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.