EME 2040 BLOG

I believe that Web 2.0 advancements are incredibly helpful in a technologically-experienced classroom setting. For example, almost all of the teachers at Fairview Middle School, a school where I did field experience this year, use Edmodo to interact with their students. This software is very beneficial to both students and teachers. It allows students to reach out to their teachers with questions, post assignments, and receive feedback. It allows teachers to make announcements to their students, make notes on their work, and answer questions in real time. The only downside to this is that parents must rely on their students to relay information back to them rather than being immediately in the loop. A tool I have used frequently that I think I will use most in the future is Scribd. I first became familiar with Scribd through my acting coach. It is a subscription based service that allows you to access numerous titles of books, papers, and other documents. With my acting coach, we use...

Website 1:  BrainPOP This website is geared towards elementary school ages in a science classroom setting. While evaluating this website, I was able to verify its currency by seeing that the copyright date was from 1999-2018. This means the website has been updated within the past two months. It also has a featured section for Black History Month, which means it is updated for February. In addition, all the links on the website function properly. When checking its BrainPOP's relevance, I noticed that its content is geared towards a younger audience; the pictures and terms used are very kid-friendly. There are no grammar or spelling errors throughout the website. In terms of authority, the website links back to various other BrainPOP websites, including one for Spanish or French speakers, even younger children, and even educators. They also have a very helpful resource and help center with FAQs and contact information. It also presents accurate information in many different formats...

I have really enjoyed using Twitter in an educational setting. I get to see tweets from my peers and from top educators all over the world. Every time I log on, I learn more about educational technology and how I can use it once I am a teacher. Since I plan to teach kindergarten, my tweets won't really benefit my students. However, I can use Twitter to keep parents informed as well as to share lesson plans and successful programs with other kindergarten teachers looking for inspiration. The digital divide podcast was actually really enlightening for me. Growing up at a private parochial school, tuition was lofty so everyone who went to school there was pretty well-off. Very few people at my school faced the issue of not having digital resources at home. However, at a lower-SES school we see the digital divide is significantly greater. A family's social and financial stability can affect the digital literacy and availability of resources for their child. As a teacher, I will t...

Blogger wasn't letting me add my newsletter as a file, but here it is as pictures!

An ELA technology standard I feel pretty comfortable teaching in my classroom is the LAFS.5.RL.3.7. standard regarding visual and multimedia elements. Programs that can be used to illustrate this standard are PowerPoint, Prezi, and ebooks. I feel confident teaching those because I have previous experience with it. I also think that it will be very helpful in the grade that I want to teach. One of the standards I think I will have a little bit of trouble with is LAFS.5.SL.1.2. This standard utilizes TeacherTube and YouTube videos to instruct students. The reason I think I may need some instruction on this standard is because I genuinely don't know what is and is not grade level appropriate for kids to watch in school. I don't want to show my students something that is too advanced and will not help them learn. I cannot stress enough how much I LOVED the Newsletter Design assignment. I felt like I had free reign over what I wanted to put in my bulletin and it truly made me feel...