Blog Post #7

PowerPoint is a great way to support student learning at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy because it is a software that provides opportunity to create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember information. It helps teachers create original presentations that will help students evaluate the subject of the lesson and analyze the information given. It also helps students apply the information to examples by providing the teachers ways to properly explain the subject matter so that students can understand and remember the lesson.
Adaptive technologies are used to support learners in many different ways. They are there to help the students who have learning disabilities or an impairment that could affect the student's learning process. The podcast mentions a couple of adaptive technologies like magnified screens or brail printers. Technologies like this can help students with visual impairments. Adaptive technologies are important because they help break down the learning barriers between exceptional and non exceptional students. Personally, I have not know a student who has needed/used adaptive technologies. I feel as if these technologies will be helpful for me as a teacher in the classroom, but I also feel as if they can cause conflict between students (unfair/jealous students).
This weeks web design assignment was a lot of fun. I liked being able to explore and practice creating a classroom website. This assignment gave me a lot of ideas for how I would design my website when I do eventually become a teacher. Website link: http://mswronks.weebly.com

Blog Post #6

I visited my old high school's (Charles W. Flanagan high school) website and took a look at some of the teacher's class pages. The first thing I noticed is that all assignments and test information is public. I also noticed that the teachers included links to helpful/relevant websites. Each teacher also had a link to their class calendar and news board. All the class pages followed the same format, which keeps it look crisp and professional. Below is an example of one of the teachers webpages:

I envision myself using technology as often as I see necessary. By this I mean, if the technology is actually beneficial to me and not just another hassle. The main technology, which is mentioned in the podcast, that I would find extremely beneficial to me is twitter. Twitter would be helpful in and out of the classroom because it would provide a way for me to easily communicate with my students. My students would create a classroom account and I could use it for assignments or to just keep my students updated on what is to be expected of them. If some students don't have access to twitter I would provide them with another way to keep in contact with me. 

This assignment was extremely confusing to me at first. I wasn't sure exactly what was expected from me but after help from my teacher, my group and I were able to figure it out. This assignment was helpful for me because it made me see how important it is to evaluate the websites you plan to use. If I had to improve this assignment I would probably use a different wiki site, I found pbworks to be confusing. I can use what I learned from this assignment to evaluate the websites I plan to use within the classroom and to make sure my students also evaluate the websites they use for different assignments. Below are some screenshots of the assignment:

Blog Post #5

I think web 2.0 tools can all be useful within the classroom. Teachers could use all the help they can get and technology, like web 2.0 tools, have been extremely helpful for teachers in the 21st century. These tools can help teachers become more effective. One of the web 2.0 tools that I caught in the podcast is wiki. Wiki is a website that allows collaborative editing from its users. This could be helpful for teachers because it could allow them to create an interactive websites where their students could ask questions, post assignment, etc. Unfortunately, students will need access to a computer and internet source in order to participate. These things can most likely be found within the school, so it should not be an issue.
A web 2.0 tool that I might use in the classroom is teacher-tube. Teacher-tube is exactly like YouTube but is meant specifically for educators. Teacher-tube is filtered out so that every video is appropriate for the classroom. It is also much easier for teachers to find a video on Teacher-tube because it only has educational videos.
I would use Teacher-tube to find relevant videos that I could use as examples throughout the lesson or could just build a lesson around altogether. Since there is such a large amount of videos on Teacher-tube, it shouldn't be hard for me to find a video that is relevant and helpful for whatever lesson I am teaching that day. This web 2.0 tool doesn't involve much and can be very useful for within the classroom. http://www.teachertube.com
The concept map assignment was a lot of fun for me. I played around with the Inspiration tool and had a lot of fun changing the colors of the bubbles and going through the different graphic options. Even though our assignment was to create a study guide, I was able to get a feel of the ways a concept map could be used within a lesson. Concept maps could be used as something you project on the board that has the basic ideas of the days lessons so the students can physically see what it is they should be learning. Below is the concept map I created for the assignment:

Blog Post #4

http://www.cpalms.org/Public/search/Standard#0

One web based resource my students could use to learn this standard could be some soft of simulation software. The simulation software could involve an interactive map that shows the migrations and distribution of human populations. This software would be best for my student to learn this standard because it would be hands on/interactive. 

Using the internet for student research can be really beneficial if students know the right ways to research. It can be useful for students to gain background information on their topic of research. It can also be useful for students to search for scholarly articles to use for their research. However, internet use for research can be risky because not everything on the internet is correct. In order to surpass this I will make sure my students know how to tell the difference between a credible source and a non credible source. 

In the past I usually ignored the proper ways to search the internet unless I was being fact checked. I would just google what it was I was looking for and use any website that sufficed. I never thought about checking the date it was published to see if it was current. That probably would have been useful for me in the past but now I know to make sure to check for that in the future.

Working on the web hunt assignment I gained the understanding of keywords. By this I mean, adding a keyword into the search bar that indicates what you're searching for. Using the different google sources, like google scholar and google video, also help condense your search and find more valuable resources. 

Web hunt challenge 1: 

Find an informational video that combines graphics and audio on World War I.

Web hunt challenge 2:

Find an some sort of interactive website that will help students gain reading skills.