ILP: Orientation to Library of Congress website (loc.gov)

Today (November 18, 2015) I attended a webinar that showed me how to properly use the Library of Congress's website and all of the amazing features that it has. The Library has many formats of primary sources ranging from photographs and videos to newspapers and maps. The part I found most interesting about the website is the education tab. Under this tab there are resources for students and teachers. I really liked the Teacher's Resources category. It shows teachers how to incorporate primary resources like those found in the Library of Congress in lessons for their students and even has some lesson plans posted. Due to technical difficulties, the webinar started about twenty minutes late but once it started it went pretty smoothly. I found the display screen to be a bit confusing. At first I could not hear what was being said in the webinar. There was a button that said "audio" but whenever I clicked it I was put under the impression that it would cause me to call into the webinar like you would call into a radio show and I definitely did not want to do that. After 3 or 4 minutes of having no idea what was being said in the webinar, I clicked the audio button again and followed the steps this time while finally allowed me to hear the webinar. Despite a few minor difficulties, I enjoyed the webinar and found it to be very helpful in navigating the website and taking advantage of all of the features offered.

• the Library of Congress has over 7,900 audio related sources digitized.
• view all digital collections under the discover tab
• a collection is all of the materials related to a subject such as Women's History
• featured items in a collection are shown at the top of the site
• the education tab offers many different resources for teachers and students
• Read.gov links you to the literacy website and America's Library has reading materials that are appropriate for younger children.
• The Everyday Mysteries feature located within the education tab answers fun and common science questions such as "Why do turkeys have light and dark meat?"
• the connect tab allows you to subscribe to their social media pages and blogs to learn about the most recent and significant materials added to the site
• search for information by audience (students, teachers, publishers, researchers)

ILP- Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship Webinar

I attended a webinar on October 7, 2015 regarding internet safety. The first presenter was Diana Graber who spoke about Cyberwise. Cyberwise provides resources and information to students, teachers, and parents regarding ways to stay safe in the internet and how to create safe profiles.

• don't share too much personal information, be discreet
• cyber civics needs to be supported at home because
• parents are often clueless about what their kids are doing online

The next presenter was Kathy Boehle who introduced the program known as Gaggle which provides student safety solutions for school districts that use Google Apps for Education or Office 365.

When Gaggle sees inappropriate (sexual) images they send it to the National Institute for Missing and Exploited Children, not the school. Gaggle Also gives warnings to students who use inappropriate language. Students have started chatting through Google Docs on school district-owned technology and gaggle has monitored students using these programs to:

• bully
• set up drug deals
• discuss drug use
• speak of self-harm
• sext
• get wrapped up in sex trafficking
• express violence

The final presenter was Luann Hughes who is the director of technology at Temple Independent School District in Texas. She explained how her school district uses tools like Gaggle and other monitoring services to track the online behavior of students. This district has applied monitoring systems on all compatible district devices. They use Gaggle to screen Google Drive to help limit file sharing of assignments. They use Go Guardian to monitor the Chromebooks their high school students have possession of. Gaggle noticed a 5th grader threatening to cut herself so her guardian was called and it turned out to be a false alarm but they were able to educate the young girl on the severity of the situation.

I really enjoyed this webinar. I thought it was well executed and I liked that there were a variety of speakers that gave some insight into what trouble students are likely to get into online and how we as educators can help prevent that. By providing real-life situations that have been monitored, it kept me engaged with what was being spoke about, rather than just being thrown a bunch of statistics.

10 Yay! Final Blog Post

I am completely amazed at how much I learned from this week's interactive PowerPoint assignment. I created a Jeopardy game using a template I found online and what seemed like an assignment that was going to be a bit annoying and completely daunting turned out to be really enjoyable! I am so proud of how my game turned out. One of the skills that I learned was how to use the kiosk mode in PowerPoint. I never even knew this was an option! I also learned how to use and add navigation tools to the slides. I used the home button and the question button a lot in my PowerPoint. I used the home button to return to the Jeopardy slide that lists the categories and the points they are worth. Because the answers on Jeopardy are given in a question format, I used the question mark button to link to the response that the student would give in a question form such as "Who is...". Hopefully in the future I can use my skills to create a fun learning activity like this for my students. One thing I could do in the future to improve my skills is create a game completely from scratch without a template. That sounds a little scary but I think with some patience I could do it. Check out my awesome Jeopardy game! Didn't it turn out amazing?!

I think it would be great to use data collection tools like online surveys to get a feel for what students are and are not understanding. If I was a 5th grade teacher I could create a survey asking students questions regarding American History and the results of the survey would give me specific data of what questions students were answering incorrectly/correctly and how many students chose each answer choice. This could help me better tailor review sessions to their needs before tests and maybe I could even create another Jeopardy game to review the topics they are having trouble grasping!

One of the topics that I thought was interesting when viewing my classmates' blogs was how large of a variety there was between our individual skill sets. Some of us have had formal training from high school technology classes while others have been self-taught or are just unfamiliar with most technology programs outside of using Microsoft Word to type an essay. Another thing that always interested me was when we would all post screenshots of the finished product of our assignments. I loved looking at everything that was created and gathering ideas from those to use in the future. It was always inspiring to see how amazingly well some people had designed their assignments and made me want to strive to reach that standard myself.

The technology-related skill that I would most like to learn next is Photoshop. I took a digital design class about 4 years ago in high school and I always enjoyed how the final product of our creations turned out. I would really like to brush up on my past skills as I would not even remember where to start in Photoshop anymore and then expand upon those skills to design things for my classroom. I could design class decorations, posters of class rules, and creative flyers of weekly announcements to send home with my students.

My future educational technology goals are to implement the great strategies I have learned in EME2040 in my own class room in the next few years. I have learned so many valuable skills in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel that could greatly enhance the impact of the information I will be conveying to my students. It will also improve my performance as a teacher because I now know little tips and tricks to aid in my professional development so I can live up to my fullest potential as a teacher. I can't wait to teach my students how to blog and create their own projects using ever-changing technology. I will also be creating a website and twitter for my class to keep the parents up to date with announcements and be able to share fun pictures of their children enjoying their learning experience. Thank you Professor Cates for being so patient and understanding with us and giving us such valuable tools to help us become amazing future teachers!

Survey- Holiday Season

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5tZtjSUuUMwmjIx

9 Flipped Classroom and Professional Development

Page 238 of Chapter 10 conveys the concept of a flipped classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch prerecorded lectures at home and complete assignments in class that would usually be considered homework. Some of my professors even do this now in a handful of my courses. The professors will assign either a podcast, PowerPoint, or video for us to review at home so we can use class time for more in depth discussions and quizzes. What I like about this concept is that most of the assignments are completed in class. I like this because I always find that I have questions on homework assignments once I get home and by then it is usually too late to have my questions answered by the professor until the next class meeting. This can be problematic if the assignment is due that evening. A negative side of flipped classrooms is that it seems to be giving students more homework. Children in modern times are extremely busy with many extracurricular activities ranging from sports to musical interests. With all of these extracurricular activities, many students barely have time to complete two hours of homework, much less listen to an hour-long lecture from each of their many different course subjects. Neo K12 has a multitude of educational videos and other resources on different topics such as math, science, social studies, english, and history. http://www.neok12.com/

According to BusinessDictionary.com, professional development is defined as "Process of improving and increasing capabilities of staff through access to education and training opportunities in the workplace, through outside organization, or through watching others perform the job." As teachers, it is our duty to be as knowledgeable about the subjects that we are teaching as possible. If we have not mastered the information, it is impossible for us to convey it to students in a way that they can understand. This is why throughout the year teachers go to district-planned workshops. Professional development also helps teachers improve the way they teach, not just what they teach. Oftentimes, all that is needed to get through to a child is a new method of teaching the information or responding to a situation. We cannot be perfect but we can strive to improve ourselves and our ways every day.

One site that I think would be good to support professional development is Edutopia. Edutopia provides an array of videos and topics to help teachers ranging from social and emotional learning to technology integration techniques. There are also discussion boards where other educators can share their experiences and other articles that they have found to help each other. Edutopia's goal is to improve K-12 education by empowering educators and providing newly researched learning techniques. http://www.edutopia.org/

I already have a lot of experience with PowerPoint but this assignment helped me brush up on some old skills that I had forgotten. Also, I had never before recorded a PowerPoint so that was a new experience. The PowerPoint assignment took a lot longer than I expected. It took me about three hours to complete because it was very tedious and I am a bit of a perfectionist. I also had a lot of issues with Jing. The first few time I tried to use Jing it would not let me click through my PowerPoint and it was not showing my animations. I re-downloaded Jing and it FINALLY worked! In the future I would probably use a screen recording tool that allows me to record for longer that 5 minutes. It also took me a while to figure out how to create a master slide when I began the assignment. Prerecorded lectures would be very helpful for my future classroom. I could assign students who were absent to listen to the prerecorded lecture so that they would not fall behind. In the end, I was very happy with how my PowerPoint turned out. Check it out!

8 Classroom Technologies and the Digital Divide

Chapter 12 of the textbook mentions technologies that are new and becoming prevalent in the world of education. Page 285 explains augmented reality and devices associated with creating a virtual environment. Augmented reality is defined as "a view of the physical world that has computer generated augmentation to what you see, hear, feel, and smell". I think this technology holds the biggest promise for education. In the tech sandbox we were able to use an augmented reality device called Oculus Rift which simulated us riding a roller coaster. The device we used was primarily visual. We wore a headset that showed a visual through the eye piece. At times, it felt so real that you felt your stomach drop or acquired a bit of anxiety during sharp turns. The man who gave us the tour of the tech sandbox mentioned how this technology could be used to take students on virtual field trips. I had never heard of virtual field trips until taking EME2040. I think augmented reality technology would be a great accompaniment to these, As school districts have made budget cuts, one of the things that have taken a hit are field trips. Field trips are also less common because of the strict testing standards now in place, administrators want students to be out of the classroom as less as possible. In my opinion, this negatively impacts the students. I learned concepts best when I could go out into the world and either apply them or personally experience them. Virtual field trips could help solve this issue. Students would still be in the classroom and most of these field trips can be downloaded for free onto the school computers. Like with the Oculus Rift device, augmented reality technologies would make the students feel like they are actually on site of the field trip.

Another future technology that could impact education is Sphero. Sphero was demonstrated in the tech sandbox as well. It works by someone coding its movements through online programs. Sphero then acts out the movements that were coded. I think since students are becoming more and more reliant on technology, they will soon be expected to use it for higher level functioning like programming at a younger age. Devices like Sphero could help facilitate this and make coding fun for students of all ages, http://www.sphero.com/sphero

The digital divide is defined in the podcast as "the gap between those who do and do not have access to technology". I am on the side of the divide where I have had access to technology where I have had access to technology my entire life whether it was at home or at school. I am on the side of student A. This is because I have grown up in the middle class and my school district and parents have been able to afford to give me these opportunities. The digital divide will affect my future classroom because there will be some students in my class who may not have access to a computer or other technology, and when they do, they may not be proficient in using it like the other students might be. I would facilitate the students without much access to technology by allowing them more time in class to complete technology-based assignments and I will try to limit the amount of online homework as much as possible. I will try to make all online assignments something that will be completed in class.

7 Bloom's Taxonomy and Assistive Technology

Bloom's Taxonomy (pictured above) is, according to the textbook, "a method for categorizing differences in thinking skills; it involves six levels of cognition ranging from recall of knowledge to evaluation of knowledge." Using Bloom's Taxonomy could help me better organize my PowerPoint lessons for my future students in a way that gradually increases their knowledge to help it "stick" in the students' memories so it can be easily recalled later. For example, if my students were learning about humans harming the environment through deforestation and pollution I could set my PowerPoint up like this:

• Remember: define the topics and express the basic concepts
• Understand: students can identify from a group of images on the PowerPoint which types of actions are harmful to the environment
• Apply: break students into groups and have them brainstorm ways to solve problems that humans have created within the environment
• Analyze: have each group present their ideas to the class and then the rest of the classmates analyze the situations and decide how helpful they would be to solving environmental problems
• Evaluate: students can vouch for their ideas and weigh the pros and cons of each problem solving idea
• Create: students can use online technology or physical objects to create ways to help the environment such as building models of a sea wall to help prevent beach erosion

In the podcast, it defines assistive technologies as "technologies that help people with disabilities more effectively use computing technologies". Students who are visually impaired may use voice recognition technologies in order to have physical, typed documents because they are unable to see the keyboard to type like someone normally would. Conversely, they may also use text to speech software to read documents and literature aloud. Daily organizers are also noted as an assistive technology. They can be helpful to everyone, not just students struggling with dyslexia. I have used a daily organizer since elementary school and I would most likely forget to complete the majority of my assignments without one. I am so busy that assignments often slip my mind. I find it very helpful to have my organizer as a reminder of what I have and have not completed. Concept mapping software is an assistive technology mentioned in chapter 4 of the textbook. It helps students better view and manipulate ideas that they have brainstormed. We used this type of software recently in class to create out concept maps and I found it to be very helpful. Recorded books are another assitive technology mentioned in the textbook. These are used by dyslexic individuals, those with reading or visual impairments, and by average people. I had a friend who listened to recorded books in his car because he preferred it to listening to music. He was an avid bookworm and wanted a way to continue the books he was reading while driving, whether it was fifteen minutes to school or on a road trip. I used recorded books in high school when reading classic novels as part of my required summer reading. A lot of the topics were difficult to understand and relate to but I found it helpful to hear the story being read aloud by someone and sometimes the recording even included short explanations of what was happening in the story in more understandable phrases.

I found the web page design assignment to be extremely frustrating in the beginning. None of my changes to my site were loading in the classroom and it was not allowing me to manipulate the site well. Once I got home and started working on it I had a better time. I found Weebly to be a very easy tool to use. When I designed a web page in high school we had to do it through coding and it was a nightmare. This program made everything so much easier. I learned that class websites are a great way to interact with parents and help them feel involved. I am happy to have the knowledge of Weebly in my "teacher toolbox" for my future classroom. I loved how everyone used the same program but our websites all had such diverse design elements.

Check out my website:
http://myerssecondgrade.weebly.com/