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/