My First Blog

Being involved in an EdTech class has made me more curious about what people have to say about technology in education. I have been observant with these certain topics online. First of all, the EdTech class has allowed me to see Twitter in a different perspective. I used to use Twitter as a way to share my thoughts and feelings and read my friends’ feelings and thoughts, but now I use it more of a way to get information and share the information I have learned about. It has also given me the consideration to use Twitter as a way to communicate with students and parents. Just like it mentions in this article http://www.nea.org/home/32641.htm, you can have students thinking even after class by tweeting them! Therefore, students can be thinking about concepts even when they step out of the door. Not only can Twitter be a great way for me to communicate with students, but also to network other ideas with other teachers. Follow other teachers and see what they have to say about the education. This article gave me a different perspective of how Twitter can be implemented in teaching.

Another way this class has developed my curiosity about technology in education is that I recently attended the Ventura CABE conference. One of the workshops I attended was a Technology workshop, where the presenter went through certain apps on the Ipad that can be implemented in the classroom! Since I have been following on Twitter educational technology accounts, it has given more access to articles. One article in particular that was posted by @Edudemic was about tips for keeping students on task while on devices. This was very relevant to me because that is one aspect of technology I worry about and that is having students not be on task. One tip I liked was “Punish” with paper. If I were to see some students not on task, then the following day I can take away the privilege of using technology and use paper instead. I can replace their technology exercise with a paper and pencil exercise. This allows students to know that they do not have to use technology like everyone else, especially if they do not follow directions.
For other tips, feel free to read the article http://edudemic.com/5-tips-keeping-students-task-using-tech/

Another education technology account that I follow, is @TechnologyInEd, and they have retweeted a post from another account. This article that was reposted taught me ways on how technology is aligned with the Common Core. They have discussed how one way to differentiate instruction is to have some students read digitally. They give different ways how it can be beneficial. For example, they can mark up the text they are reading by highlighting, underlining, making fonts bigger or smaller, and/or bolding text. This allows students to mark up what they learned, don’t understand, or what they found interesting. Students can also expand their level of thinking by being able to click on links of other articles within the article they are already reading. They continue to keep reading new and different material.  This information was all new to me! For further information on the article, feel free to read http://languagemagazine.com/?page_id=78401