Digital Blog Post # H - Chapter 9

    Becoming a teacher with this generation, technology takes a big toll on thee kids. You want to use technology inside the classroom in order to engage the students on the lesson being taught. There are way different ways nowadays to use it inside the classrooms. It seems like each day a new type of technology is being produced. Kids today know how to use technology better than adults.
    Ever since PowerPoint came out, it's been used into the classroom to teach the students a lesson while the teacher played the slides. With these generation, there are many tools that are classified as the nest-generation presentation tools. A lot of students are familiar with Prezi which allows teacher and students to create visual displays. Prezi allows you to zoom in and out throughout the presentation, show animations, more clearer key points, and allows student to view it whenever they need to. Another web 2.0 presentation tool is called Animoto which allows teachers to use video clips, pictures, sound, and text to expand the learning for the students. Students can also create short video presentations. In Glogster, this web tool allows teachers to create digital posters with the use of images, sounds, and graphic with text. This digital poster tool can be emailed, put on a blog, or even a classroom website.
     Another way for students to interact with the lesson that the teacher is teaching is by using videos with students. Teachers can use the pause and rewind effect in order to stop the video talk about it as a class then go back and start the video. Another concept is the writing responsive where the students take notes about the video being played by the teacher. Sometimes teachers will use a video first and then a lesson right after in order to inform the students on the next lesson and what it's all about. A great way for students to inteprt the video differently is by turning of the sound and having them come up on their own on what's going on in the video. You can do this too by turning off the picture and just having the sounds play from the video.
     This next piece of technology helps with teachers and students who are in Kindergarten, first and second grade. It's called Alphabet books which allows the students a way to practice spelling patterns, letter sounds, vocabulary words, and reading skills. With this tool, students are able to create their own alphabet books using photographs and hand-drawn illustrations.
   The comic I made shows two students wanting to use different presentation tools for their project using technology. One student chose Prezi because she gets to use her creativity skills, while the other student chose Powerpoint because it's easy and he doesn't want to put that much work into it. My comic below, I'm not to sure if you will be able to read it, but it says the following:
Teacher: Which ways you will be using to present your project using technology?
Student: Prezi because it's fun to use.
Student: Powerpoint because it's easy.

     The following video is a middle school teacher who explains why Prezi is great to use in the classroom. She states like PowerPoints are boring to students and I agree with her. With Prezi, you can make slides more eye-popping and more appealing to the viewer as well. It allows the students to get excited about learning more. Allowing students to create their own Prezi makes it fun for them versus using PowerPoints because you can create it your own way and not use limited elements that PowerPoint offers. Prezi is a way for students to present their Prezi to the class to show off what they did with their creativity by using Prezi.

Sources:

• Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
• Assistive Technology for Challenged Kids. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2015. 

Digital Blog Post #G - Chapter 10

In order to get your students engaged in learning being taught inside your classroom, you need to gain their attention with something they are familiar with. Technology is a good source to get their attention because with their generation, technology is becoming more and more popular with younger children.
Technology is becoming a universal design for learning, also known as UDL. UDL is the application of universal design principles to educational settings. (pg. 250 par.6) The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) described UDL in terms: Multiple means of representation- various ways to learns for acquiring information and knowledge, Multiple means of expression- alternate ways for learns to demonstrate what they know, and Multiple means of engagement- a way for learners' interests that offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation. Using these terms for UDL is required to get the full advantage of using technology inside the classroom as a 21st century teacher.

When using technology inside the classroom there different accommodations you need to consider so each and every student is understanding and involved with the learning inside the classroom. The first one is low-tech accommodation which changes are made easily, inexpensively, and not having to apply digital materials to use inside the classroom. The second is mid-tech accommodation which involves substantive shifts in organization and learning the curriculum that may use digital materials inside the classroom. The last one is high-tech accommodations which changes associated with the integration of computers and other information technologies used inside the classroom.

Through school, students are required to write. Teachers use a writing process that is easier for students to get starting on writing. Students learn this writing process in elementary school and will continue to use this process throughout their life with school. To begin the writing process, you must prewrite/ brainstorm what your topic is going to be on (You can use a spider web to brainstorm ideas). Next, is drafting, you begin to strat writing and just using your brainstorming ideas for guidance. Once when drafting is done then you want to revise your writing for any mistakes you have made. When the revising is done then you want to edit the mistakes you have found in your writing. Once when editing is done then you publish your writing and your writing is complete.

The following video below, Lead instructor Rex Moody talks about how he uses technology inside his classroom and how in influences on his students learning. He mentions how to go into marketing they expect you know how to use up-to date technology and he's getting to the point that it's important to use technology inside the classroom so students are aware and know how to use the technology that is in their generation.


Sources:

• Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
•  Teaching, Technology, and Student Success. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2015. 

Digital Blog Post #F - Chapter 8

Becoming a 21st century, using technology should be included in the classroom for many reasons. One of these reasons is to use technology to communicate not only with the students, but as well as teachers to students. There are many ways to communicate with technology and some examples are the following: email, teacher or classroom websites, blogs, online discussions, and wikis. Some of these or more reliable than others, but it all depends all the accuracy of it being used. When using technology to commutate it's important to have synchronous and asynchronous communication. If students are wanting feedback more quicker then meeting face to face or a phone conversation would be the best way to go. Where as asynchronous communication isn't as quick, such as blogs, emails, and online discussions where you have to wait for a response which could take awhile to get one.

When using technology as a way to interact with the students and for them to get engaged with learning, using a website or a blog would be a good way. What exactly is the difference between a blog and website? A website is more of a formal tone of like a news report and more direct and straight forward. A blog is constantly updated with recent information and would be used to go more in depth with a topic.

Creating a teaching blog, you want to consider the following: ways students can learn, student/family communications, and professional networking. When you create a blog for your classroom, you want to make sure you include ways for the students to engage more with the lesson being taught (videos, games, workshops....etc). You can also create a way where not only students can get involved, but as well as the parents. You can get the parents involved by posting assignments that parents can help their children with or post the students progression so parents are able to see. Lastly, you want to be able to create a network where you can allow other teachers to view and get ideas. Other teacher's can also but their opinions into it to help you succeed. After all, teaching is a great profession that you can get ideas from each other.

The following video is a teacher that is encouraging other teachers to use online learning inside their classroom. She mentions that kids nowadays are more prone to technology since it's booming like crazy in this generation, so why not use something kids can relate to? You want your students to look forward to going to school and eager to learn and with using technology in the classroom will help more students to get eager to learn and to go to school.

Good luck with my quiz!
https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/894d32b8-e031-4786-bdfa-2046b0cdc3cd

Sources:

• Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
• Teachers use social media to encourage online learning. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2015.

Digital Blog Post # E - Chapter 7

Becoming a 21st century teacher, it's very important to engage your students with learning and the the best way to do so is by using technology. George Polya created essential steps for solving mathematical problems. The essential steps are understanding the problem (You want students to be able to understand what the question is asking from them and see what they already know), Using problem-solving strategies (You want students able to break down the problem), and checking results (You want students able to check their results so they can see their outcome and how they got it to make sure they understand it correctly). Since technology is becoming more and more popular, teachers must use online software selection resources. There are four main ones and they are the following: Edudemic directory (allows teachers to review a wide selection of educational technology resources like laptops and tablets), entertainment software rating board (the way things are rated for a section of ages), Evalutech (a review source for teachers and families), and sttopbadware.org ( an invasive software which allow teachers to control what students have access too). When using technology inside the classroom, you can use games with learning but if you do so it's important to use four strategies. These four strategies will help out not only the teacher, but as well as the students. You want to minimize the use of games that teach isolated skills (a reward system), scrutinize games that function solely on points that won or lost ( they can take a long time), discuss games and their content (You want students to understand why they can and cannot play certain games), and play games together ( can play games together as a school activity). This YouTube video I have attached is a few years old, but it still gives good information on why it's important for 21st century teachers to use technology in education. These students are students in 21st century and you want to be able to teach them in ways they can actually understand by doing instead of just watching. Nowadays, there is so many ways you can use technology inside the classroom. It could be used to go on Google Maps to show what China looks like to playing a game on the computer to allow the student to get more practice on a lesson. The one fact on the video that popped out to me was that in 2016, the most speaking English country is going to be China... That's just strange and not right since our language in the United States is English.

Sources: Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. A Vision of K-12 Students Today. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2015.