Blog Post 5

      Of all the different Web 2.0 Tools available, I think that the community tools such as Google Docs and Edmodo, would be the most useful. I have already used these tools in previous classes, and have found them to be very useful. Google Docs and other similar collaboration tools make it easy for students to do group projects and work together to learn; these tools have been especially helpful in the ever-growing field of online courses and distance learning. I don't know how useful many of the presentation tools available through Web 2.0 would be, because even when presented with these new options for presentations, I have found that students still tend to gravitate to the familiarity of PowerPoint. I have only ever used Web 2.0 presentation tools when I was required to by my teacher, and I was never very excited about having to learn how to use these new programs instead of just using PowerPoint as usual.
       When I am a teacher, Web 2.0 tools such as PollEverywhere would be fun, easy to use, and very helpful. Mobile polling programs seem to be extremely helpful in allowing teachers to receive quick feedback on how much students are understanding about a particular lesson or concept, while eliminating the possibility of a student being embarrassed by answering a question incorrectly in front of all of his or her peers.
       In the future, the implementation of Virtual Reality programs into more classrooms would be a very interesting new use of the technology. Through VR applications, students are able to be virtually transported to different eras in history, can view various parts of the Earth up close, and can see new things that students would otherwise not have access to. This allows students to have a better understanding of different concepts and facts presented to them in the classroom; instead of just reading out of a textbook, students can be a part of whatever they are learning about, making learning a much more personalized, engaging experience.

ILP #1 Participation - Webinar

       I viewed a webinar from the website EdTechTeacher that discussed new research tools that teachers can use in the classroom. The hosts, Beth Holland and Sabba Quidwal, discussed their previous usage of applications like Diigo, EverNote, and Google Hangout to collaborate and share notes and information with their groups in higher education. They went on to discuss the new program called Papers, which allows teachers to share their PDF and Word files with their entire class. It also has an e-reserve of past files that students can download, creating a sort of digital library for the class.

       The Papers program can be accessed through a mobile app as well as a website. The company offers a 40% discount to students using the program, as well as a monthly subscription option to students who would only need to use the program for a few months during school. I found the discussion about Papers very interesting, because it appears to be a very user-friendly application that allows students to easily organize all their readings from different courses by using tags, color-coding, star ratings, and collections of different authors, titles, and courses. The webinar primarily discussed using Papers in higher education, especially in a doctoral program, which increased my interest in the program. I can see myself using the Papers application throughout college and my future Master's and Doctoral programs, to make all my research and readings easy to access and re-read when necessary.

Blog Post 4

   So far, I have been using Twitter primarily to read articles related to education and technology for education. I have retweeted several articles pertaining to this topic, and have used Twitter to find new researchers, bloggers, authors, and speakers that publish content related to the field of educational technology. I have mostly interacted with other students from this class so far, but plan on trying to reach out to more experts in the field using Twitter. In the future, using Twitter can be helpful to quickly get announcements out to my students after school, and it is a great way to contact educational and technology experts with any questions or comments I may have about a certain product, study, article, or other piece of information.
     The digital divide can very clearly affect how well students are able to do in school. If teachers and schools don't take into account the fact that many students still don't have reliable access to the Internet and other technologies, these students will fall behind and continually be behind his or her peers in terms of academic growth and ability to learn outside of the classroom. A main cause of the digital divide is poverty, so ensuring that all of my students know of the community resources available to them, such as the computers available at school and in public libraries, is key to stopping the digital divide before it becomes too great an issue for my students to overcome. If I know I am teaching at a school where the digital divide might be a frequent issue, I would make sure that my students have ample time to work on technology-based projects while in class, to greatly reduce or eliminate the need for my students to have access to advanced technologies outside of the classroom.
     When I have my own classroom of elementary students, I plan on primarily using technology to help my students with seemingly "basic" tasks, such as learning to type and using word processing software. I also plan on using student software to help my students learn how to read, answer questions, and look for different things in reading passages, such as the main idea, context clues, and how to draw conclusions and make inferences based on reading a passage on the computer.
 

Blog Post 3

      With my existing knowledge, I feel most prepared to teach the ELA standards that cover reading and text analysis. I would need more learning on the standards that have to do with speaking and working in groups because I am not very familiar with the specifics that go into these standards.
      I would like to utilize software and technology that could help my students solve math problems and visualize them using graphing tools, illustrated problems, and other visual breakdowns of math problems. I plan on teaching second or third grade, so having a software that would help my students grasp some of the more vital sections on math would be important. I would need to teach my students the basics of how to use the software because it would not be an everyday, commonplace software, but because my students are going to be part of the digital native era they should be able to operate the software with minimal problems.
      In the Newsletter Design assignment, I learned how to use a new template in Word that I had never seen before, and I learned how to create hyperlinks that go directly to an email address. I will definitely be using the newsletter formatting in documents in the future, and will probably distribute it to my students' families as an e-newsletter, so the hyperlink function will be valuable to me in the future.

Blog Post 2

       As a student, I've used MS Word to create basic documents such as essays and basic posters and flyers. I've had some experience using the many features in Word through a computer apps course I took in high school, but never had to use these tools in assignments for other classes. I have seen teachers use MS Word to create lists of instructions, example papers and works cited pages, and to quickly list ideas and terms for classes.
       In the past, I have seen teachers photocopy pages of text and workbooks to make class sets and worksheet packets. As a teacher, I would need to make sure that whatever I am copying is only being used in my classroom and that my students have access to their own books that have been purchased. As a teacher, I would also be able to download multimedia tools as long as I delete them or obtain permission from the creator after keeping and using the media for more than two years. When my students are creating their own work, they need to make sure they appropriately cite their sources.
      Schools lack the ability to properly and consistently train teachers on how to use technology that is available to them, which makes it difficult for teachers to use the technology that may be available in their school. To combat this, teachers may need to do research on their own and help train other teachers and work together to develop programs that teachers and students can use the new technology for. In addition, technology often lacks the ability to adequately assess students' performance in the classroom. In order to change this, teachers may need to change what kind of skills students are assessed on, so their computer competency that they are taught during the school year is properly tested on during testing periods. Another implementation issue of technology is the resistance of certain people to change. To make the transition to technology-centered classrooms smoother, teachers may need to slowly but consistently introduce students to technology as a tool for learning in the classroom.