Final: Reflective Post

    This education class has been the best one I've taken. I learned so many forms of technology to use inside of my classroom when I become a teacher. The new technology for education allows students to enhance their learning experience. With technology, students are more eager to learn then before without technology.
    The textbook for this course was very interesting and very easy to understand.I enjoyed the lesson plans at the end of each chapter. It provided tons of examples of technology use inside classrooms. 
   The discussions for this class allowed me to see what my classmates thought about the certain topic that was assigned. I really enjoyed the activities, such as making a lesson plan with a group, Wikispace, and webquest. While I was doing these assignments, it made me excited to become a teacher. I learned so much from these two assignments and I know I will be able to succeed using webquest and Wikispace in my very own classroom one day. The lesson plan helped me understand and know the basic guidelines needed to make a lesson plan. This will come in handy since lesson plans are a must. 
   When creating a Webquest, you want to make sure you complete the following: Stage setting, task, process, evaluation, and conclusion. You want to have these steps so you can succeed for student learning essential Internet literacy skills of information retrieval and analysis.
Wikispace is a blog site that is collaboratively edited and maintained by a group of people. Wikispace allows students and teachers to: use technology to meaningful ways in the classroom, collaborate with peers and colleagues, synthesize and explain with content they are learning through written expression and different forms of multimedia expression, publish their writing and other creative or science work, and receive feedback about their learning both inside and outside the classroom.
   Both of these sites are excellent ways to bring technology inside your classroom and sharing this experience with the students. Who knows the next form of technology they will invent for teaching...

The following video is about how teaching has changed over the last forty years with technology. It's crazy to see how fast technology has been involved and improved learning for students within these last forty years.





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.

 How Has Teaching Changed? (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2015,

Digital Blog Post #L -Chapter 12

      Technology is everywhere we look. Kids nowadays have it so much easier with all this technology they can use for educational purposes. With becoming a 21st century teacher, you want to have technology inside your classroom. Kids are more fascinated and become more involved when technology is involved. There is many different educational websites and as along with technology that works best inside the classroom. Using technology inside the classroom involves methods on how to introduce technology to your students.

    When you begin to introduce technology inside your classroom, there are stages to do so. These stages of technology integration are divided into five stages The first stage is entry stage. In this stage, you begin to learn about information technologies. Stage two is adoption. In this stage, you will "blend technology" inside of your classroom without making any significant changes to putting technology inside your classroom. Stage three is adaptation. In this stage, you will fully integrate "new technologies into traditional classroom practices".You will now begin to use technology everyday in your classroom. Stage four is appropriation. In this stage, You will be able to use technology easily and confidently inside your classroom and as well as your professional work. Stage five is invention. In this final stage, you will begin to experiment with many instructional patterns and ways relating to students. Once when you made it to the final stage, you will be able to determine the best form of technology to use inside your classroom to engage your students with learning.

   When using one-to-one laptop computing (every student has their own computing device to use in school) inside your classroom, it's important to understand the three interconnected development. The first one is new machines. Technology is booming like crazy and many companies keep coming out with new and improved technology. The second one is to use in higher education. Many higher education require you to know the basic of using laptop computing devices.Finally, the third one is research studies. Research shows that laptops positively affect student learning. Laptops are a key factor in learning because they are portable and easy to use anywhere.


   Alan November who is a technology educated came up with two ways to be able to distinguished between people using technology to automate or informate everyday activities. Automating is when someone uses technology daily in their everyday life. Most people nowadays use a form of technology everyday, it could be from your phone, tv, to car. Informating is when technology changes an activity by fundamentally redesigning and refining it. This stage would be if an older person was just introduced to technology.

    The following video is from The Ellen Show. It's pretty cute and funny how she introduces the first technology to these kids. They had no idea what any of them was, expect for the phone and they said it was over 100 years old. Kids nowadays probably have no idea what a house phone was or what even dial-up was. I hope you enjoy this video as well! It made me laugh!


 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.
• Ellen Introduces Kids to the Technology of Yesterday. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2015, 

Digital Blog Post #K - Chapter 6

With becoming a teacher in the century that we are in, we have access to so many different types of technology that we are able to use inside of our classrooms. It's truly amazing the impact technology can have on our student learning. With technology, students are able to gain more knowledge because this allows they to have hands on assignment that they can use. Students nowadays are able to help teachers with technology since they use technology at school and their home.

Some of the technology that we can use inside their classroom I have never even heard of. All these different ways to use technology has engaged more and more students inside and outside of the classroom into the learning process. Web Quest is an excellent form of technology that students can use. Web Quest are designed and guided by the teachers. Students have access to these Web Quest whenever they need them. When creating a Web Quest for your students, you want to include the following:

• Stage setting- introduction made by the teacher before the students begin the activity.
• Task- list of activities that students are expected to do during the Web Quest.
• Process- Step-by-step instructions that students will follow on the quest.
• Evaluation- How the teacher will evaluate the students quest.
• Conclusion- Summary of the learning goals that were embedded in the quest.

With technology becoming popular in the academic learning, there are educational websites that are designed for the teachers and students. There are six types of these education websites. I chose to pick three out of these six. The first one is lesson plan websites. This website is the most widely used type of educational website. This site provides lesson plans as well as activities that go with the lesson plans. The second one is skills practice websites. This website offer subject- specific activities for students at all grade levels. Most teachers use this website by assigning students in small groups on the classroom computers so they can work directly with other students. The third one is exploration and discovery websites. This website engaged students in online explorations on the topic of their interest. An example of this website is National Geographic Kids.

When using websites inside of your classroom, you want to make sure these educational websites have the following features: Interactivity, exploration, and engagement. Interactivity allows students to interact with online content by viewing demonstrations. Exploration are opportunities to explore questions and topics that seem interesting to the student. Engagement are by using different ways to engage the students either it be from a story-line, interesting characters, or a controversial issue/idea.

The following is a quiz that I created. Enjoy!

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/58f69f60-c193-4686-b91e-a9ae2dc2985f

The following video is a few minutes long. The video is students telling what a Web Quest is and how much they like using it inside the classroom. When I was these students age, I didn't have Web Quest and I wish I did because it's a great source for students to work together or by themselves. Web Quest allows students to go at their own pace and to explore the website on their own.


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.
•  What's A Webquest? (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6e46g_QcnY 
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Digital Blog Post # J- Chapter 11

     In the 21st century, technology has been developed like crazy. For us teachers, it's important to use technology inside our classroom for a new way to engage our students into the lesson being taught by us teachers. You want to be one of those teachers that are updated with the newest form of teaching with using technology. There are many different ways you can do so. The following are just a few out of the thousands that are out there.
    The first one is creating a digital portfolio. Just like everything else out there, there are advantages and disadvantages, but we are going to be focusing on the advantages of a digital portfolio. They are accessible wherever you are and whenever it's convenient for you to access it. Digital portfolios are portable thanks to technology. These digital portfolios allows students to express their creativity any way they would like to. This gives them a way to express their ideas and accomplishments in ways that fit their personality. With us being in the 21st century and allowing students to use digital portfolios, this allows students to get a technological self-confidence while using technology.
   Not all teachers in the 21st century will agree to use technology inside of their classroom, but the teachers that do, it allows students to give feedback to the teacher on a certain lesson they taught. They can do this by creating a teacher survey that allows students to take after a lesson to show their thoughts and opinions on the lesson. By students taking this survey, it allows teachers to get feedback on things they could add in or improve for the next year for new students. Surveys also allow students to tell what they already know and what they would like to know more about. It's a great way for students and teachers to see what can be learned and what could be improved later down the road.
   This next form of technology that is becoming more and more popular in this century is using clickers to take tests. Clickers are a remote control looking device that allows students to take tests and gives the teachers their response. At the end of the test, teachers can post the results so students can see how well they did. I remember in 8th grade in my history class, we took our test using similar devices. I loved using these as a student because I was able to use technology inside the classroom while taking a test. It makes test taking more fun for not only students, but as well as teachers. Student engagement are increased while using these clickers because it gives them a way to express their opinions using electronics.

    The following is my comic I made to show clickers being used inside the classroom to take a test. As you can see, the teacher and students love using the clickers to take test.






    The video below is a teacher from Idaho who tells why using technology inside her classroom has improved students learning. This video is a great example to show that students are more engaged in learning with technology, but as well as the teacher. Using technology gets the students and teacher involved with the lesson being taught. Using technology increases student scores and decreases students missing out on lessons in class by sleeping.






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.
•  Improving Classroom Management Using Digital Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2015. 

Digital Blog Post # I- Chapter 4

Technology is a major thing that is used in classrooms today. With us being in the 21 century, it's important to engage our students with technology because it's around us everywhere we go. No matter if you're in the car, at a store, school, or at home, we can't get away fro technology. Now there are teachers out there that prefer not to use technology inside of their classroom, but what good does that do with the students learning? It doesn't because students are so aware of technology and how it's used today.
When you're coming out with you teaching goals, methods, and procedures on how to teach your students, you want to use technology. You can use technology in so many different ways. When you develop a lesson plan you can use the following to help engage your students into the lesson being taught. Any presentation software (such as Prezi), a flowchart-making tools (it gives students ways to visual see a lesson),blogs (a way for teachers and students to communicate), and interactive software's (ABC mouse, BrainPop). These are just a few ways to use inside the classroom.
With teaching, you must use a form of way to be able to give the students learning assessments based on what students have learned from your lesson that you taught. You can do this is numerous ways with technology. You can use electronic tests and quizzes (allows students to take test on a device, such a Ipad, phones, and computers.), gradekeeping software (to keep tract of student grades), online surveys (allows students to take part of a survey so the teacher knows what they learned and what they didn't learn), and learning performance rubrics (lets the students know how well they did.)
Once when you have a lesson plan developed, you want to create objectives so the students know a brief summery of what the lesson is all about and what they should expect. In your lesson plan, you want to be able to answer five questions. The questions are the following: Who does the lesson plan involve, what is the lesson plan going to do, when will this lesson plan how and how long, how often and how much will this lesson plan benefit students, and how will the lesson plan be measured or evaluated based on the students.
The following is my Prezi I created to give a brief summary of what I just explained above. I hope you enjoy! I'm still learning how to use Prezi!
Below my Prezi is a video I attached that actually shows how technology does make an impact on students today in the classroom and at home. Technology allows students to do homework or assignments right at home and not having to worry about forgetting things at school or even losing homework or the assignments.




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.
•  Educational Technology in the Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2015. 

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.