Blog Post #5

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 it most often to find sheet music for solos I am working on or scripts for monologues I am practicing. It has been an invaluable tool for me, and I would love to share that knowledge and use it with my students. If you'd like to learn more about it, you can find it here: Scribd

I believe that VR is one of the most fascinating and promising technological advancements for education that has to come in the past years. I think it provides amazing opportunities for all students, especially those who may have disabilities, either mental or physical. One of my good friends has  daughter with extreme anxiety, and her teacher uses VR sometimes to help her get excited about being at school and to calm her down as she is away from her mom. When she has anxiety attacks at school, they use a beach scene in the VR headset to help her stay grounded and calm her down. I think that is extremely important, especially in schools, in order to make children feel safe and excited about learning.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post 8

Image
Adaptive technologies are extremely helpful to learners who have disabilities. Things like screen readers, braille printing in 3D printers, and online sign interpretations can be an essential part of educating those with either visual or auditory loss. These technologies help the student to feel more independent and less excluded from their non-disabled peers. Personally, my good friend is partially deaf, so I have seen him use both magnified volume in headphones to help him hear instructions as well as sign language interpretations in bigger lecture settings. These are both an integral part of his education, without which he would not be able to comprehend all of the instructions and perform up to his potential. While adaptive technologies are an incredibly helpful tool for learners with disabilities, they come with many challenges. In young ages, it is important not to make the child feel isolated from his or her peers, or make the other children feel like they are neglected becaus...
Read more

Blog Post #10

Before this assignment, I definitely did not know how to use Excel. About a week before this assignment, I was trying to make a measurement chart and it took me at least an hour and a half to get my chart the way I wanted it, and even then it was still not right. Now that I know how to use a variety of tools through Excel, I can see myself using it in my classroom. I think it would be really helpful to keep track of grades, like an online gradebook. It could also be a great way to keep track of class attendance. I always resorted to using different methods to keep track of these things since I was not comfortable using Excel, but now that I understand it a little bit better, I think I will definitely utilize it in the future.  From reviewing my classmates' blogs throughout the semester, it was interesting to see how much my view of education has widened. I have always had blinders on for elementary education, specifically kindergarten and first grades, since those are the grades...
Read more