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.