the disadvantage many students face at home. Therefore, it is crucial that teachers implement and help their students gain experience and knowledge of technology while at school. Schools can offer so much access to technology that students do not have at home. 

    Technology is one of the greatest tools for classrooms. Technology opens up methods and resources of learning that would be limited without the use of technology. In my experience being a student, I have had to navigate and learn how to use several different academic software. My first high school primarily used Google software including Google Classroom, Docs, Drive, etc. While the other high school I attended used a software called Blackboard alongside Microsoft to aid in our learning.However, now at FSU, our primary academic software is Canvas. I preferred the functions and resources of Canvas opposed to other software I've used in the past. It is good to be well acquainted with several software so that as a student you can be best prepared for what it required of you and so that you can expand your technology skills and knowledge. As a future teacher, I can see myself implementing online resources such as Google classroom or Microsoft Office 365, both resources are very similar in the functions that they offer for student's use. These software can help students grasp technology and explore its use for academics.

Blog Journal 4

    From the ELA Technology Standards, I chose to review the 3rd grade standards for technology. As stated in previous blog posts, my goal is to teach 3rd grade so hopefully I feel confident in my abilities teaching the expected third grade curriculum and standards for technology. I felt that the most important standard that stuck out to me was the standard for search tools. The standard states that 3rd graders should be taught and able to demonstrate this skill through the use of search engines, hyperlinks, sidebars, key word searching, etc. I feel very confident in my skill in assisting my students with this standard. Searching for information is one of the biggest portions of my own personal use of the internet, with internet searching so much information is available to us that would not be as accessible. By teaching students how to properly, effectively and safely search on the internet, they can become experienced digital natives!

    On the CPALMS website, there is a variety of tools and resources available for teachers to aid student development and learning. I chose to explore the tools offered for third grade students. On the third grade English Language Arts section there is a resource called Verb Mania! Verb Mania is an interactive walk-through that guides students through English grammar and language skills! The program is a good resource for students because it takes a creative and fun approach to implementing learning. Students need real world connections and interactions to make learning valuable. Another great aspect of the program is that it is technology based, therefore it covers multiple targets of learning both technology and English skills. I also appreciate that the program is not geared for teachers but for the students themselves, Verb Mania would be a great tool to have students practice either individually or in small groups to strengthen their skills and give them more experience using technology in a school environment. In my classroom, I would love to set up stations where students can rotate through different activities, one of the them being Verb Mania. 

    We as digital natives do more internet searching each day than we realize. "Oh what's the name of that celebrity? Oh what does this mean? Oh where is that restaurant located?" We rely on search engines for much of our information. Because of this, we must be sure that we are being safe and effective searchers. The internet is full of lies and deceptions, therefore we must be able to know how and where to find information. It's crucial for teachers to present accurate and honest information to students. Teachers are often students first source of knowledge and information. Therefore, it is crucial that teachers are diligent searchers and that they frequently check their sources and information for accuracy. One of the tools that was presented this week was the minus tool for searching. You can eliminate searches by add - "whatever you don't want to see". This tool can help lower the amount of results that come up as well as eliminate results that are counterproductive to your search.