ILP #1

Voicethread for ILP #1

Link: https://voicethread.com/share/10466695/

Blog #6

      The first thing you see when you go to the teacher's website is a brief overview of important information. His email, phone, and even Instagram and Twitter are the first things you see. This makes it easy if a parent is just searching for how to contact him. He has a few interesting cosmetic features that make the website more friendly. He then has a tab for announcements that discuss the homework. He displays his instagram photos that keep students and parents up to date with what the class has done. Mr. Bowen is a Civics teacher at Cobb Middle School.

https://www.leonschools.net/Domain/2640

      

      For my first ILP I learned about this website called 10minutelessonplans.com. It walks a teacher through making a lesson plan. It is simple and easy to use. It asks key questions and then offers advice on what to do. I can see myself using this tool. Also, in the DIIGO group, other students have shared websites that make it easier to communicate with parents, take attendance, create a class discussion forum, and others. Keeping track of my classes online will keep me organized and all the information will be in the same place and easy to access. 

      The Tech Sandbox was incredibly interesting! Technology has so much utility and seeing how professionals use it in creative ways is very inspiring. I can see myself using the smart board to create interactive activities where students can use the touch pad. The virtual reality device would be so useful in my Spanish classroom. I can take them on a trip back in time to colonial South America or hike the trail of Machu Pichu. The reason I want to become a teacher is to share the culture of other peoples. Providing an interactive experience where they can see "first hand" how other people live will inspire and engage them with the material. 

Blog #5

      Web 2.0 revolutionized the use of technology in the classroom. In this class we made twitter accounts and share different articles about technology and studies that impact students' lives and also our ways to teach diverse populations. The truth is that students nowadays are comfortable with technology and know all about social media. Social media is a perfect example of Web 2.0. Students interact with each other as well as news and trending topics. The ability to read an article and then read the comments or responses to an article helps students realize that there is often more than one side to an argument and authors tend to be one sided and biased. 

      Pinterest is a great Web 2.0 tool for the classroom. It is an easy to navigate site where teachers share their own lessons and then discuss the results and how it went with the students. Teachers can make folders that have multiple articles that they found interesting. For example, as a science teacher they could make a folder about biology experiments in one folder and chemistry in another. 

Pinterest.com 

      The ability to share knowledge with someone miles away is very promising. As technology improves so will being able to find other people's work. If I am having trouble with teaching a particular lesson I can look around at how other teachers taught the material and read the advice they gave in annotations. This is super helpful because we all have our own skill set and being able to accommodate different needs is crucial. Say that my teaching style is not good for a few students in my class, I can find a teacher that is compatible with their learning style and incorporate those techniques into my classroom.  

Web Evaluation

High School Spanish

Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com 

      This is a great website for practicing the fundamentals of a language. It is a game app on the phone as well as a website. It is very user friendly. 

• Currency: The company won the iPhone Best App of the Year award in 2013. There have also been various studies published by the team from the year 2014-2016. They have been working to add more languages.
• Relevance: The app is very easy to use. It starts from basic vocabulary words and progresses into sentences. This app would serve as extra homework practice.
• Authority: There have been articles published from various universities about the effectiveness of Duolingo and also their language learning model.
• Accuracy: The site is accurate in the way that it will not teach you the wrong words. The grammar and vocabulary it teaches are correct. However, since Spanish is a very complex language that has many lexical changes depending on region it is nearly impossible to be 100% accurate. 
• Purpose: The purpose is to teach a basis of a new language. Their motto is that you can learn a new language by doing 5 minutes of Duolingo a day. 

http://spanish4teachers.org/

This site provides lesson plans and PowerPoint for Spanish teachers.

• Currency: The founder started the website in 2009 and allows for teachers to share lesson plans and other materials so it is updated quite frequently. 
• Relevance: The site is easy to maneuver. It has tabs that mark lesson plans, quizzes, culture, and within those tabs are subcategories that dive in deeper to a subject. 
• Authority: The website is managed by an IB Spanish teacher. She has a disclaimer that they do their best to make sure all the information is accurate but admit it is nearly impossible. The site does have authority because it takes information from many experienced professionals in the field. 
• Accuracy: The site offers a disclaimer that not all the information is completely accurate so it warns to use the information with a grain of salt. It is still a useful site for a knowledgeable reader who can identify mistakes. 
• Purpose: The purpose is to enhance learning across the country. The author's mission statement says that collaboration enhances learning. 

Blog #4

      The Twitter account I made for this class is my second account. However, I prefer this account because I follow a lot more beneficial pages. On my other account I follow meme accounts, celebrities, and less professional accounts. I have customized this account so that I see educational articles about technology, and cutting edge educational theories and studies. I have really enjoyed being able to open up my phone and get useful information and learn something new every time. Twitter will absolutely help me in my future career because the news pages that I follow stay up to date and post new articles every day. 

      The digital divide is the inequality of internet access based on socioeconomic status. The overwhelming majority of affluent families have internet access in their home as well as access on their phones. However, families of lower SES tend to have less access. This is detrimental to a student's success. For example, if a student without a computer has to do research or make a PowerPoint for class, that student must stay after school to use the school's computers or commute to a public library. If that student has to take the bus then it is more difficult to stay late. This is a huge roadblock because now the poorer student has to put in twice the effort to do the same work as a more affluent student. Other causes of the divide could be living in a rural area where internet providers do not reach because the demand is too low. In my classroom I will continue to assign projects that need to be done on the computer but just be open and flexible with students who do not have them. This could mean an alternate assignment or being more lenient on grading if the student only has 20 minutes to work on it during their lunch hour.

      Over the course of my career I will use student software more and more as the need and access to technology progresses. I will probably use Microsoft Word most just because that is how I will write newsletters, tests/assignments, and make a syllabus. I also hope to incorporate EdModo or another site that allows all the students to communicate in a "social media"-esque format. It will allow students to communicate without exchanging more private information like Facebook profiles. I will be teaching high school students so most of them will have access to the internet either at home or on a smart phone. It is important for a teacher to be fluent in technological software and also important to teach students a wide span of internet resources. 

Blog #3

      An ELA standard that I feel comfortable teaching is "Multimedia." Charts can be manipulated very easily to skew data. For example, a chart may show the stock of a company rising over the past four years but if you look back one more year you can see that the stock plummeted. It is important to teach that information from the internet should be taken with a grain of salt. It is important to teach that authors have biases and manipulate facts and evidence to support their personal beliefs. Something that I must work on is teaching how to cite and produce information. I need to become more versed on citing in general. If I share images or ideas that are not mine it is important to cite so if I have trouble with that then I will not be able to share the information or teach the students how to share. Also, making a word document of class handout look neat and organized is very important. It will help the students stay focused on the assignment and not get frustrated by minute technicalities. 

      One aspect of being a teacher that I am not comfortable with is setting up a written plan that communicates what I'll be teaching in class. That means stuff like newsletters and syllabi. It is difficult because it takes a lot of time and effort to plan events and then even more time to make the document presentable. Making the newsletter helped me conquer my fear of this. The border, columns, and graphics really helped my newsletter look presentable and friendly. I would like to improve on the content I put into the newsletter. I feel that a two page news letter might be too long. Parents are more inclined to read the whole thing if it is broken down into smaller categories.