Scenario

Throughout this semester I have learned multiple things about myself as an educator.  To begin, I have discovered my strengths as an educator.  These include my ability to be patient with the students, also I am a highly prepared educator who takes the time to think about all sorts of different scenarios that my lesson plans may encounter.  These personal attributes have helped me to discover who I want to become in the next 3-5 years.  I have thought about this and in 3-5 years I want to be an educator who implements the 21 Century Skills in my classroom.  This means that I will be following the standards given in the image below. 

These standards focus mainly on implementing real world situations into your classroom to help keep your students involved and interested.  I plan to get here by staying up on my technology education and understanding different tools that are out there for educators.  It is important for me to keep up with the technological world. This way I will be well equipped when I enter the educational world and will be able to teach my colleagues so our school can be as up to date as possible.  If I was to come across an application or website that I could not figure out how to manipulate, then I would begin searching for video tutorials on how to work the application or site on youtube. Youtube usually will have a tutorial and if this did not, I would continue to search the web until I came across a tutorial of some sort.  Technology can impact a classroom in multiple ways.  First, the applications and resources on the web help students stay interactive with their learning as well as it keeps them excited and interested in learning.  With technology, educators are able to implement multiple new lessons to create a more exciting learning environment.  Also, technology is beneficial because it can help students with disabilities.  The ways that this helps is there are resources out there (specifically on the Mac) that allow the written words to be read to the student who has trouble reading.  This way the students can hear the words and learn how to read just by following what the computer is saying and reading along.  Along the same lines, technology helps to teach to all learning types.  On the internet one can find lesson plans that are directed towards every learning type from the kinesthetic learners to the visual.  In my own education technology was not really a part of it until late high school and college.  We had time for computer lab in elementary school but we did not do too much on them.  In high school though I learned all about the Mac because I was on the Yearbook. Here I fell in love and learned so much and figured out how simple everything is with technology if you just take the time to understand it.  This course has helped me see how much there is out there for educators and how it really impacts the effectiveness of an educator when they understand technology.  In my future school I will make it my personal duty to try and influence my peers to use more technology by having them observe my classroom where we will be using the internet on all of the subjects.  This way they will see how valuable the computer or Ipad is to the classroom.  My students could then go into other classrooms and help the other students with learning the new technology.  This way all of the students could be interacting positively and productively.  From here I am confident that the technology bug would get spread around quickly until the entire school was excited about learning more about technology.  Some specific tools that I am highly confident in using are Wix, and animoto.
These two websites can be used in a multitude of manners in the classroom.  First, my students could each create their own websites to hold all of their student work so that when they go home and their parents ask what they did today, they will not say "nothing" because it will all be on the internet to show! Also, the homework excuse that they forgot to take it home would be completely eliminated because I would post their homework online so each student would be able to know exactly where their work was.  Next I would implement animoto into my classroom by beginning my subjects with a quick slide show demonstrating what we were about to learn.  Also, this tool would be a grand way to get student work and assess them in a new way.  I could have the students research a president or a historical topic and do an animoto to demonstrate what they learned.  There is just so much that students can do when they explore technology. So teachers must begin the search for helpful tools.  I know that I will continue to explore and write about my findings. 

My Wow Moment

Well to begin, ignore the three video on the post before this, some how the video just wanted to be there three times and I could not stop it. 
But regardless of that, here is my WOW moment.  I would have to say that my Wow moment was when I found Wix.  Before I found it I was confused and not understanding the google sites.  I was getting down on myself because I wanted to get a good grade in the class, so I thought that it was just me being not technologically savvy.  But it turned out that I was not the only one, so I when I heard about Wix, I knew that I needed to immediately test it out for myself.  And I have never looked back.  Wix allows the creator to do anything they want.  It is easy to understand plus if you ever have any questions Wix is right there with step-by-step instructions on video to ensure that you success.  Plus, wix allows your sites to look professionally done.  What more could someone want! This site allowed me to realize that I can be very successful with technology if I just take the time to explore all sort of options and find what works for me, and if I ever have questions there are most likely video tutorials on how to overcome any obstacle. 

Podcast Favorites

Throughout the semester, i have listened to multiple Podcasts.  In these podcasts, I learned so much about the free online resources out there for educators, as well as interesting tools that my computer has already that I had no clue about.  My favorite Podcast duo is I would have to say The Tech Chicks.  These two have a Podcast show that is absolutely filled with wonderful hints, tips and tools for educators.  I learned so many things about the online resources from these two.  Some of my favorite websites from them would have to be the little bird tales website.  Here the students are allowed to create their own stories by uploading their own images, and text.  From there, the next step is to record the student's own voice so they are telling their own stories.  Then lastly, the students get to email their stories out to their friends and family.  HOW COOL!  But I must say that the coolest thing I discovered while listening to the different Podcasts was The John Lennon Bus

The Lennon Bus is a bus that is a mobile recording studio.  This bus travels from city to city and school to school to find students with musical abilities.  These students then get to create and write and record their own song.  It was such an inspiring video that made me so excited.  When I was in high school I would have absolutely loved this, and it makes me happy to know that there are students out there who are getting to display their talents to the world through this wonderful opportunity. 

Semester Favorites

This semester we have created fantastic websites and learned about so many different FREE helpful tools and resources.  After reviewing the journey that I have taken in Education Technology, I found that there are two distinct tools that I have found myself using over and over again. I also have found myself using these tools in multiple different areas including my Core Teaching Course as well as just for fun.  The first tool is called WIX.  This is a website where anyone can crate their own website from scratch.  I have become completely obsessed with Wix, mostly because I had absolutely no idea how to create a website before this class.  I began this course using google sites but it was too complicated for me, so I took it upon myself to go searching for some different website creators.  Luckily, in class the next week Cyndi Danner-Kuhn (our teacher) told us about some options that she had found.  One she discussed was Wix.  From there, I was highly interested so I went home and began working with the website.  I quickly found how easy it was to manipulate the site.   Wix allows the user to have complete control over their site.  I was able to put images and text anywhere and I could insert images and videos with no difficulty.  From here I realized how simple website creating is and how you just need to know the beginnings, and from there it is a breeze discovering how to do anything from there.  Plus, Wix has a fantastic feature that is incredibly helpful.  Instead of having directions written out, the Wix creators have put all of their directions into videos.  The videos show you exactly step by step how to do anything when creating your website.  These step-by-step videos were a life saver.
The next website I became utterly obsessed with is animoto.  Here the creator is able to create fantastic slideshows that take about 5 min. to create from start to finish.  

At this website I created multiple slideshows to give a visual representation of my life.  Here is one of my own creations about my life.  Taylor's Life in a Nut Shell.
At this website, I was able to create simple yet powerful slide shows that help me give visuals to my lesson plans.  The beauty about this site is it is yet again a FREE resource.  But, this only allows you to create 30 second slide shows.  The great thing is that for educators, the website has discounts so that the teachers can use this resource at a lower cost and still receive all of the benefits of the resource.  This feature is such a blessing for teachers, because this way we will be able to use this website with our students and we could create an entire lesson plan including these slide shows. 
All in all, these two resources have been my all time favorites because they are so simple to manipulate and they are FREE!!

Challenge Based Learning Reflection

Drunk Driving on Prezi

This is my groups Prezi Presentation on Drunk Driving.  This Project was highly emotional because two girls in my group had family who had been affected by Drunk Driving.  One group member even had a sister become paralyzed due to the accident when she was 18.   This was such a deep experience that affected the entire room. This was an interesting project because we all learned something by researching these topics and by watching the presentations.  This was an important project that helped all students understand important topics like texting while driving as well as recycling plastic bottles.  This project was helpful to understand challenge based projects.  This was a challenge for each of us and it is important to remember to challenge your students.   

Podcast Reflection #12 Tech Chicks 0084

In this episode of the Tech Chicks, they discuss a FREE website by the name of littlebirdtales.com.  At this website educators can set up an account for their students.  From here the educators allow the students to create their own creative stories with images and text.  This is more geared for younger students.  There are also only three steps to create a story

From here the students can choose to put their stories in the gallery of public tales or only send them to their friends and family!

Podcast Reflection #11 Tech Chicks 0083

In this episode of the Tech Chicks they discussed four free easy ways to give short online presentations. Here are the four websites they discussed. 

 The First website discussed is bigmarker.com.  Here the educators can do a few different things.  First, you can
learn: browse thousands of conferences.
teach: teach a topic of your passion for free or bill your rate.
advertise: pay others to attend your conference.
interview: screen potential candidates online before interviewing them in person.

The next website discussed is ZipCast.com. This website is on the "cutting edge of technology outpacing the competition in building a multi-cultural national digital advertising network." The website says that it is
-reaching customers where they work, live and play
-lowering cost per CPM
-highly targeted audiences

This is a website that allows the educator to hold conferences online like using a white board in a building.  This website allows one to use multi-user whiteboards, live audio, image collaboration and text and chat.  This website is free for users and it allows everyone to be on the same page with out being in the same place.  This will save time and energy for all users and allow for exciting advances in the conference world. 

At this website called joinme.com an educator can again have a conference while being online in their own homes.  At this website the teachers could stay at home and work with one another's computer screens.  This website has two functions, to share your own screen and join some else screen.  This way multiple people can work on one project.  It is a wonderful way to ensure that a project gets completed if you cannot work together in the same area.