Monday, April 24, 2017
Friday, April 14, 2017
Blended Learning
Blended learning is really something that teachers should consider implementing in their classrooms, if they have not yet already done that. For those of you who don't know, blended learning is a learning approach where the teacher does face-to-face teaching, but also implements a technology piece into the teaching.
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Digital Citizenship
Digital Citizenship
When I think of digital citizenship, I think of it as the way we conduct ourselves on the internet and what we do to make the internet a safer and better place for everyone. This idea us SORTA similar to how I see regular citizenship though.. Our duty as citizens of a country, nation, school, home, anything, is to do what we're supposed to by following the law, and try to help others so that we can live in a safer world. So what does this actually look like? Well.. people on the internet post some crazy things sometimes.. I have seen pictures of people just casually doing drugs on instagram like it's just no big deal and I sit there thinking to myself, do they not realize that when they want a job one day this stuff is gonna come back up? It's crazy like how do people think that is even remotely okay? Recently we acquired a new coach who made us COMPLETELY clean up our social media accounts.. like to the point if there was even the side of a beer can in the bottom left corner of the picture that NO ONE would even notice, it had to be deleted. I actually really struggled with this because turns out that was the case in most of the best pictures I had taken, OF COURSE 😐 . After deleting around 150 pictures, I realized it was actually for our own good.
Using digital citizenship in the classroom can be a really simple thing to do and really easily done. I find that lots of teachers have decided to leave it to the parents to deal with but really it needs to be done from both the home and school. Since BYOD is gaining ground and becoming way more widespread, we as teachers must monitor our students and make sure that they are staying on task. School computers must have filters and blocks to keep students from websites that will harm them. Parents and teachers must also work together to prevent one of the biggest problems we are having today.. cyberbullying. Everyone wants to feel safe. Children know from a young age stigmas associated with areas and people and places that are considered "unsafe," when we can teach children that there are areas on the internet and people that have bad intentions just like in the real world, then maybe our children will be more cautious. Newton Conover City Schools reported that 30% of teens have made plans with a stranger on the internet to meet up! THAT IS A HORRIFYING AMOUNT. We have to teach our children without scaring them that there are people out there who want to hurt them whether that is physically or emotionally, we have to protect our children by teaching them safe internet use.
When I think of digital citizenship, I think of it as the way we conduct ourselves on the internet and what we do to make the internet a safer and better place for everyone. This idea us SORTA similar to how I see regular citizenship though.. Our duty as citizens of a country, nation, school, home, anything, is to do what we're supposed to by following the law, and try to help others so that we can live in a safer world. So what does this actually look like? Well.. people on the internet post some crazy things sometimes.. I have seen pictures of people just casually doing drugs on instagram like it's just no big deal and I sit there thinking to myself, do they not realize that when they want a job one day this stuff is gonna come back up? It's crazy like how do people think that is even remotely okay? Recently we acquired a new coach who made us COMPLETELY clean up our social media accounts.. like to the point if there was even the side of a beer can in the bottom left corner of the picture that NO ONE would even notice, it had to be deleted. I actually really struggled with this because turns out that was the case in most of the best pictures I had taken, OF COURSE 😐 . After deleting around 150 pictures, I realized it was actually for our own good.
Using digital citizenship in the classroom can be a really simple thing to do and really easily done. I find that lots of teachers have decided to leave it to the parents to deal with but really it needs to be done from both the home and school. Since BYOD is gaining ground and becoming way more widespread, we as teachers must monitor our students and make sure that they are staying on task. School computers must have filters and blocks to keep students from websites that will harm them. Parents and teachers must also work together to prevent one of the biggest problems we are having today.. cyberbullying. Everyone wants to feel safe. Children know from a young age stigmas associated with areas and people and places that are considered "unsafe," when we can teach children that there are areas on the internet and people that have bad intentions just like in the real world, then maybe our children will be more cautious. Newton Conover City Schools reported that 30% of teens have made plans with a stranger on the internet to meet up! THAT IS A HORRIFYING AMOUNT. We have to teach our children without scaring them that there are people out there who want to hurt them whether that is physically or emotionally, we have to protect our children by teaching them safe internet use.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
My experience with Google+
Google+ took me a while to understand
Google+ took me a lot longer to understand than I had expected. Since I have had a twitter for a while, I was ready to be able to use twitter as my PLN. After discovering that I need to use Google+, I tried to get to work. Unfortunately some of the parts of the assignment though were a little harder than others.. I have many interests in everything ranging from cooking to travel to arts and crafts. Finding collections to join was a very easy thing for me. My favorite so far has been one that I joined about herbal medicine... Did you know that carrots are good for an upset stomach? You learn something new everyday. Anyways! Since I am a total yogi, I decided to create a collection about yoga and the benefits it has on mental and physical health! Depending on your technological abilities, creating a PLN can either be an easy task or something that is filled with stress. Easily put, having a personal learning network is WORK. It is definitely not something that you can make and expect to grow overnight into something useful for the future. I also found out.. not many people I know use Google+! So hopefully as people do the assignment that will change because so far my only "suggested friends" are my teachers from high school and I have no clue how they're on that list, they got X'ed pretty quickly.
Thats what my page looks like right now.. I probably should join collections having to do with education but that is still to come! The biggest problem I will face though is sustaining this PLN and networking. This resource could be something super awesome IF I use it correctly. I know a lot of teachers who post things to their page for parents in their classroom and take from other teachers to help themselves! I am always on my computer just messing around and LOOKING for things to do. This new Google+ account can definitely keep me occupied for a while during those times.. It's like an endless site of information on everything I could possibly need! I start my student teaching next year, and my hope is that by the time I start it next spring, I have maintained this page enough so that I have a network of information and users to help me along the way.
Thats what my page looks like right now.. I probably should join collections having to do with education but that is still to come! The biggest problem I will face though is sustaining this PLN and networking. This resource could be something super awesome IF I use it correctly. I know a lot of teachers who post things to their page for parents in their classroom and take from other teachers to help themselves! I am always on my computer just messing around and LOOKING for things to do. This new Google+ account can definitely keep me occupied for a while during those times.. It's like an endless site of information on everything I could possibly need! I start my student teaching next year, and my hope is that by the time I start it next spring, I have maintained this page enough so that I have a network of information and users to help me along the way. Sunday, January 29, 2017
Benefits of TPACK
TPACK and the Benefits for Classrooms Today
There is absolutely no question that in our technologically advance society we have today, using technology in the classroom is a no brainer. Not using any sort of technology I think is probably impossible at this point. Our technology can have such great impacts on our students lives that it would be dumb of us as teachers to deprive our students of that experience.
To begin, teachers must have not only an understanding of the content that they wish to teach, but a mastery of it. When a teacher enters a classroom, they must know the information they are going to teach front and back. Otherwise how are we to expect our students gain an understanding of it? Pedagogical knowledge is the actual ability to teach the content.. So basically do you know everything about what you are teaching and can you teach it well enough that they will know it as well as you do? The last main point in TPACK is the ability to properly integrate technology into what is being taught.
The advantage to using TPACK is that the model is very easy to understand but also easy to use for every subject. The disadvantage to TPACK is that no matter how laid out it is, not all teachers have the same pedagogical, content, and technology knowledge. In those areas that over lap on the chart seen below, it would be hard to say that the model works perfectly every time for everyone because some teachers may lack more than others in some areas.
Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70.
Parr, G., Bellis, N. & Bulfin, S. (2013 in press) Teaching English teachers for the future: Speaking back to TPACK. English in Australia, 48 (1).
There is absolutely no question that in our technologically advance society we have today, using technology in the classroom is a no brainer. Not using any sort of technology I think is probably impossible at this point. Our technology can have such great impacts on our students lives that it would be dumb of us as teachers to deprive our students of that experience.
To begin, teachers must have not only an understanding of the content that they wish to teach, but a mastery of it. When a teacher enters a classroom, they must know the information they are going to teach front and back. Otherwise how are we to expect our students gain an understanding of it? Pedagogical knowledge is the actual ability to teach the content.. So basically do you know everything about what you are teaching and can you teach it well enough that they will know it as well as you do? The last main point in TPACK is the ability to properly integrate technology into what is being taught.
Parr, G., Bellis, N. & Bulfin, S. (2013 in press) Teaching English teachers for the future: Speaking back to TPACK. English in Australia, 48 (1).
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