Technology is so engaging to students. They love to use it and deserve to have it in their instruction. We are teaching 21st century students and have to cater to their needs. Students are growing up with a need for technology. As sad as this might be to some people, it is sometimes the only way to engage students. No matter the circumstances or our beliefs, we have to meet our students’ needs on a day by day basis. Technology makes learning more engaging and hands on for our students. Just the looks in their eyes when engaging in technology makes it all worth it.
Technology is always changing.

Teachers have to stay aware of and up to date on the latest and greatest technologies to teach their students in the best way possible. Teachers need to go to professional development opportunities on new technologies as often as they can. It is hard to learn new things without actively trying them out. It is so much easier to learn new technologies when going to professional development. It is not absolutely necessary if the teacher is actively learning and keeping up with technologies, though. I personally feel that it is worth it to go to professional developments though, especially if you need the professional development hours.
We have so many resources as teachers, that we really have no excuse as to why we are not using technology in our instruction. If we are up to date on technologies, we can easily incorporate them in our lessons. I do have to actively try and remember to incorporate technology, but when I do, it is so worth it. Technology can easily make any lesson into a group lesson. It is so easy to use if you keep up with it and are not making excuses. All in all, the point of this takeaway is not to make excuses!
My favorite assignment was creating the screen cast video. This assignment was very interesting and opened up a new way of giving instruction for. The task was so effortless to create but the impact was great. Especially with the distant learning going on , making screen cast videos became very important for me to relay information to parents and walk them through the information needed for their student to be successful. It also made it easy for me to engage with my students as I used screen cast to read stories and record activities that I later shred with my students. So this little hack that I learned in class has been utilized a lot over the last few weeks.

I will also definitely be changing my habits this year with my technology instruction. I slacked a little when it came to incorporating technology into my lessons. I used it only when I had to or in my small groups but after learning many new ways to use technology in the classroom I will definitely make technology in the classroom a priority. I also plan to use the websites that we learned about more, such as AVL, ALEX, PBS, etc. I will use ALEX more to find more detailed activities to coincide with my current lessons. I will incorporate see saw into my lesson to keep students engaged and excited about technology. I also plan to use some of the grading features to help cut down on paper and hand grading which will free up time to do other activities with the students. I have really enjoyed this class this semester and it came at really appropriate time considering how the world was thrown into technology and depended on technology for learning and surviving during this pandemic. I have learned more about technology these past few weeks and what is available to keep in touch with just the click of a button and never leaving home through zoom, webex, and google classroom/meet. This has really been an eye opener for what is really available for learning and the possibilities are endless. We as educators just have to open up and be willing to make technology a priority and I plan to do more of that in the years to come.

https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cYewYp4t6y

For this week’s assignment I decided to use Screencast-o-matic. I have never done a screen cast video before and I must admit this program made it very easy to understand the process and get the product complete. I was very impressed with how easy it was to navigate and how many options are available to make a great screen video such as adding music or captions and recording various aspects of the screen. I love that you can cut and edit the video without having to keep recording. This is really a great tool when trying to share information on using particular sites this is a great walk through method. I decided to give a tutorial on using an Educational site called Starfall. I decided to use this website as a way to introduce parents to a great free resource that is available during our distance learning period.

https://create.kahoot.it/share/adding-numbers-to-10/fa4d24c7-f5e1-4646-9e3b-91934d5ed869

https://b.socrative.com/teacher/#import-quiz/45612717

For my assessments I decided to use Kahoot and socrative. I decided to use kahooty because my children love to use kahoot and look at how they score compared to their classmates. They love the competition of kahoot and they don’t even realize they are being assessed. This was my first time using Socrative and it seemed simple until I got inside and couldn’t figure out how to add questions to my exit ticket. I decided to use an exit ticket in socrative because this a quick way to get an idea if the information that was taught during the day was a success or if more time needs to be spent. You can ask one question and have all of the students respond before leaving class and this gives you an idea of how to proceed with the lesson the next day by just a simple question. Also students knowing that they will have to answer a question in order to exit keeps them a little more engaged in the lesson.

For my lesson this week I decided to use nearpod. I liked the way the program allowed you to create a presentation and had all resources that you may consider using in a very easy to use and accessible tab. The possibility for creating a lesson was endless with all of the different tools available. This tool would be very beneficial as a whole group or small group activity. The small group option allows students to go self paced and review information while whole group allows the teacher to lead the instruction but the students can follow along and interact on their devices, which will keep them engaged and interested. Students can learn a lot of information with a few slides, videos, and games all in a fun and creating program. I did not have any major issues creating a lesson my issues came trying to decide what the lesson should be on and what interactive tools to use without trying to cram them all in the presentation 🙂

https://share.nearpod.com/Xo2CXDkKU4

The assignment this week was more difficult for me than I imagined. I have been sick with the flu and when I glanced and saw that it was video making I thought it wouldn’t be that difficult. Well I was wrong. I couldn’t get my music to work with the voice and i couldn’t get the videos to align with the paper slides so i gave up and just went with what I had since u waited until the last night. ( shame on me!) I downloaded an app to my phone that was supposed to help me edit the video and it was an epic fail. So needless to say i will be exploring this assignment again when i am 100 percent back to normal. But this assignment made me aware that there was so much more technology available for use in the classroom. During this weeks lesson I thought of several good reasons to use videos in the classroom and how excited the kids would be to make them and see themselves and their finished products. It would definitely add the WOW factor to a lesson and tie it all together.

https://prezi.com/view/r06BiQm7Pz3ts4Z5DZzN/

https://prezi.com/view/r06BiQm7Pz3ts4Z5DZzN/

To complete the assignment for this week I decided to use Prezi. I enjoyed using this tool because it had tons of great layouts to work with. the presentation was very well designed and easy to follow and it offered a lot more style than a typical Powerpoint presentation. I began this assignment by doing some research on the web of course! There is a ton of information available on this topic so the hardest part was sifting through all of the information and deciding what was important to add. I was not aware at the beginning of this assignment how much information was out there and that this many versions of the web existed. I remember the AOL running man and what we have today and I guess I did not realize how much it had actually evolved. It is important as an educator to know what is available and what tools could be used in the classroom to make learning more fun and engaging. It is also important to keep up with the times so that as a teacher you are aware of what your students may be using or doing in the classroom.

I was very overwhelmed when I first began this assignment. I had trouble getting my blog started and I am still not 100% sure it is up and running correctly. As I began my assignment I was not totally sure what a Matrix was and I created several different styles before I decided to go with the traditional table for the sake of space and set-up.

Learning about the various learning skills was very interesting and will be very helpful when planning a lesson. There are several different ways that may be beneficial to students considering not all students learn the same. I think being in a classroom with diverse learning students can pose as a challenge for teachers but having some knowledge of different learning styles and activities to incorporate each in the classroom will help the teacher and student tremendously. I look forward to working with various programs this semester and begin building a resource file of useful websites and information. https://mcpss-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/p/kwilson1/EZBYYE6WHJxCkpAlxDm02_YBclTXDQIg0U7_-Cjw4sc1Sw?e=EgieJn

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