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     I think that data collection or surveys using things such qualtrics, can be very useful to a teacher. As a teacher you can learn a lot about your students by asking them some general questions. Such an exercise on elementary school students would help them become knowledgeable on certain traits that they have. I would use it with my english class of second graders to help them write better essays, and become a more connected community as a classroom. Excel would help store the answers to the surveys and make them more accessible in the future.

     Something that I found interesting from viewing my classmates' blog is how involved they got with the course assignments. I am just taking this class for my minor but most of my peers are majoring in education. So the things we did on the blogs like the ILP, Diigo exercises, and the plenty resources we found will help them in their future careers.  I enjoyed reading and discovering the different ways they approached each assignment that would further help them.

     One technology skill I would love to learn next, involves a way better to use excel. I seen a tweet recently, that it was possible to translate on excel into different languages. I think that learning this would expand my mind to the additional benefits not always seen or used with excel. Also, by being able to use excel in different ways I can better do some of my projects for school. I intend to figure this out by researching how to do it online.

ILP “Participation” – FSU's Digitech Exhibition

For my second ILP, i visited the Digitech Exhibition on campus. They had some really cool inventions and I picked the four that I liked the most to discuss. I hope you enjoy it!!
Watch my Voicethread with the link below:
https://voicethread.com/share/12391753/

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     "The Flipped Classroom" is a different type of blended that switches the traditional classroom learning process. It moves instructional content to an online forum, that students do outside of the classroom. Then activities such as homework that reinforce the content are done in the classroom. This might be a better way of the classroom but may create a digital divide for students who do not really have access to the internet.
     Open educational resources are easily accessible resources used my other teachers for teachers. They even the playing field by making it easier for new teachers to get information. Edutopia.org is a type of site that can help educate people on different open educational resources (OER). The site first gives a definition of OER and how they can be beneficial to students. Then the site gives you twelve different types of OER that you can work with.
     The first powerpoint was mainly just a review of the skills i already new on powerpoint. I enjoyed making each slide uniform for a coherent slideshow. I did not like having to record the powerpoint as a movie. Not only do i not like the sound of my voice played back but it takes me forever to perfect it even with a script. The second powerpoint assignment really taught me how to use powerpoint in a different way. I never knew how to add buttons in order to make a slide that did not move in the manual order. I enjoyed adding the buttons as a way to maneuver through the slideshow. What I did not like was how many slides I had and picking the specific pictures for my slideshow.

College Experience Survey

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b96j7BSlTKvd7M1

Professional Development

Diigo is a very helpful open educational resource. We used it in class numerous times to help each other find various resources. It can be useful in my classroom for me to show my students how to accurately get information from different web pages. It can help me with team members by allowing me to annotate resources i find and showing them what i think about them, without being face to face. I can also use the blog feature on it to help with my individual professional efforts to get feedback from others.
I can use powerpoint to help students gain knowledge by presenting them with information. I can use it to help them with comprehension by asking questions throughout it to make sure they are understanding the lesson. I can teach them about application by using various types of examples in my powerpoint. I can make sure the ideas expressed are clear by restating them in different ways throughout the powerpoint. I can use smart art throughout the powerpoint to synthesize information. At the end of my powerpoint i can have a mini quiz that will evaluate how well they learned the information.
Technology is beginning to infiltrate every section of our lives. It often falls on the shoulders of teachers to educate their students about the constant changes in technology. So it is important that they have resources that constantly update them about these ongoing changes. Such a resource is teacherhub which is displayed in the screenshot below. This will help a teachers professional development by providing them with a network of people who share the same goals.

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     I have used twitter personally for many years but honestly I never thought about how my teachers could use it to stay connected with teachers and other things within their discipline. I have been using twitter for education in two classes. One is english and I tweet ten times a week about things related to that class. The other is for this class and I really like being able to ask questions. Another benefit from using twitter is that I can relate to others more easily because we are all tweeting things about the same class we are taking. I am not expieriecning any issues with twitter.
     This was my first time making a website with weebly so I learned how to work that, and it was a lot easier than the program I used last time. but i do not remember the name if it. The last time I made a website it was a lot simpler, just pictures and words. This time I embedded a creative commons and a google calendar. I actually like making websites because they are a public work of art that everyone can see. I do not like that sometimes there are too many options because I can get stuck on a minor detail. Next time I might be able to find more pictures to make my page more full. I will include a picture of my homepage at the end of this blog. Click this link to visit my website.
     Today in class, we working in Diigo and looking at different assistive and adaptive technologies and how they could be used to support different impaired learners. I found a resource that discussed how assistive technologies could help children with autism. Certain technology could help them better communicate what they want and get used to a routine. The only time I used any type of tools was in the TechSandbox and I played a game that would teach coding on an iPad (picture at the end). In the classroom I can see that if there were too many students it may get hard for me to help everyone. I may be able to avoid this by allowing them to work in groups on the iPads until they were comfortable and then transitioning to individual use.

Technology (#6)

After a long google search i finally found a school's website that would let me access various teachers pages. It is funny that the search was long because the school's website that i ended up on was Leon High School, which is right here in Tallahassee, FL. The visited various teacher websites to pick the best to talk about but also to note the similarities i seen between them. I found Mr. Don Coon's website to be very helpful, he teaches an introductory science class to high school students called, Integrated Science. He like most of the other teachers had a bio page, an important documents page, and a student resources page. The bio page of every teacher gives a detail of who they are, where they got their degree, and what or how they like to teach. The important documents page, had documents that may have been passed out in class such as the syllabus, students could download and print these documents for their own use. The student resource page has links to outside web pages that students may use to help them on assignments or even to get further knowledge, such as Nasa.gov. Mr. Coon also had a calendar on his website filled with day to day assignments so that students could easily find out what they missed due to an absence. Pictures of Mr.Coon's website can be found at the end of the post.

As a teacher, I envision myself using technology to create a better learning environment for students. Technology not only gives us the opportunity to create assignments more efficiently, but grade and give feedback effectively to each student. This additionally helps the students in their own learning process. Today’s technology is so advanced that the time for grading or creating assignments can be cut in half, work harder not smarter they say. Students can also take advantage of using technology to learn at home because they can go at their own pace and use other technological resources to answer any questions or concerns they may have regarding their lessons that I, as the teacher, won’t be there with them to answer.

There was honestly so many different types of technology in the TechSandbox, that it was overwhelming. One of the tools that stuck out to me was the 3D printer because i had never seen one in person. The 3D printer could print real life examples of different things so that students can analyze and describe them more accurately. For example, teachers can print a map of a place their students are studying and use it to show them a physical version of the map. There were also these pens, that were portable 3D printers. Of course the things you can make with them are different, but for elementary school kids it could be very useful in a creative project that would allow the students to express themselves. Examples of what i made with the pen can be found under the website images.

ILP “Design” – Google Classroom

For my ILP I created a google classroom with a quiz. Google classroom is a tool that can help bridge the digital divide between students and teachers. The code for my google classroom is : 9cys75j

The link for my Voice thread which explains what i made and shows how is : https://voicethread.com/share/12191922/

Blog (#5)

     I was not in class when Diigo was first introduced so I did not get the same experience with it as the rest of my peers. However I did get to play around on it today during class and I like it. I think that it being something to download as a plug in on google chrome would make it very beneficial when conducting any kind of research. Being able to highlight and sticky note things that the whole group can see would also make group projects way more easier to complete. There really wasn't anything that I disliked about Diigo.
     Before I created this blog and started posting on it, I had no experience blogging. I understand some benefits of blogging, such as it allowing you to rethink a situation and vent. Or even how someone could use it as an outlet to express themselves more freely. Something that I specifically like about blogging is that it is accessible to anyone, meaning that you can reach anybody.  What I don't like about specifically doing this blog is that we have to respond to class topics instead of having creative responses. Something that I have learned during this blogging process is how hard it is for me to consistently do something.
     A web 2.0 tool that we have not discussed in class but that i would want to use in my classroom is Kidblog. It is designed for k-12 teachers and will provide each student with their own individual blog. Students can create their own post and interact with each others. Using this in my classroom will not only incorporate technology in it but help each student process their own thoughts into a medium for the world to review. Also by allowing them to interact with eachother it builds a sense of community while also hopefully making lifelong friends.
   

wORD (#2)

     Microsoft Word was the first program in Microsoft Office that I used. When I first used it though I did the bare minimum, it was Microsoft Word '03 and I just needed to print some letters to paste on a tri-fold board. Then in middle school I had to start typing papers so I began to explore different features in Microsoft Word '07 and then I took a computer class where I became a pro in Office '07. As far as seeing my teachers use Microsoft Word there has only been two that actually showed me how to do stuff that i did not have to google. The first was my computer teacher, Ms. Miller in middle school and the second is..... Ms. Ginny!!!!!!!!
     As far as copyright and fair use issues in my educational life, I would call it plagiarism. As a student that was what we had to deal with and hope teachers did not accuse us of doing. Throughout my learning career I have not ran into an issue with my work and plagiarism but I did have a friend go through something that, honestly shook me. As an IB student in senior year there is a big report due, and my friend got kicked out because her paper was considered plagiarized. She did not steal someones work, but her citation was just not in the right format and that caused her to lose out on her IB Diploma. I feel as though teachers run into the copyright and fair use issues because the things that they are teaching have been taught before, so as a teacher I plan to use the course material provided by the school. If I happen to find something online that I think can be useful I will look for the copyright or fair use rules associated with it, which can be found in the footnotes of some resources. By doing this check I will be setting an example that I can instruct my students to follow.
     The Digital Divide is something that I think will always exist and to combat that in my classroom I will make sure that if there is an assignment that requires online research or something of that nature that as a class we can go to the library. Additionally for those students in special conditions and needed specific time, i could arrange time for me to go with them to the library or they could work on the computers in my room before or after school depending on how the school is set up. To combat cyberbullying in my classroom I would set up a "remind101" where the students could anonymously or not, send messages to report it but some type of online forum that everyone is aware of. I would always be available to speak with a student if they came up to me directly also. As far as privacy goes when making any type of account for my class it will not require more information than I already know, such as your gender or birthdate. If my classroom has any type of class set of devices, I personally would not monitor them and see what each student did on each device. I would trust that the school has the correct amount of limitations on the internet, as it did when I was growing up and any off task things they might be doing is up to them. I will be able to tell who was on task or not be their grades.

ISTE Standards (#1)

     I believe that it is the outside world that is influencing students and teachers to use technology in the classroom. When using a smart phone became something elementary kids started doing, they were banded in the classroom as a distraction. However, as the world has become more technology dependent, they realized the benefit of using individual devices and started providing classroom sets of iPads in public schools. By using technology in the classroom, students are able to enjoy an individualized learning system specifically for them. It further helps teachers out, by not only making grading easy, but it can provide them with individualized feedback for each student, that the teacher can use to better educate their students.
     The International Society for Technology in Education is an organization thats goal is to create a community to support educators in their technological endeavors. They go beyond just helping with technology their focus is largely on using technology ethically and responsibly in order to achieve goals such as communication, collaboration, and knowledge construction. The organization has five categories of standards for technology use in education. One standard that is meaningful to me comes from the student category (1C). It says that students will use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways. This is meaningful to me because it is not only an obvious plus that I see to . using technology in the classroom but because feedback that informs and improves is something i wanted my whole educational career. One standard that seems out of my skill set is from a category called Computational Thinking (4A). It states that as an educator you design computational thinking activities where data can be obtained, analyzed, and represented. I think this may be a challenge for me because such activities are something that i am not familiar with.
     I understand the meaning of the term "digital natives" but i do not necessarily agree with it. Being a "digital native" means that you were born in a time that technology was already around, they either did not use often or do not even know what a landline is or photographic film. However where i disagree with this term is how many generations it has been applied too, eventually everybody will be a "digital native". I have not really experienced differences between how me and my teachers use technology, either they have used it like a "digital native" or banned all technology from their classes due to constant cheating. I honestly think that the differences between me and my future students will be that there is some new technology out, that i do not know how to work, but thanks to this class i can use the ISTE as a resource for help.

ISTE Empowered Learner Resource

Specific Standard: Students articulate and set personal learning goals. develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.

     A resource that i would use in my classroom to achieve this goal would be an interactive online learning environment, called i-ready. It is something that can be accessed from a tablet, computer, or phone. The app provides individualized instruction based on each child's individual needs, that it learns from the child constantly participating on it.

Introduction (J#0)

     I am currently a freshman here at FSU, majoring in Political Science. One day I hope to be a lawyer working somewhere in Washington DC. I make A/B Honor roll and pride myself on my GPA, because as a student it is the most important thing attached to my name. I am not a very social person and do not go to parties a lot, mostly I just watch Netflix in my room. As far as friends, I haven't made any here so I really just have one from back home who is also in Tallahassee to attend college.

     In college I have used way more technology in an educational setting than my twelve years in public school. Last semester I took EDF 2085, which is a class that involved me mentoring elementary kids at a local school. There I learned how much technology is apart of a childs' education, something that I had not really realized was taking place. In today's classrooms teachers are dependent on technology to get through the lessons and I think that sooner or later everyone will realize how much a disservice it is being so technological dependent.

     I enrolled into this class for two main reasons, the first being for the computer competency and the second being that this class is a class that helps me further complete my minor in education. After looking at the syllabus i realized what i might actually learn. The four skill checks, look interesting and i wonder what exactly they will be about. I also look forward to learning how to accurately use technology in an educational setting, or as some would say when wearing my teacher hat.