IPL Design - Edmodo

My Edmodo was designed for 4th grade mathematics.  Students can collaborate and share with each other and as a teacher, I can share useful links, pictures, and comments.  I can also create quizzes on Edmodo for them to take and be able to review immediately after because the computer grades it.  It is a great way to connect with the students and provide educational and schedule information.  I also learned that you can make a poll on Edmodo.  This is a great tool to get the opinions of the students and receive feedback.  Click here to access my Edmodo account.  Create a free account and use the group code: 5333rx

#10 - Last Blog for the Semester

I will use data collection tools like excel for averaging scores, making tables, and many other things.  If I teach math then excel will be used quite frequently and even taught to my students so that they can use excel to their benefit.  I plan on teaching children that are visually impaired so I'm not sure they will find as much use to excel as I would as the teacher.  I will most likely use it for averaging and calculating grades and the class average.

I greatly enjoyed reading my classmates' blogs and collaborating ideas and thoughts on different subjects.  I especially enjoyed the blogs on assistive technology because it is relevant to what I will be doing in the future.  My students will be taught how to use brailers, canes, and voice recognition software.  It was interesting to read all the different types of assistive technology and how each of my classmates plans to use them in their own classroom some day.  I even got ideas for myself and my use through some of the things they posted.  I also enjoyed the topic of professional development and web 2.0 tools.  I didn't realize how many tools there are available for teachers to use! It was amazing discovering new technological advancements and their application to the teaching environment.

I would really like to learn how to use Pinterest. Teachers use this now to share and collect lesson plans, classroom decorations, projects, books, and other educational/professional materials and resources.  I will probably make one in the near future and play around with it until I figure out how to use it. I could even google how to use it or type it in YouTube to find tutorials on how to use it.  That's what I did to make a prezi for my first independent learning project.  I find this website very beneficial and can't wait to give it a try!

Desserts

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bJzhA6za8RZgxX7

#9- "flipped classroom," "open," and PowerPoint

In a "flipped" classroom, short videos are the most important piece. They could be created and posted by the instructor or from an online repository.  This encourages individual effort at home as well as collaborative effort in the classroom.  Click here for a link to free flipped classroom resources. The Khan Academy is a website that has educational videos.

Open includes education, content, and sources.  It basically is "open" for everyone to use and share.  Just like the podcast said, there is a "wealth of information" available and "open." I think one example might be Edmodo (although I'm not certain of this.)  Teachers share information and sources there.  I found another website that seems like it provides a plethora of information. It is a virtual reality download that assists in the educational experience. It is free and open to whomever would like to access it. Click here to check out the website.

I learned a lot from this assignment.  I learned how to record your voice and how to time everything perfectly.  The basic things I already knew from previous assignments and presentations but the voice recording was really cool! I also learned how to hide the speaker and things like that.  This project was definetly a learning experience for me.  I feel prepared to make "crap[ppy]" Power Points in the future. :)  I can use it to teach my students and even post online for study use with my voice in the background.  One thing I didn't like was how you can't hyperlink in the notes. This was slightly inconvenient. Hyperlinking in the notes could be beneficial if you don't want it on the slide but still want it for reference.  I also didn't like the template I chose but I spent a long time trying to find one and in the process downloaded who knows what on my computer. It was a struggle so I just ended up with this online template.  In the future I will probably just use my own templates. Below is a screen shot of the power point. I had fun making it.

Get Creative Sketchnoting Your Slides

Get Creative Sketchnoting Your Presentation from Peter Zvirinsky

This is about making sketches and using them to present. It is a very creative way to make visual aids. I really like the slide with the Black Board version.

#8 - Sports Psych, Bloom's Taxonomy, Professional Development

Because the equipment was made for sports, it is kind of a reach to use it for teaching purposes. You could use the EMG to understand the physiological and bodily response to stimuli and gauge people's true reactions to stress and other stuff. The big board with flashing lights and numbers that tested simultaneous cognitive and physical response (don't remember what it was called) could be used for autistic kids. But, like I said, it is sort of a reach and not super practical. It is all very expensive and I think money would be better used elsewhere (on technology specifically for teaching and learning in the classroom environment.)

Bloom's taxonomy promotes analyzing and and evaluating rather than just remembering facts. PowerPoint could be used at every level.
Remembering: lists, descriptions, names, diagrams and visual graphics could be put on slides to read and take notes on
Understanding: teacher can elaborate from the slide by explaining the idea or concept. Links and videos can be added to the slides to elaborate as well
Applying: real world situations, links to journals or articles, or discussion questions posted on slides
Analyzing: insert a prezi in the powerpoint to break it down into parts to analyze or make graphs, tables and charts in the power point
Evaluating: directions for an experiment, hyperlink Kahoot
Creating: make their own powerpoint

According to the podcast, professional development is the "life long learning that teachers engage in." Chapter 12 describes how learning needs change over time and new methods of teaching are required. Technology has greatly impacted teacher development. Technology has now enabled opportunities to communicate with other teachers, parents and students and also for teachers to learn from other teachers. Blogs, webinars, diigo, Twitter, and many others contribute to this. Below is a screenshot of a website that would keep teachers (and others) up to date with the technology trends.

#7 - Assistive Technology, Website Design, Diigo

According to the podcast, "adaptive or assistive technologies are technologies that help people with disabilities more effectively use computing equipment." Students could use voice recognition software instead of typing if unable to type or they can use technologies like brail printers if they are blind. I am quite familiar with the brailler in which they are referring to in the podcast. It is like a typewriter that produces raised bumps on the paper so that the people that are blind can read their completed work. Every summer I act as a voluntary mentor at a developmental sports camp (for children that are visually impaired) called Camp Abilities. I watched and assisted the kids as they typed "thank you" letters to all the donors of the camp that contributed food, equipment, and money. It was so awesome to see how efficient those machines are! That technology has dramatically increased educational opportunities for children that are visually impaired. Another piece of assistive technology they used was their canes to help navigate and prevent collisions. Since their sight is limited, and for some completely gone, they need the canes to feel their way around the world and stay safe. I take a particular interest in this subject because I plan to be an O&M instructor (orientation and mobility.) My job will be to teach them how to properly use this adaptive technology and many others. I don't foresee any specific challenges for adaptive technology in my classroom because I assume that FSU will prepare me to teach effectively and be well informed. The only challenge that comes to mind is the lack of money in the educational system and the possible limitation of how much assistive technology will be available to the students. From what I have been told, the technology is quite expensive.

To be honest, at first I completely hated the assignment. I had no idea where to even begin. But the further I dove into it, the more fun I had with it. I learned how to do everything through trial and error. I spent an enormous amount of time on my website and am pretty happy with my results. Here is a screenshot of one of my favorite pages of the website:

I couldn't figure out how to use the tockify thing though. I ended up using google calendar because it was too confusing. I think that the website would have been better if weebly offered some directional advice for first timers. I really liked how many options were available for the website though. I tried every button just to see what it did (which is probably why it took so long to complete.) The YouTube option was of particular interest to me. I thought that was a useful addition. Now that I know how to use weebly, it will be a lot more easy to do in the future. I plan on using it for my class websites in the future. 

Diigo was also a completely new experience for me. Everything we learned in class was new to me. I thought the annotation of articles was really cool. I can see that being of great use to both students and teachers. I also preferred books over the internet because I could write in them and highlight stuff to help study but now with diigo, websites offer the same capabilities. As a teacher, diigo is great to collaborate and share websites that prove beneficial to teaching. As a teacher, I can give and share ideas to students and teachers. It is an interactive website that will be very useful for future use in the classroom. Technology is great!