ILP "Design" -- Edmodo

I decided to make an Edmodo account for a Kindergarten classroom. Edmodo is a technology tool to connect K-12 teachers with parents. The website is great source to distribute exercises and assignments, and to contact all the parents and students in your class.

 I love the concept of Edmodo and I would definitely recommend it to any teacher! It has so many features and is really easy to navigate. It works like facebook where you have a group that accumulates posts on the main page, and it also gives the teacher notifications. I have the ability to make normal posts, assignments, quizzes, and polls. I wouldn't use the quiz feature for my Kindergarten class because it would mostly be conversation between parents and myself, but I love the poll option. I also found it really neat that I had a library where I could upload papers that were given in class or that I wanted parents to see, and I could even connect my google drive.

Check out my independent learning project through the link below!
www.edmodo.com/karissah/referral

Here is the group code you will need to view the project!
xasx8m

10 Lots of Powerpoint

Making a family feud powerpoint was really fun! I learned how to edit an existing powerpoint. I learned how to change the layering of different parts of each slide. I learned how to create a countdown. There were so many new aspects that I was interested in that it didn't even feel like a task. There was one difficult part of the powerpoint where I couldn't hide the answers to one of the questions, and then I couldn't get the answers to show. Next time I would definitely have to work that kink out. In the future, I can definitely create games to review with my students in an playful way.

After a semester of looking at everyone else's blogs, my favorite posts were probably the videos for creating better powerpoints. I honestly would rather watch a video or look at pictures and see what the person who posted it thought, than to read paragraph after paragraph of plain black font. The videos were also very useful to look back on, and convenient. 

I think it would be really neat to learn how to use a photo editor app. In the powerpoint skill check I had a really hard time finding the pictures I imagined as I read the story. If I was able to edit photos, I could create the images I needed, and my powerpoint would have turned out a lot nicer.

I would like to continue working on blogs and powerpoint after this class. I really have enjoyed working on these this semester. In the future, I would like to make effective powerpoints for my students, and maybe even test the flipped classroom. In the future I will have more time to create the powerpoint and make them look exactly how I would like.

Survey: Best Breakfast

Take this survey!
https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9oi5GON66ZzrITH

9 Approaching education in a new way

The flipped classroom is spoken about a lot, but rarely practiced. Basically the teacher posts a video of the lesson for the students to watch before class. Then in class, the students are ready with questions and the teacher has time to work with the students and apply the knowledge.  This idea is directed for more of an independent learning classroom style so that everyone can work at their own pace. It will definitely help the classroom by allowing students time to learn, but it could also set students back if they forget to watch the video or choose not to. This link is an awesome example to show how a flipped classroom works! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQWvc6qhTds

After looking through  a few websites on professional development, I came across one site that looked very organized and useful. The website was Edutopia. It brought up a bunch of topics we have used in class like twitter and blogs. It also had an area for building a professional learning network. This is very important because teachers need to stay connected. I also liked how at the bottom of the page it had more links to different topics that you may be wondering about. For example, Do Educators Really Need Blog Posts. The site is easy to navigate and definitely worth checking out! This is the link to the website! http://www.edutopia.org/diy-professional-development-resources

Working on the powerpoint this past week was interesting. It was not too hard but there were a lot of requirements that we had to make sure we included. It was cool being able to add in different effects. I really like working on powerpoint because you can really do anything with it. You can make lessons for your students. You can have your students make projects. You can even just use it for yourself to keep information organized. I really like how you can download any template from the internet because there are so many options and its a lot easier than working from scratch. The only thing I found difficult was downloading a template to my online version of powerpoint.

ILP "Participation" -- Gaggle Webcast

Recently I tuned in for a webinar about making online student safety a priority. I was able to listen in to the webinar through the phone while most people tuned in on the computer. We all heard from Diana, Cathy, Lance, and Rob. I learned a lot about the statistics of teens using social media, and the amount exposed to bad content. We also heard ideas on how to reduce cyber bullying. What really shocked me about this webinar is when Cathy was talking about sexting. I would never have guessed 6th graders are involved in sexting, and in a few cases, 4th graders. Schools are monitoring what is happening on their devices, and cracking down to keep their students safe online.

8 Technology in the Classroom

Technology is constantly improving and surprising us. Gamification is brought up in the text and I believe it would have a big impact on the class. Kids are using technology at a younger and younger age. When I used to babysit a 4 year old he used to always ask for my phone so he could play games. Since kids are always wanting to play games anyways, it makes sense that we make them educational.

One future technology not discussed in the book that sounds really interesting to me is eye tracking. With this kind of technology teachers will be able to see how students absorb and understand the learning content. Also where the eye is directed throughout the documents. Another aspect of eye tracking is that disabled students can use it to control keys, generate speech and more. With this kind of technology, the education students receive will enhance.

Digital divide is a term used to discuss the gap between people with and without access to technology. I am on the digital side. I have my own laptop which I use for all my work. I also have access to two libraries and a computer room in the college of education which I am in at least once a week. In my classroom I do expect there to be a digital divide. Even though technology is becoming more and more available, I can not expect every student to have access. Students who do have technology and internet access at home have a greater advantage of educational success. To address this, I will send out an email to all the parents so i can see exactly who is divided from technology access. I will also incorporate lab days in my course were I take the class to a computer room so everyone can see how to correctly use the internet, and how to work it on their own when necessary.

7 Adaptive technologies

I recently learned what Bloom's taxonomy is. Bloom's taxonomy helps distinguish fundamental questions in the education system. The levels are create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember. An awesome strategy to show students this information could be in a power point. With each slide I could demonstrate each level while teaching my students. 

Adaptive technologies can be used to enhance learning of students with physical and learning disabilities. Students may not be able to type, or read. So to assist them, they could use a voice recognition software instead of typing. Students who have trouble reading a computer screen may have special magnified screen. Students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia can use a spell checker to help them learn. These are just a couple of examples adaptive technologies provide to help students. Personally I use spell check, and when I took French in high school, I had an app that would read words to me so I could pronounce them correctly. The only challenges I see about using these adaptive technologies in the classroom is, finding the right tools to fit each students need, not having the resources to provide for everyone, and the students getting to used to the tools and relying on them instead of learning and growing from them. Overall with the proper help, they can be a great asset to the classroom.

I have made a website on wix before, but working on weebly was completely new to me.  I learned how to create a calendar and actually post it on my website! It is really neat because the viewer of my website can see the calendar in three different formats. I can also add, edit, and delete any events if I need to. I thought it was a bit harder to work on weebly than wix, and it was difficult to add color other than pictures.On the other hand, I did think the tools offered made it a lot better. Next time I can try to add more tabs of information and I can use it for actual classes that I teach to keep my students and their parents involved. Here is one of the pages of my website!