Post #6

     Many school websites do not have class pages for each class. Most have the home page, about us, the mission, faculty & staff, calendar, resources and contact information tabs. As a public member, I can see all of the cool things that the school has done this year including honoring 9/11 with local heroes and a butterfly garden. St. Lucie is an elementary school grades K-5 in Fort Pierce, FL. I can see the teacher names for each grade but they aren't linked to class website.

     I believe that I will definately use technology in my classroom. As a hopeful Special Education teacher, I have to be careful what I use so that I don't overstimulate my students. Teachers are always attending educational classes and workshops. I plan on using a class website in order to help parents stay up to date on what we are doing. I also plan on using Kahoot and Edmodo in my classroom.

     I loved the Tech Sandbox. It was definately cool seeing a 3D pen and printer in action becasue I plan on using them in my classroom so that the students can feel the objects not just hear about them. It will also help with any of my students who are visually impaired. The material used with both the 3D pen and printer can be built up making it tall enough so that the students can describe what exaclty it is.

ILP Participation – Lynda: Office for Educators

     When I first logged into Lynda to find a course to use, I got really excited when I saw Aaron Quigley's "Office for Educators" course. I love using Office when doing my projects because there are so many different things that you can do with them. I learned how to thoroughly use OneNote. I also learned about what SharePoint and Office Mix are. There are many different things that you can do when it comes to Microsoft Office programs. For example, SharePoint is a program that allows people to collaborate on websites. It can allow a teacher to creat a class website, and administrator to create a school website, and students to create websites. It's kind of like BlackBoard. Teachers can add a library for class information, add a photo library,  set up calendars to help the students stay on task,  share resource links,  post announcements on the students’ websites, and  restrict access to certain things.

     Notes:


Screenshots:

https://www.lynda.com/Office-tutorials/Office-Educators/141464-2.html

#5-Let's Teach!!

• Although Web 2.0 tools are not available to every class/school, they are not option in the classoom. The advanced technologies in Web 2.0 tools allow us to communicate with each another. Examples of Web 2.0 tehnologies that I think are useful include social media, YouTube, Diigo, and blogs. The podcast refers to YouTube, blogs, and social media as more "passive" in the classroom because of the students' roles in them. YouTube can be used to show students different videos that help explain the lesson that a student is working on. Blogs can be used to keep a class page that has things such as upcoming assignments, homework updates, and other announcements. According to the podcast, Twitter can be used in the class by providing a networking opportunity for students to follow authors, public figures and to be able to talk to a direct source. Diigo can be used to support teacher professional developments. Twitter also can be used for teacher professional development because it allows teachers to connect with other and exchange ideas.
• I plan on teaching Special Education. In my class I might use scribd which is found at https://www.scribd.com/ and is a tool that will allow me to find interesting books to read to my students that we may not have access to in the school library. If I end up working at a school in an impoverished area, this might come in handy because I can download these ebooks/audio books to my computer. I can also use it to get sheet music so that I can play music to my kids on either the trumpet of piano. Scribd has endless possibilities to the number of books (both ebooks and audiobooks), comics, sheet music, and documents.
• I believe that 3D Printing technology holds the greatest promise for education. This is because the students will be allowed to physically analyze an object and hold the object in their hands. This allows students to examine and explore these items. I believe that the 3D printing technologies can be used to create models that they can later turn into prototypes and develop.

#4 Technology and the Internet

• Twitter.... My experiences with Twitter before this class were very limited. Once in this class, I learned several things about Twitter. I believe that the coolest thing in Twitter that I have found so far is that many teachers and educational programs use Twitter. I figure that many educators use Twitter in order to connect with other educators. I assume that they switch techniques and styles online. On twitter, I've been following techlearning, U.S. News Education, Presentation Panda, EME2040, On Special Education, EdWeek Teacher, Active Minds, Inc. and many of the students in my class. I have interacted with Active Minds, Inc and EME2040. I have retweeted some tweets and replyed to some tweets too. Twitter might be helpful in my future career because it will allow me to connect with other teachers not at my school. It will also help me get different tips and techniques to use in my own classroom. I can also get ideas for classroom management and classroom layout/design.

• There are many different types of active learning software in the world today. These include academic software, productivity software, presentation software, and academic software applications. Academic software includes desktop publishing, graphics, reference, tutorials and drill-and practice, educational games, simulations, authoring systems, special needs, application software and integrated learning systems. Academic software applications include academic databases, authoring software, concept-mapping software, content-specific software, drill-and-practice software, educational games, and problem-solving software, simulations, and tutorials. There are several separate softwares within each type off academic software. Several students don't have access to many of these softwares. The digital divide is a term used to discuss those who do and do not have access to to technology. The students who don't have much access to technology often fall behind in class because many classes are implementing technologies. The homework assigned in such classes can be difficult for these students. 

• According to the Evaluating Internet Resources podcast, in evaluating websites, you should follow these points:
• Use ABCDT:

• Author: Is the author credible?
• Bias: Is the author biased or neutral on the subject matter?
• Content: Is the content accurate (spelling and grammer)? Is it current? Is it appropriate for the students using the website?
• Design: Is the website visually pleasing? Are all the pictures clear?
• Technical: Is it easy to navigate? Do all parts of the website function? Does the website load quickly?
• Site stability/ URL:
• Is it likely to change content or move links around?
• Who owns the domain name?
• What is the root of the domain?
• Is it the right type of domain for the website?
• Outlinks:
• Check links before allowing students to use the website.
• Advertising:
• Ads pay for many of the free websites.
• In evaluating websites, I check to see if the website in general is credible, not just the author. I also make sure that the website is appropriate for the age group and the individuals that I am working with. I use these criteria because each age group is different, but each individual person within that age group is different too.  

Blog #3 - ELA Technology Standards and Technology Software

I feel the most prepared to teach RL.7, RHST.7, RI.5, W/WHST.8, SL.3, L.5, W/WHST.6, and SL.5. I feel confident that I can teach RL.7, RHST.7, SL.3, and SL.5 standards in entirety to the speicific grade that it entitles but also to all other grades. The standards: RI.5, W/WHST.8, L.5, and W/WHST.6, I don't feel as confident with all the grades. I could teach RI.5 for the 3rd grade, W/WHST.8 for the grades 3, 4-5, 6, and 7-8, L.5 for the grades 2-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-10, and W/WHST.6 for the K-2, 3-6, 7, and 8th grades. I would need to work on being able to teach standards RI.7, RST.7, SL.2, and W/WHST.2 for any and all grades. As a special education major, other than the internet, projector and computers, I don't know how much computer based technology we will be using in the classroom. I hope to use lots of technology to help my students succeed in life despite their disabilities. I plan on using email, as well as a phone, to keep in touch with the parents. We will be using different websites in class to help the children learn different things. In the class, I hope to use different graphics, charts, and tables to help my children learn. I'll be using audio files and videos in my classes to help children who learn by auditory and visually. And that's what I'm planning on using in about 5 years from now. Who knows? There may be several new technologies that I will be able to use in my classrooms. Working on the Newsletter, I learned how to add two borders to a single section. I made the top and bottom one color and the two sides another color. I also learned how to make one section of my paper two columns and another, one section. I thought it was fun to makeup my own newsletter for my classroom. It gave me an idea of how to do one in the future when I have to make one for my actual classroom. Next time I make a newsletter, I will make it more colorful instead of using mainly different shades of green (green is the color of mental health awareness). I will be able to use a similar format for future newsletters.

Post 2- MS Word

     I have used MS Word for a variety of different projects and assignments. My teachers have used MS Word to explain the assignment, show different tools that students can use in assignments. I learned in my Business Skills class that there are many different ways to use Word and make it look unique and interesting. I have learned different things from my instructors about Word such as how to apply unique themes, change certain things about a theme, Word Art, and etc.
     I have always been told that not copyrighting is a bad thing. I have found out that it is not good to copyright a picture, graph, chart, etc because it's illegal. It's similar to plagiarizing because it's copying information without giving the source. According to the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances. It also says, "Copyright law has several features that permit quotations from copyrighted works without permission or payment, under certain conditions."
     I would make sure that the students know what copyright is and what fair use means in a daily sense. In developing my instructional materials, I will make sure that I give credit to all sources and check with the Fair Use guidelines to make sure that I am being ethical in my work.

Technology Nowadays

Why are computers important in today's educational experience? How do students and teachers use computers in the classroom? Technology, and computers specifically, is important in education today because most of life is becoming digital. Think about how far computers have come. The first computer was introduced to the world on February 15, 1946, that's 70 YEARS!!! All the apps that have come out are insane! I know that on the newer iPhones, there is a wallet app that you can keep all your online accounts, including to but not limited to, Target coupons, Starbucks cards, and boarding passes for flights. Many college classes use Blackboard to help the students and teachers be  more organized. If I am not by my computer, I can pull up our class website through Blackboard's mobile app. Computers give students and teachers access to the worls from their location, wheter it be their bed, desk, class, car, etc. Web 2.0 has provided many applications including chats, forums, and video conferencing to give students access to their peers outside of class for things such as tutoring and group projects. Teachers and students need to be more adept at how to use the multimedia capabilities that are available to them at the click of a button. All of this new technology is not going to be integrated overnight. There are many things that have to happen first! Technology costs money, a lot of it! Many schools cannot afford technology. If they can, some schools limit the number of computers they have as well as limit the internet access speed. Many teachers aren't getting the proper training that they need for all the new technology. The integration of technology also takes lots of time away from the teachers. I definitely agree with integrating technology into classrooms. It allows for the students and the educators to become more involved in the classwork. I think that it is hard to integrate technology, but it is necessary because students will be growing up in the 21st century and most things, if not everything, will be digital.

The International Society for Technology in Education is a "professional organization dedicated to promoting appropriate uses of information technology to support and improve teaching and learning." I thought that the ISTE Standards were interesting because it gives generic things that each subgroup (teachers, administrators, students, etc.) should be doing, but there is nowhere that I saw that said, we should all be doing blah, blah, blah. Looking at the ISTE Standards for Students 2016, seeing as I am still a student, I love the Creative Communicator Standard because I am a creative person and I love using technology to express my creativity. On the other hand, I look forward to expanding my knowledge about the Global Collaborator Standard. This will help me with my people skills and hopefully help me meet new people.

I agree with the label "digital native" for today's youth. The kids nowadays are definitely more involved in technology than previous generations. So technically you can definitely call the youth digital natives. Digital natives are people who have grown up using technology and usually refers to children, teens, and young adults. Digital natives usually can't remember a time without technology, however that doesn't make them a better technology user than the technology immigrants. Digital natives are just used to the presence of technology in their lives than immigrants. Due to the fact that I don't use as much technology as others in my generation, I don't really see much difference because up until now, I haven't had to use much technology in the classroom, more at home. I also don't use the same technology as my teachers, and if we do, I don't see much difference between how they use it and how I do. In the future, I expect that there will be many different kinds of technology than there are now. I am sure that I will have to learn about new software, programs, apps, etc. so that I can capture the student's attention and help them learn.