Blog Post #5

      This is my first time using Twitter and I have found it very beneficial. I have been keeping up to date on news stories and the weather, while also finding out what is new in education. I have followed the US Department of Education and also my hometown school district. This has been very helpful, especially because of hurricane Ian, that I found out that schools were closed and the latest updates on the returning back. Twitter and all of the accounts I follow have been keeping me informed! I will definitely be using Twitter when I become a teacher because I have found so many accounts from teachers in my field that post helpful tools and hints in the classroom. 

     There is definitely a huge "digital divide" in schools and in the classroom that hinder student success. Most of my classes have all of their assignments online and some of my classmates in high school did not have access to computers or internet so they ended up failing the classes. This strongly effected their future because they did not have the resources to succeed and move onto college, due to their grades. Some causes of the digital divide is due to income, students who come from poorer families may not be able to receive the technology that others do. This will effect my teaching strategies because if I know that someone in my class does not have access to the internet or a computer, I will print them the assignment and allow them time in class and before or after school to work on the assignment, if it cannot be printed. I will allow them to have extra time, so that it does not impede their grade. 

   I would definitely like my students to use Google Classroom. I think this is the best educational software because I can post my day to day agenda for the students to make sure they are aware of everything. I will also use this platform because I can post due dates for assignments and it will remind the students and keep them aware of what is coming up. I also want to use Socrative, because I think this will be an easy way to keep track of what my students know by giving them quick little quizzes. Also, this will be a fun tool for reviews and to introduce a topic and see what they already know. I have used both of these platforms throughout school and I think they are amazing at keeping me on track and showing me what I know or need to work on. These will be very useful to my students!

Blog Post #4

     The ELA Standard that I chose was the 11th-12th Grade LAFS.1112.W.3.8. In this standard, students are expected to know how to gather information and resources, digitally and on print. The students are supposed to know how to evaluate the sources to make sure that they are credible. Students are to be able to know the purpose, the audience, and the task of the sources. Students are supposed to be able to use online note taking apps, online plagiarism apps, and online citation creators. I feel like I am prepared to help the students achieve these goals because I had to meet these requirements as well in 11th and 12th grade and I am using these skills in college currently. These apps, such as EasyBib, are apps that I have continued to use pass high school, so I know it will be very important to teach my students how to use it.

    For CPALMS, I selected grade 11th and the standard ELA.11.C.1.3, which entails that students are supposed to be able to write literary analysis with logical reasoning and evidence from sources. Students are supposed to be able to identify literary elements or terms and demonstrate their knowledge by connecting the elements and how they are displayed in certain writings. The related resource for this is analyzing the rhetoric of JFK's Inaugural Address as a lesson plan. I will be able to use this in my classroom as an example of the different types of rhetorical methods there are and why the variation is important and effective. I would use this writing to do a guided reading with my class for practice on identifying different rhetorical strategies.

    Internet searching is very important to be a teacher because it can help teachers solve simple questions that they are looking for. It is important to know exactly what you want to find out, by typing in specific keywords. The skill I think will be most useful going forward is Google's advance search, because you can type in very specific key words and the websites that will show up will be more narrow to what you are looking for. I always have very specific ideas that I want to carry out, but searching on Google can be tiring because not every article that pops up is related to what I am looking for. With advanced search, you can type in related words you are trying to find, numbers, languages, sites (sites:), exact phrases (""), the exclusion of certain words (-). I will be showing my students this Google feature, because I feel like it will be really helpful when they are researching topics and resources for papers.  

Blog Post #3

     Copyright is a form of legal protection of someone's work, to make sure that others are not passing of unoriginal work as their own. Fair use is when there are exceptions to copyright and someone is allowed to use the copyrighted work without penalties. I plan to look over all of what is able to be used and what is not, so that I am respecting the laws of copyright and setting an example to my students. As a teacher, I would make sure that all of my own work is original, all of my power points and presentations. If I am requiring my students to read a book or a chapter from the textbook, I will make sure that they will all have their own copies or to check it out of the library. I plan to do most of my teaching face-to-face, so that I do not have to worry so much about copyright. For my students, I will make sure that they are well aware of the copyright laws of what is or is not legal. I will check each one of my students works to make sure they are free of copyright and they will have to use certain websites to check for this as well. 

    Academic dishonesty is one of the most important rules in school. Students are required to do their own work. In order to make sure students are being original with their work, I will have them submit their essays into Turnitin.com, a website that will show if students have plagiarized their work. Decreasing productivity is a major issue in almost all of America today. In order to keep my students active, I will create check in games during the beginning of class. To reward them with their hard-work, at the end of class, we will also do a closing game of review. Whom ever scores the highest will be able to receive either candy or extra credit!

    While working on my newsletter, I started to learn how to navigate MS Word. I learned how to make a banner or different graphics to add color or creativeness to an otherwise boring document. The skill that was most useful, was learning how to make columns. Now that I have figured out how to use MS Word, somewhat, I will be able to add more creativity and sections of color and pictures, as opposed to this time I mostly focused on figuring out the formatting. Learning on how to create a newsletter will help me in the future so that I know how to create welcoming looking documents for my students and be able to use different formats. The newsletter opened a new world of creativity up for my future classroom!

Blog Post #2

     Throughout all of my schooling so far, it was the most recent years, high school, that I started using electronics in the classroom. In high school, we really only used Google products: Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Slides. These are the tools that I feel the most comfortable using because these are the tools I learned on and grew up with. Now that I am having to use Microsoft Word, it might take me a while to get a hang of the layout of the program. I feel like it should not be that different, it all serves for the same purpose, to write. This class will be my first time using Microsoft and I am excited to venture onto new programs to better me as a student and a future educator. 

    The ISTE has a list of standards for educators when it comes to technology. While reading through them I think my favorite one is educators and technology design. In this standard, they suggest that educators use new technology to create games and educational ways to teach in all different environments suitable for each student. I think this is one of the most important aspects in using technology in the classroom, because teachers can create new educational games that help teach them while having fun. This might encourage students that school isn't all about boring work, it can be fun and want them to keep learning. I have noticed a lot of students have gotten "burned out" from the traditional way of learning, and by teachers implementing new technology, this could help the way kids learn and keep them engaged in the classroom.

    The term digital native, in my opinion, is a great way in explaining the divide in the population of people who were born with technology and the people who learned it when it first came out. A digital native is a person who was born growing up with technology and using it in their daily lives. A digital immigrant is a person who had to learn technology and was not accustomed to it in their youth. There is a difference between how my teachers and who I have used technology. My teachers, especially if they have been teaching for a while, are not so used to the technology and the different programs being used. My mother, for example, has been trying to use the new technology in her classroom, like Google Slides for classroom presentations. She is in constant need of help to figure out how to work all of these programs, whereas I, a digital native, can help her because I am used to all of these tools. I feel like this has been a learning curve for both students and teachers because as they are teaching us our school subjects, we are teaching them to use technology. In the future, I feel like we will be repeating this, the cycle of our students teaching the educators some sort of new technology, because there is always something new. I will be on top of the technological curve when I become a teacher in hopes to stay on the same path as my students.  

"Rural Bangladesh - Kids, Computers, and Macs 1 of 2" by uncultured is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.