Blog Journal 8

I have enjoyed working with Diigo this past month because it has opened my eyes to new ways students and educators can connect. This website allowed my peers and I to share new websites on relevant topics and highlight/annotate specific sections of these articles to show what we thought was most important. I learned how to use this website with the extension from Google Chrome and I was able to sufficiently share information with my classmates and professor. Diigo can be implemented in my classroom with upper-level students since it does require literacy competence and the ability to maneuver a computer. This can be used in the classroom by having my students look up relevant articles that pertains to the topics we are discussing during that week and share them with their classmates with comments and annotations. I could also use Diigo with team member by sharing articles that could be helpful to my fellow educators such as how to increase student productivity. In my individual professional efforts I can use Diigo to find articles pertaining to higher education and continuing education to further my academic career. Diigo can be used in and outside of the classroom because it functions as a way to share important articles and highlight the main points of the findings.

Student's learning can be supported at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy through PowerPoint. The bottom category of Bloom's taxonomy 'remember' can be supported using PowerPoint by using the CRAP principles in the powerpoint slides. The slide can help students recall facts through repetition in the slides which can facilitate student's memorization skills. Next, the second level of Bloom's taxonomy is 'understand' which involves students ability to explain ideas and concepts. Educators can use PowerPoint to give a definition of terms or classify groups of items to help the student recognize what a certain concept means. The next category in the taxonomy is 'apply' meaning students should be able to use information in new situations. PowerPoint can facilitate this concept by providing real-life examples within the slides that could be useful to the students outside of the classroom. The third level of Bloom's taxonomy is 'analyze' which requires students to draw connections among ideas. Educators can use PowerPoint to achieve this by implementing questions and mini practice tests inside of their PowerPoint lesson to help students relate to the information. Next, 'evaluate' is the level of the taxonomy that involves students' ability to justify a stand. Educators can help students make a decision in their PowerPoints by making students take a stand in an argument within the slide. Divide the class in half and require students to support or refute their arguments. Finally, the top level of Bloom's Taxonomy is 'create' which wants students to produce new or original work. Educators can allow students to create a PowerPoint of their own on the lesson they have just learned in order for them to design and be the author of their own work.

Technology and teacher professional development go hand in hand. The world is changing every single day and teachers have the responsibility of disseminating this newfound information to their students. Educators need to understand how people learn and need to support this process through their professional development. This teacher professional development should be grounded in the classroom since it is context bound and teachers should utilize what their classroom has to offer. This process takes time because educators need to build connections and this kind of training cannot happen overnight. Educators must promote learning in their classrooms and technology can facilitate this much easier. Computer tools can allow teachers the opportunity to construct meaningful connections with other like-minded professionals. This kind of technology can include virtual FaceTime software to chat with people around the world. Online conferences can also be a source of professional development if educators cannot physically be present. Integrating e-learning into a teachers program can influence the quality of their teaching and students ability to absorb this information. Educators should use technology to gain experience and connections to further their teacher professional development.
Cite Journal: Technology Infused Professional Development

ILP #2-- Personal Learning Network

Professional development in an educational setting is imperative and finding new technology to facilitate this is just as important. I decided to choose the online tool of Reddit.com to include in my personal learning network. Over the course of the past week I have had the opportunity to participate in a subreddit, which is a smaller community of Reddit. I focused my attention on education and interacted with educators, professionals and other students in this forum. My project gives a brief overview of the functions of Reddit, and explains the subreddit I engaged with. I also note the participation log I have been keeping for the past week which has identified the number of posts and some topic headings of the subreddit. I have thoroughly enjoyed this project and hope to keep expanding my PLN as the semester continues.

Voicethread: ILP #2 PLN

Blog Journal 7

So far this semester I have thoroughly enjoyed using Twitter. Participating in chats with other professionals and learning something new everyday has been one of the aspects of this class that I look forward to every Tuesday and Thursday. After using Twitter this semester, I have learned that educators do have twitters and they engage in professional development for themselves through this application. I have also learned that virtually every organization has a Twitter account and tries to engage with their audience through this website daily to engage with their followers. The benefits of using Twitter are staying connected with people in your field and community that interest you or share the same passions as you do. Twitter is also a great resource to build a personal learning network as a young professional still in my undergraduate years at FSU. So far I have not run into issues with using Twitter because I was experienced with this application before. I have enjoyed engaging with more knowledgeable people and will continue this account after this course is over.

I enjoyed using Weebly to create my own website this past week! Making my own teacher page for students and parents to stay up-to-date with material for my class was fun and allowed me to express creativity. I chose to create a psychology teacher page for high school students that were preparing for the AP Exam and learning the basics of psychology. I liked how there were so many options on Weebly to add in different elements to the website such as images, calendars, text and titles. I did not like how limited the design of the website itself was since I chose a template from the options. If I create another website using Weebly I would most likely create my own rather than use a template because I felt somewhat limited in my creative design. I learned the creating a teacher webpage is a time consuming task and students should appreciate when teachers actually keep their websites up-to-date. In my future career I hope to create a cohesive teacher page for my students to utilize that would be helpful for their success in my classroom. Ms. Otto's Psychology Class

Assistive and adaptive technologies are used to support learners by increasing a student's ability to access learning materials and becoming participants instead of bystanders. These kind of technologies help people with disabilities perform tasks easier than without. For example, if a student has difficulty being able to see a standard monitor, the could use voice recognition devices instead of typing or text-to-speech software that allows them to still utilize the computer. I have not known anyone to use these kind of technologies but I am thankful that they are being used for students with disabilities because everyone should be able to reap the benefits of technology. Some challenges of using adaptive technologies in the classroom could include insufficient equipment or connectivity. Sometimes technology does not work like it should and this could be an issue if a student is depending upon a certain piece of technology to work 100% of the time. Also, if my school district does not own the type of assistive and adaptive technology that could assist a student in need, they would not be benefitting from their education.