Professional Development Resource

Here is a professional development resource created by the University of San Diego: https://tinyurl.com/s9jt53nw This site has strategies on how to make professional development to be effective and engaging.

Blog 10

Some of the new skills that I have acquired from assignment 5 is disabling linear numbers and including action buttons. This is not necessarily a new skill, but I have learned more efficient ways to lay out several little boxes on a slide (I did a jeopardy type of game and putting all the boxes evenly was difficult until I added gridlines). Overall, this assignment was very fun, especially with the amount of customization I could add (technically the difficulty would not be that hard for an actual class as the book is typically taught in sixth grade- however my goal for the assignment was to also create it to make it difficult for my sister in high school). The only thing I didn’t like about this assignment, although it was self-inflicted for the reasons before, was that I had to reread the book to source some of the questions because there was not an online database for questions that were at the difficulty that I was striving for.

I think I will use data collection tools to survey how much students may know before I start teaching a unit. If I teach 6th grade world history, then the surveys would more informal and asking very vague questions. In comparison, if I teach high school world history, students are more likely to have a background, and so I can ask more specific questions in the survey before I teach a unit. Besides those uses, I might use it as a mid-way through the unit check-in to see how comfortable with the information the students are so I could circle back if needed.

A technology-related skill that I am interested in learning at some point is Excel (like understanding the functions and what they do more).  So, in terms of SMART goals, I want to be able to know 5-10 new Excel functions that work within the next 2 semesters so I can analyze data easier. I especially want to be able to do this because sometimes teachers get a huge portion of student data, and if I can efficiently analyze it, I can better serve my students in what areas they need support in. Some of these functions I will learn to analyze my Qualtrics data, but some I will need to do individual research to see what may be beneficial for me to learn as well as learning it.

 

Blog 8

When creating the webpage, I was able to learn more on how to work with new technologies that I was not previously familiar with. For instance, I learned a lot about the spacing blocks and how that can impact the overall look of the website, as well as how to edit and arrange various pre-made blocks (for example, moving around the images or the map). Throughout my webpage, I wanted to ensure that there was consistency within it, for instance I continuously copied and pasted the hex code so the color would stay consistent. I had to edit the colors of the texts a few times on the titles to ensure that the contrast of the words on the images was good enough to be easily readable. I really enjoyed the amount of freedom that I had over this assignment and that I could make my webpage look unique. A dislike is that Weebly was occasionally finnicky on when I attempted to adjust layouts which would occasionally annoy me until I would finally figure out how to adjust it.

Assignment 3 Webpage

QR codes can become a great addition for my future classroom. I plan on teaching secondary education, but depending on the specific age-group specific courses would depend on how I would utilize QR codes. They could be helpful for having the LMS (or LMS-adjacent, for example Canvas or Google Classroom) for the course so the students could have easy access to it. There could also be QR codes for commonly used resources that students can use; for instance, if I teach a high school AP class (or in general a course where the standards are different than the state curriculum), I could have a QR code for study guides, review videos, and the AP site. Overall, if I ever need students to go to a specific website inside or outside of class, I will most likely have QR codes so students can scan them instead of typing out the links.

Case:

Your school recently implemented a new educational technology initiative, providing each kindergarten classroom with a set of tablets loaded with literacy and numeracy apps. The administration encourages teachers to use the tablets daily to build digital literacy and track student progress through data analytics.

Ethical Dilemma: Should you reduce tablet use in your classroom to preserve play-based learning, even if it means going against the school’s technology goals, or should you follow the directive and maintain daily tablet sessions, even if you believe it may not serve your students’ holistic development?

Addressing the Case:

Since in today's age the assessments for these kids are typically on electronics, I would most likely allot some time for the educational technology each day, most likely 10 to 20 minutes at most. While learning via technology is not nearly as effective as teaching through play, unfortunately testing students' knowledge of the standards starts when they are roughly in kindergarten and if they are not familiar with the technology, the results could inaccurately label the kids' progress through the material. That being said, especially if there is practice daily, there should be minimal time spent daily on these technologies. 20 minutes would be by far the maximum that kids that young should have to do learning that is not beneficial to them, and the time spent should be closer to 10 minutes daily so there isn't that much time utilized that can be more beneficial developmentally to the kids.

Blog 5

 So far, blogging has been an interesting experience. I find it easier than discussion boards as I don't have to constantly look at and typically reply frequently to my peers' posts. I also enjoy the level of creativity that I am able to have when formatting my blog. The main thing that I have learned from blogging that I didn't know prior, is how to format and adjust the blog as I want.

Generally speaking, I am still not a fan of generative AI in the classroom. It prevents the user to reap the benefits of creating what they need to because you take away that level of work. For instance, I hear people saying that it is amazing for creating study guides, but for me personally, the most useful part about study guides is the process of creating them as that helps me analyze the information that I need to learn. Things are done certain ways for a reason, and when you take away the middle man of the hard work, you don't gain all of the benefits.

Some things worked really well while others didn't. The more vague a prompt was, the less accurate the results were. I had to go in and be specific to refine it. If I were to use it again, I would be more specific and describe in detail exactly what I want.

While there AI is here to stay, this is one of the tools that personally I see having more problems than solutions. If I end up utilizing it, I will use it in a complex generating way most likely set up like an experiment on AI. The current ethical arguments (brain atrophy and a rise of critical thinking, getting rid of crucial learning processes, environmental concerns, using other people's works whom didn't consent to it) far outweigh any use of AI for me in the way that it is currently used (typically to make life easier). For me, I definitely would avoid it and make it difficult to use elsewise as how AI is typically used now, and it would be a disservice to the people to use it.

Blog Post 4

My early experiences with using social media tools for my PLN has been helpful. I have found some teachers on Instagram as well as Pinterest boards that have helped with encapsulating who I want to be as a teacher. In this case using social media to connect with educators has allowed me to explore more about the different things that go into becoming a teacher and learn more about each aspect in greater detail. These platforms can then be helpful for my future career as it allows me to create more of a community, which can also show what is trending, so to speak, in the education world and how to navigate these trends.

 

As I have moved around plenty, especially in my elementary years, I have experienced a great range in the digital divide. I remember for instance that several of the schools that I went to had smartboards, but there were a few that didn’t and instead the teachers had to utilize a projector (although I remember my high school chem’s projector got so bad at one point that half the screen was useless) and the whiteboard and/or chalkboard when necessary. Some schools that I went to had one-for-one laptops for the students, while in some we were lucky to use the Chromebooks or in the younger years I-pads. Thanks to the classes and schools that were more digitally rich, I feel more prepared for college because I can navigate a word processor and use skills similar to that thanks to the access to these programs in my earlier education when available, but unlike some of my peers I take notes by hand as I couldn’t possibly type fast enough to keep up with lectures. Overall, when schools have the ability for students to make use of technology, especially allowing them to get hands-on with it, I feel it is crucial for students’ preparation for the current era of college where almost everything is online.

 

Collaborative annotation software such as Ruttl would be great for me to implement in my future classroom. Tools such as Ruttl allow for collaborative writings which can foster learning by allowing for discussions surrounding a text, while directly having the text right in front of the students allows for more specific discussions about specific parts of whatever thing the students are annotating. A lesson that I could use to implement this technology would be for students to annotate a historical source since I plan on teaching secondary social studies. I would first have to explain to my students how the tool is used and what the guidelines are for using this tool, but I feel as though students could get a lot out of analyzing sources if they can also hear what their peers are also saying.

Blog Post 3

It is interesting learning about copyright and fair use as I never was taught the legal aspect of copyright before in detail and what does and does not constitute as fair use. When developing my own instructional material, I will have to take into consideration this fact, because while legal action is practically unheard of, I don’t want to end up on the news on how I am getting sued by Disney for showing a movie. In terms of how I will address copyright and fair use with my students and their own work, since the youngest of kids I plan on working with is going to be in sixth grade, I will first go over the basics of what is and isn’t allowed before my students create their own works. It was interesting to learn that copyright starts as soon as a work is created. I am curious and wonder how far the limits of “fair use” are, especially as I see a surge of online videos doing the same video (sometimes nearly identical in structure, not just in concept) ideas over and over again and how there isn’t a deviation from most of these videos.

 

Decreased productivity is a huge issue when technology is brought into the classroom. A proposed solution is to limit the most of the distractions that students may utilize. For instance, these days when students have access to computers in the classroom, many schools have blocks on games and sometimes even have programs where teachers can monitor students from their own computer. That would be the best solution as long as it is paired with limiting technology when not necessarily necessary (for instance if it is a basic writing assignment, have the students use paper and pencil instead of computers) and save the technology for the things where technology is required for the activity (for instance a webquest).

 

 

When working on my Newsletter Design assignment I learned a lot about the formatting on Word. For instance, I knew how to make columns, but I didn’t know that I could create columns for only certain sections which I thought was cool. In the future when I get more proficient with Word, I hope to improve my newsletter by adding more design aspects that I was unsure how to do/that was even possible. These skills can help me with my future career of becoming a secondary teacher as even though I most likely will not be sending newsletters home, I can customize assignments and have more control over the document itself.

"Roman Coliseum" by lisafree54 is marked with CC0 1.0.

Blog Post 2

Overall, I have used some MS Word in the past, but not a lot to feel the most comfortable with it. I can utilize the basic functions and use it as a very basic word processor, but I have used it seldom in the past and am more so comfortable utilizing Google Docs. I remember using Google as my primary word processor since elementary school which has allowed me to get intimately familiar with the ins and outs of it. This is a sharp comparison to all of the unknowns that I still have with MS Word which is why I prefer Google Docs (dislike of the unknown and all of that).

The most meaningful ISTE for educators is the analyst aspect of it. I find this to be the most important to myself because if you can't analyze then you can't adapt which can make it difficult to provide the most effective instruction. I especially want to utilize topic 2.7.c: Use Data to Guide Progress as that is one of the key components to effective instruction: to analyze how students are receiving the information so that way I can adapt as needed. I am curious on what are some of the methods that are the most accurate but also the most efficient for student data collection and analysis.

With all of the talk about "digital native", I can't help but think that it is simply too broad to be accurate. More specifically, I find that no one person is fully a digital native and instead each and every person is a native of different aspects of the digital world. For example, many younger generations don't know how to efficiently type on a keyboard as that has not been a skill generally taught as older generations have assumed that generations like mine are "digital natives" and should inherently know how to type, which is fundamentally not true. But this doesn't just happen with typing; it also happens with simply using a word processor like MS Word. "Digital natives" are expected to already have a solid grasp on how to navigate word processors at younger ages (like middle and high school) without the explicit instruction of what certain aspects of word processors do. I do see that with future generations there might be some of this that they experience as well, and that certain aspects of the digital world they will have a better grasp on in comparison to me, much like how I have a strong grasp on how newer applications work in comparison to a generation or two behind me.