EduTech

This philosophy self-assessment was quite interesting. My results (screenshot posted below) determined that I tend to be more flexible in my approach to teaching and my assessments correlate and reflect that same flexibility. I scored highest in the "Personal Source" (29 points) and tied in the "Social Interaction" and "Behavioral Modification" categories (26 points). Based on the answer key from the self assessment, for someone like myself who scores highest in these categories, I am someone who  acknowledges the uniqueness of individuals and the importance of structuring meaning and direction in a democratic setting, and I am someone who aims at building learning communities and purports to develop productive ways of interacting in a democratic setting. I think both of these hit the nail on the head when it comes to my educational philosophy perspective!

Over the course of the semester, I have learned a lot of valuable information on a variety of topics on teaching with technology. This project gave me the chance the review and reflect on what I had learned, and basically sum up the most important (in my mind) aspects of this book into a 15 minute clip that I will be able to look back on over the course of my career to refer to when I decide to integrate technology. Some of the most meaningful topics that I had the pleasure to learn about were flipped classrooms, instructional software such as drill-and-practice, the use of apps in education, and so many more. Between the numerous resources that the book provided to the in-depth descriptions of tools and software, I am in good shape for knowing how to best integrate technology into my classroom.

I had the pleasure of using Prodigy as the multimedia tool for my project. I chose Prodigy because it was something that I had heard of from the kids that I babysit for who have their homework assignments on it, however I had never really watched them do it (These kids are super smart and never ask for my help!) so I figured I would try it out since it's a math tool and that is my content area. I learned a lot about Prodigy from their  website  and also by creating a teacher account as well as a student account. I created the student account so that I know exactly what my students would be doing and a teacher account so that I could see how it evaluates each student. Some things that I learned about Prodigy are that is is designed for grades 1-8 and it is all game-based learning, meaning students can have FUN while doing math! Prodigy is great because not only does it send all the data on each student to the teacher, but it also allows for parents to track and view t...

I viewed the presentation about Emerging Technologies and thought it was very good. It mentioned a few different tools that I am familiar with, but it also introduced me to some new ones as well, such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence technology, and it gave examples of each. Some emerging technologies that I could see being beneficial to my content area of mathematics and special education are Kahoot, Microsoft excel, Bloomz, and Quizizz. Kahoot is a fun way for students to answer questions as a class or in groups when playing games or just to test what students do and don’t know. I have used this one before and found it fun and helpful! For math, I could use this during review activities for tests and quizzes. Microsoft excel could be useful for my content area for projects that involve spreadsheets such as when we do business math or other fun topics. The app Bloomz is one that I had never heard of before today. It allows for more and easier t...

I learned a lot this week about cyberbullying and web safety. I feel that both of these are very serious and important topics and I know that when I was in high school there wasn't as much emphasis on them as there should be. Some ways in which I can incorporate what I now know would be to put in my class syllabus the definition of both cyberbullying and web safety, what to do if you or someone else is being bullied, ways to stay safe on the web, etc. I can incorporate activities related to these topics into the curriculum such as like the one in my last post. Also, I can try to get the school district to hold assemblies on the topics as well as participating in Cyberbullying Awareness month in October.

Digital ethics is a huge part of web safety. In this activity from NetSmartz's student project kit, students will first be asked these questions:  What are some reasons that people cheat in school? Has technology made this easier or harder for people to do? What are some of the ways that people cheat? What are some of the consequences of cheating? Students will then be split into groups and each group will get a computer. They will be told to go onto   NSTeens.org/Comics/ChoicesAndCheaters  and  go  through  an interactive comic strip. The first  round  they will chose  answers  that are choices that they would make and for the second round they pick the opposite choices. To finish off the lesson, students will write/type and submit a reflection what they have learned and they will create their own skit with choices and consequences. I chose this activity  because  I feel like it is  very easy to cheat in math w...