Blog Post #6

After looking at a few different school websites I found the best school website to be FSUS - Florida State University Schools. It is very easy to find information on the website the way it is laid out. There are links to the departments, activities and clubs, a staff directory and admissions. There is a school calendar with bell schedules and times. Under the departments tab you are able to click on elementary, middle or high school then find your teacher which will lead to their specific website. On each class website there is information about the teacher, classroom information, curriculum maps, pupil progression plans, newsletter, homework and lesson resources. However each teacher has different information on their website. 

https://www.fsus.school/Domain/33

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I see myself utilizing technology to better my sense of communication between myself and future parents. I think that setting up classroom websites or creating a weekly newsletter will really help this sense of communication.This is ensure that parents are well aware of everything that is going on in the classroom such as future tests or field trips. I will want the parents to know that reaching out to me will never be a problem. 

 

One piece of technology that stuck out to me in the tech sandbox that I can see myself using is the smart board. The smart board has so many different ways that students can interact with the information being presented. There are games teachers can download to help students better understand the lesson. This makes learning fun and students will be more likely to pay attention and enjoy it. The smart board gives students and teachers the opportunity to interact with the content they are learning in a different, more complex way. Being able to manipulate 3 dimensional objects will give students a totally different perspective when learning new topics. 

ILP #1

For my first ILP I made a Prezi presentation all about the country of Brazil. I researched a lot about the country with different educational websites. My presentation includes information on the country's culture, geography and demographics. It is something that can be used in a social studies class. 

http://prezi.com/xhbj_hcdqefg/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Blog Post 5

Web 2.0 allows internet users to interact with one another and take using the world wide web to the next level. Some technologies that I think are useful in the classroom include websites that are useful for teaching. Some of these include YouTube or Diigo. Both these websites have educational tools that can benefit the person using the website. YouTube is a site that shares videos, it has an endless number of educational videos that would compliment a lesson. Diigo, allows teachers to find online sources to help them become an even better teacher. Every teacher can use impressive websites to improve their classroom. Some that are not useful include more social media based sites such as Facebook. If I have nothing to do I go on Facebook and can get lost in my news feed for hours. I think that implementing Facebook in the classroom can bring on a lot of distractions to students and lead to students watching cooking videos or taking Buzzfeed quizzes. 

Pinterest is an interesting Web  2.0 tool. It is a good way to get organized as teachers in creating lesson plans. Teachers can find arts and crafts that go along with their lessons and different ways they can even decorate their classrooms. Students can create their own board for lessons. For example; if you are teaching your students about a country in Africa, they can create a board about that country and then find cultural aspects of that country to pin to their board. This will allow students to research and learn more about the country (or lesson) and organize the information easily. Other students can also look at his or her classmates boards to learn more about their country.

www.pinterest.com  

 

I think the development of smart boards holds a lot of advancement in the educational world. I remember when my 5th grade teacher implemented our document camera for the first time and that was a huge advancement over the overhead projector. I think that the implementation of smart boards over dry erase boards will be similar. Smart boards allow teachers to do so much more with their lessons and with their students. It can allow students to interact with the lessons as well as bring the lessons to life. The abilities a smart board has are incredible it will really take teaching as well as learning to the next level. 

Website Evaluation

These websites would work best for a fourth grade social studies lesson

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/globaltrek/

This websites allows students to plan a trip to another country then gives them facts about the destination they chose.

Currency - all the links work, it also has current information on the countries based on the landscape or current lifestyle of its inhabitants.  
Relevance - Everything on this website is very easy to find, you just put in the country you want to"visit" and a new window pops up with information as well as an option for a question and answer with someone that lives there. All of the content seemed to be grammatically correct and I did not see any spelling mistakes. 
Authority - this website is a part of Scholastic.com which is a pretty well known website for teachers that releases a lot of educational content. Although it is a .com website I still believe that it is a reliable site because it is backed by scholastic. 
Accuracy - The history facts that are written about each country are all backed up and seem to align with one another. They also post further sites at the bottom of the window with other websites that can help students further research the country.  
Purpose - The information is presented as factual in a secondary origin because the author is re explaining the history and facts of each country. There is no evidence of any sponsorship nor extreme language. The obvious purpose of this website is to educate. It is provided on scholastic.com under "Teacher Activity Guide"  so its therefore meant for teachers to use in his or her classroom. 

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/index.html

Currency - This site was created in 2000, all of the links work. The information is all about history of other states or presidents so the information is not current but it is not meant to be.
Relevance - This website is very easy to use. The homepage is very clean and has 5 options to click on: Meet amazing Americans, Jump back in time, explore the states, etc. It is tailored for young students to read and the vocabulary is not confusing. I did not notice any mistakes and the topics have to do with different history topics.  
Authority - This website was created by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the largest library in the United States. At the bottom of the site there is an "about this site" where it further explains the purpose, legal notices, and site credits. There is a spot on the site where you can contact a librarian that takes you to an online reference service. The domain of the website is .gov. 
Accuracy - The website states that all of the information is backed by the sources in at the Library of Congress. Everything seems well researched and there is no evidence of any grey area. This site has many historical documents, photographs and even recordings as resources that are from accurate other federal agencies websites. 
Purpose - the information presented is factual in secondary origin. The website even has a disclaimer that states "any linking does not constitute the Library's endorsement of the content of their Web sites of their policies or products." further showing it is not sponsored. The purpose of the website is to educate. It is to provide history information to children in a presentable, easy to read manner. They take the information presented in historical documents and explain it in easy vocabulary for children to understand.  

Blog Post #4

I have really enjoyed using twitter for this course. I think it is interesting to read other students tweets and thoughts on things we learn about in class. When I can relate things that I learn in class to things out of class I feel like it is beneficial. I have been interacting with a bunch other students in our class. In my future career, twitter could become an even bigger social media platform and lead to more students using it. It is also a good way to show students how fast words can travel through the internet and how things can be spread throughout the world. 

I think the digital divide can really affect students success in schools. If you grow up in a family where your parents are not all knowing about technology you are less likely to grow up with the same resources as a students with parents that are digital natives. Some causes of the digital divide can be finances. Some families do not have the funding to pay for newer technologies. Some parents are also too stubborn to learn new technologies and may just not understand how to use them at all. My grandparents do not have internet or a cell phone, this makes communicating with them more difficult. As a future teacher interacting with parents who do not know how to use something simple like email or another form of technology can affect your ability to communicate with parents easily. 

I hope to teach elementary school so I think that the software I am more likely to use is Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. Elementary school students do a lot of worksheets to get practice for each of the lessons. As a teacher I can use Microsoft Word to create these worksheets. I can also use powerpoint to create easy lessons for my students to follow. I probably will not use Microsoft Excel very much. I might use it for things like grades or keeping certain things organized but I think that I will use it the least in the classroom. 

Blog 3

I think I am most prepared to teach ELA standard RL.7 Multiamedia Literature. This standard has a lot to do with utilizing different forms of technology and comparing its use in forms of literature. I have had a lot of experience in dissecting tone, purpose, etc. so I think that analyzing literature in different ways based on technology would be doable for me. I think the standard that requires more learning for me is the W/WHST.8 “Use Multiple Sources”. This standard requires assessing the credibility of websites to ensure they are reliable. This standard will require more learning for me because I can tend to believe a lot of what I read and need to get more used to using reliable websites such as ones with .edu or .org. 

When I was looking at other images of classroom newsletter designs to get inspired with how I wanted mine to look like i realized there's a lot you can do with Microsoft word to make it look more fun and colorful. I liked the shading tool that we had to implement and think that added a lot of color into the newsletter. I also did not realize how many pictures were loaded onto Microsoft word that we can use without citing where we got it. I am used to finding pictures off google and copy and pasting it without saying where it came from. I enjoyed this assignment overall. I liked designing a newsletter for a classroom and felt that the skills we learned in class helped! I think next time I can adjust my layout so that it can fit more information in the pages. This will help me in my future career because newsletters are things that teachers utilize in their classroom and is something that I will utilize as well.