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.