Education Tech Blog

I believe that data collection will be very important to the success of my classroom. One way that I plan to collect classroom data is through surveys. One survey that I could give out at the beginning of the school year could be used to collect information about my students' learning philosophies. I could create a questionnaire with questions about different teaching approaches and how helpful they could be to students. This type of data collection could help guide my teaching for the rest of the year so that students would enjoy coming to my class. I could also use Excel to keep track of my students' data. I could keep track of test scores and assignments for a chapter and then average them out for a chapter grade using Excel. I could use this information at the end of the year to help students improve in problem areas before the end of course exams. I am looking to become a high school economics teacher and this information could help students because of the independent assi...

The concept of "flipped classrooms" is very interesting and holds a lot of potential for classroom engagement. A flipped classroom is one that utilizes educational videos to teach students outside of the classroom and allows for more interactivity and engagement in class. This concept is an example of a blended classroom. A blended classroom is one that uses the internet to digitally engage students. Many of my honors classes at FSU are "flipped classrooms". Almost all of my honors classes are completely discussion based and this helps facilitate my learning. One digital resource that a teacher can used in a flipped classroom is  Khan Academy . The two "open" terms I will use the most are open courses and open content. Open courses refer to free online courses that anyone can access. These can be used to gain professional development points as a teacher and give students additional resources. An example of this is taking an online  MOOC . The other type ...

I learned about many new teacher professional development tools through my efforts today. I posted about the professional networking site, LinkedIn. This professional social network allows for educators around the world to connect with one another and share resources. I also learned a lot from viewing other's bookmarks. One new tool I learned about was Lynda Tutorials. This website has a free trial window of thirty days and allows unlimited access to courses. This could help me gain required professional development credits that I will need to keep my teaching license.

There are many new adaptive technologies that are used to support learners with exceptionalities. Adaptive technologies are technologies that have features built in to them that are meant to help students with disabilities or impairments. They are used in schools to help students who have disabilities in school succeed. One example of an adaptive technology is recorded books. Recorded books are also called audiobooks and can help students that are blind or dyslexic. These books can be free and are used by school districts that lack funding. Another form of adaptive technology that can be used in the classroom are keyboard labels. Keyboard labels are adhesive labels that stick to keys on a keyboard and provide larger letters with higher contrast than regular keyboards. This adaptation helps students that have trouble distinguishing letters and numbers on keyboards. Another great technological adaptation is word processing software. Word processing software can be used by students who ha...

I learned a lot by using Diigo to explore new adaptive technologies. Bookmarking a resource that I found online to help students with disabilities was very useful. I bookmarked a keyboard label set. This set has very big 1" letters so that students who are visually impaired can use it with ease. I believe that if schools had more key labels then visually impaired children would be able to learn better. I also learned about culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in the group presentation. CLD students can benefit greatly from the increased use of technology in the classroom. The internet allows these students to immerse themselves in the English language in a patient, controlled environment. CLD students can also use the internet to research cultural aspects of their new home which creates a smooth transition. I also learned about different types of adaptive technologies when I was viewing other classmate's bookmarks. I learned about a variety of technologies ...

My experience with using Twitter as a personal learning network has been very positive so far. I have connected with many educational accounts including Edutopia, Eduporium, and Edublogs. This connection has made me feel more involved in the educational community. I have learned a lot from using Twitter as well. I have learned mostly from the account Edutopia. I have viewed many links that they shared about the new innovations in educational technology. I have also connected with educational gaming accounts. Classcraft is an educational program that allows learning in video game form. They have liked several of my tweets and I have tweeted to them a couple times. I also learned that using Twitter as a personal learning network is great in order to make connections for the future. I have not experienced any issues with Twitter so far. There have been no technical difficulties because the site is run very well. The Web Page Design assignment is a very useful assignment. I am still sett...