Final: Reflective Post

This class to me over all was very helpful and eye opening for me overall in seeing how much technology is truly embedded in to teaching. As for the text book I found this very useful and interesting. I am the type of person who doesn’t really keep textbooks because I feel that I wouldn’t use them anymore. But there is no chance that I will be getting rid of this textbook. The textbook is useful for technology tools, software's, hardware, and web based applications for classroom use.  This text book actually makes me excited for the future because I feel like it’s a gold mind for teachers.

As for the discussion and assignment parts of this class for the most part I enjoyed very much. I am in two online classes this semester, so I really wasn’t able to meet as many people as I would have in campus classes. But in these assignments and discussions I was able to communicate with others and still meet a new person or two. Which to me is always important because the people in your classes are so resourceful. You never know who you may meet and how they can help you succeed.

I cannot think of anything negative this course issued other than the one speed bump that occurred during one of my group projects. I think that most people take online classes because they enjoy doing work on their own, they find that it is the best way they can learn. And when we had communication issues with our group project it brought out the fact that we signed up for a course that we could do on our timing, based on the schedule our lives have for us. And having to try to get a hold of people, who are on a totally different schedule as us, puts us at a disadvantage from the start. I did not get mad over the complications because I simply understood that it was out of my power that my group members and I had separate schedules that differed completely. When the issue was brought to my attention I tried to move forward as swiftly as possible, and knew that was all I could do. When Professor Coleman asked us to use this as a life learning experience I think that there was some to learn, for each professor and student.

And last but not least, I cannot thank Professor Coleman enough for always understanding, and willingness to help me succeed in this course. From the very beginning, to the very end. (This post for example, I thought for some reason was due this upcoming Wednesday. And I came home at 11 pm from working all day and went to study for my final tomorrow and saw where Professor Coleman messaged me about my second chance.) Thank you so much! 

Creative Commons Photo By: hellojenuine

This course may require a lot of work and dedication, but with a professor who is as dedicated as Professor Coleman it makes students enjoy their school work and want to better themselves. I had many unexpected events this semester, which set me back, but I was able to conquer and not be conquered. That to me is my greatest lesson that I will carry with me as I pass through the milestone of graduating with my Associates Degree this semester. 

Milestones
Creative Commons Photo By: Ayca Karaoglan

References:

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.

Digital Blog Post #L

Hello Last Blog Post!!

Well I feel as though I've come a long way with blogger. Having to utilize not only this website but others to incorporate my learning in technological ways has most definitely broaden my horizons. It is always nice to see that the things your professors have you do are for a reason and will help you in your future. There is no doubt in my mind that the resources I used throughout this course will be continued to be used throughout my career.

As for the last chapter in this book there were a couple things that I found interesting. The first thing I would like to talk about is the Technology integration Story. The story talks about two teachers, one from a low-income rural district and another from affluent suburban system. Each of these teachers show a commitment to integrating technology into their class rooms. And I thought that this story was a good example that no matter how much funding is provided. If the technology is there, teachers should take advantage of it no matter how it looks or where it came from.

The second thing I noticed in this chapter is a key concept that technology integration and education change doesn’t just happen. The two things most needed to make them successful is teacher's mindset and multiple pathways. Teachers must have the mindset that technology can help students achieve educational goals. And teachers must also see the multiple pathways of how to most successfully use technology even with limited resources.

Creative Commons Photo By: bjmcdonald

Lastly one of the most important things probably said in this class is that teachers do not have to be "trendy", they just have to be trend-conscious. I think that teachers who do not integrate technology are afraid of change. But is they just open up their minds to change they can see that technology has easier/ more efficient ways to do many things. 

And I also made a Gliffy Diagram to show the different sites that teachers can stay trend conscious.

References:

Gonzalez, Ivana. 2016. Gliffy Diagram.

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.

Digital Blog Post #K

"The world is forever changing"
Creative Commons Photo By: mattjiggins

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Hello, hello, hello J

On this blog post I wanted to make a clear statement by saying "The world is forever changing". You can be sure of this statement because the world doesn’t pause. It doesn’t stop for a couple years so that we can learn about it in a text book. It's revolving and if we don’t keep up with the facts we will be left behind. It is important for us as teachers to not just rely on the textbooks that only get updated every couple years because of school budgets. We as teachers must go out into the world and find out ourselves what is going on so that we can teach our students. Now we are nothing close to news reporters. So where do we "go out and get" our information from? Well that’s where the world web comes from and more specifically tech tools like preselected websites for teachers or social bookmarking.

Technology allows teachers to gather information and store it in extremely better and more efficient ways than ever before. When a teacher would want to reference something before they would have to go through their piles of books if actually owned by them and search individually for their reference. Now referencing back to things are just at the tips of their fingers or a search bar per say.

Creative Commons Photo By: James Cridland

Another note to this wonderful technology world that I made before is that information is constantly changing. Technology allows for teachers to electronically be noticed when information changes or comes about. This provides busy teachers a great system of notifications of new information.

Technology is efficient in so many ways, for example: before when teachers would want students to refer to several articles or websites they would print each out for the students to read. Now teachers have access to WebQuest, Virtual Field Trips, and Videoconferencing all of these which allow students to view websites and articles that teachers provide them with out all the hard copies. Which usually the teachers keep because they have to use the same set of hard copies for their next class. Online field trips allow students to work where ever they have access to the internet. 

And I also made a Gliffy diagram as well about tech tools 6.1 and 6.2. 

References:

Gonzalez, Ivana. (2016) Gliffy Diagram.

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.

Digital Blog Post #J

Hello Professor Coleman,

I'm happy you gave me a chance to turn in this blog post late because I wouldn’t have ever gotten to reading Chapter 11, in the depths that I did with that extra week.

The story "A New Teacher Uses Digital Portfolios" opens up so many thoughts for me as a student and for me as a teacher. When I was in grade school I was that student who didn’t do well at studying for a test. I did my best when teachers had something for me to go off of or when they were "reviewing" but really allowing us the chance to go over what we learned in depth and from a different perception. Although Mrs. DuBose (the retiring teacher in the story) was an exceptional teacher, Tracy was able to recognize that her assessment methods weren't successful for every student. Tracy was able to engage all students with the power of technology and to me this was a key point for this semester as a whole. Most students and teachers are used to the same ole same, and it shows very much so. It is very common to see students disengage and it is a tremendous problem that needs to be fixed. Students should be taught that learning is fun, learning is something that doesn’t have to be a set standard. Learning is something you can do freely in ways that you choose to learn so that you are pushed to your highest ability. The main point that needs to be made is whether or not a student has truly grasp the information and not just memorized it for the time being.

Digital Teaching Portfolios is a great tech tool for a teacher to have their entire career at the click of a button. To me teaching is a very important job that only very important/special people should have. I believe that teachers are one of the biggest attributors to society because they teach the future. We as grade school teachers spend over 1000 hours in a year with students. In total there are around 8500 hours in a year. That means roughly 1/8th of a year in a child's life is spent with a teacher. May not be a huge chunk but it is One person spending 1/8th of your child's time a year. Just one person. This teacher gets to know your child on a personal basis and teaches them they can be successful. Teaches them that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or even a teacher themselves. Teachers' makeup the basis of what our future leaders are made up of. All of this carries great importance and teachers should be able to show people their successes at the press of a button.

As for student portfolios I think this gives students a prime opportunity for learning enhancement. Students are able to go over past material and think about it from a different perspective. They are given more time to review and reflect what was to be learned. A portfolio should allow for examining the work that has been done, identifying the strengths and weaknesses, and making plans to improve or change certain things in the future. Reflection is key!

Creative Commons Photo By: Rubatacchini

References:

Gonzalez, Ivana. Canva Picture. 

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.

Digital Blog Post #I

Hello to Chapter 4 Everyone,

First off this chapter jumps into academic content (what to teach). Like the book says of course teachers have to follow state and national guidelines, but these guidelines do not give teachers lessons word for word. And no teacher should be able to teach word for word because not every student can learn the way that lesson is presented. Teachers should be able to take guidelines and make something that is individually equipped to teach their set of students. And this is where technology can come in at such a useful time. It is well known that teachers, of all people, do not have the most time on their hands. Technology gives teachers a gateway to lessons that have already been worked up and just need a personal touch. Of course new/original lessons must be made up occasionally by the individual teacher, but who says you can put your own spin to someone else's lesson. The World Wide Web is filled with sites for teachers to find and display lessons.

Second it jumps into teaching methods, goals, and procedures (how to teach). While a teachers answer the question "What to teach", the can find themselves finding out their "how to teach". For every teacher their goals should be why they are performing the lesson. Methods are the ways that teachers relay the lesson to the students. Procedures are done during the lesson by teachers scheduling and grouping students and their decision of how much time will be spent on a lesson. These all support lesson development which is supported by different types of technology such as:

• ·         Presentation software
• ·         Visual thinking software
• ·         Web-based diagram- and flowchart-making tools
• ·         Teacher- developed websites
• ·         Threaded discussions and email
• ·         Podcasts, blogs, and wikis
• ·         Interactive software
• ·         WebQuests
• ·         Intelligent tutoring systems



Creative Commons Licence Photo By: Terry Freedman

Two cool Tech Tools I saw were web resources and apps for lesson planning and teaching. Which hits back to what I was saying about teachers not having much time on their hands this opens up some much more approaches. Some teachers feel as if they have little time or experience for other approaches and these resources show teachers examples and gives them a feel for what they're going for. I made a diagram of these in Gliffy but you can only save it as a link if you do not pay for the subscription.

Resources:

Gonzalez, Ivana. (2016) Gliffy Diagram. '

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.

Blog Post #H

Just a brief update to where we are in this semester there is 9 days till Halloween, 32 days until Thanksgiving, 50 days till our final, 64 sleeps till Christmas, and 74 days until the New Year. And in case you were wondering I did not count these days from the top of my head I used the great device of TECHNOLOGY…

Okay so with the opener out of the way here is my feedback from this week's chapter.

For the most part any teacher can say that their students are diverse and learn in different ways. Technology is just as diverse and can teach in many different ways as well. And that is why Technology, Teaching, Students, and Learning go hand and hand so well! The technologies listed in the book are just a small part of what students can take advantage of:

• ·         Handcrafted videos
•       Video sharing and hosting websites
• ·         Webcasts
• ·         Digital storytelling and digital art making
• ·         Digital cameras
• ·         Digital video recorders
• ·         Digital video editing software
• ·         IPods
• ·         Podcasts and vodcasts

Multimedia is combining multiple media such as: text, data, voice, picture, and video- in a single application or technology. This allows teachers to take a lesson and distribute it into every type of learners way of learning whether they be visual, auditory, read-write, or kinesthetic. This to me is GOLD. And when I reference Gold I don’t mean that plain ole Gold. 

"Plain Ole Gold"
Creative Common Photo by: AJC1

I mean the beautiful Gold. Because when a teacher can teach one lesson that speaks to all of their students that is just beautiful to me.

"The Beautiful Gold"
Creative Commons Photo by: Moyann_Brenn

As said in the book there are Advantages and Disadvantages of PowerPoint and just like power point I think these points can apply to many other media presentations so I figured I would add to them.

Advantages:

• gives short key points 
• gives a visual for class presentations 
• easy and available to most computers
• many media points can be combined like pictures, text, charts, and graphs
• if allowed students can learn to present themselves
• students get to learn from other students

Disadvantages:

• points may not be useful when less in depth
• students may tune out during presentations by students or teachers
• teachers must spend time learning the material before presenting it
• Presentation may be so busy that students have a hard time understanding
• if students present themselves they may not grasp the whole concept that was meant to be learned
• students may come off hard to understand when presenting

All in all I believe that the Advantages of being able to use technology for teaching out ways the disadvantages because of technology being so versatile.

References: 

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.

Digital Blog Post #G

Hello Everyone,

My last Post was almost a month ago and man do I miss y'all!!! Or at least blogging to anyone who is reading this… Hey Professor Coleman, thanks for being my number one fan!!!

So let's get started. To start off with such a powerful passage from the book I will say that Multicultural Education is something that I admire dearly in our country. We have come such a long way from our segregated ways and it’s a beautiful thing to witness. In my opinion, and I'm sure in others, with our multicultural education now we are able to produce the best of the best students all and all. Everyone has an equal chance at learning and succeeding. On top of educating by paper we are now able to extend our teaching by using technology. Students are able to comprehend diversity in the greatest of ways because technology allows them to get a better perspective.

My next point I want to hit is DI and UDI. These two ways of education in the book seem to be focusing on students with special education needs. But to me this is important through out every classroom. Every student has a certain way of learning and it is important for teachers to provide a curriculum that allows students to soak up as much information as they can. As said in the book creating unique learning experiences for individual students is not quick or easy to do during a fast moving and demanding school schedule. But If teachers set a aside time to implement at least one to two unique learning experiences they will in my opinion have more success within their students.

Putting my age out there… haha… In my early grade school days we were doing away with chalk boards and integrating whiteboards. Soon after this move someone came up with the smartest idea ever. Well at least to me it was at the time and still now. Interactive Whiteboards (Tech Tool 10.1) are very effective for students who respond well to visual, auditory, and hands-on learning activities. Being able to have worksheets, textbooks, and PowerPoints on a interactive white board gives students a more a hands on experience. This tool saves time for teachers when writing notes and also is very valuable to students who miss class and are able to download and print slides from the whiteboard. This bit of technology has been used since I was in first grade all the way up to my third year in college it is so versatile! Anyone can use it and learn....

Creative Commons License Photo By: Mrs ENill

Overall this chapter showed many ways that teachers are able to insert technology to help benefit the diverse society of education. My main goal as a teacher is to help each child the best that I can, and there is no doubt in my mind that today's technology will help me succeed that goal.

References:

Gonzalez, I. (2016, October 16). Ivana Gonzalez. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from https://worditout.com/word-cloud/1901672 

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.