Assessing Meaningful Learning

I think the one I liked best is Qwizdom. There is so much information that is and will be very helpful in my future classroom. I like how it informs and teaches me how to bring technology into my classroom as well as I can bring my lessons to technology. Technology is a big thing in a classroom, kids aren't use to it not being there, so if it goes back to the way we were in school it is like all we teachers get are the blank stares and they look like they are clueless. This web tool will help me be more flexible, more organized, and more helpful on bringing my lesson to "blah" to "wow". It gives it that little incentive that will hopefully make my lesson and activities seem more attention drawn and have students focused and ready to learn.

This class has taught me a lot. I absolutely all the Web 2.0 tools I learned, they are really going to make some lessons and activities of mine turn out awesome just by having the students be more involved. The Prezi presentation is something that I have never heard of but turned out to be one of my favorite projects to have ever done. I like how there is a step-by-step tool and shows all the slides within one main slide. I think this would be cool when showing steps and the way to write an essay and to help with the STAAR writing tests as well, or a good strategy tool to show how to do well on the reading STAAR. There are endless possibilities that this could be awesome for within my classroom in the future. This class gave me some good ideas on how to break out of my "shell" for technology. This will definitely make an ordinary dull lesson into a more entertaining one. The last thing that I thought was neat was the blog. I would love for my future students to have there own blog for my class and they can upload assignments, talk peer-to-peer about assignments, find study partners/groups for tests and also where I am available if they need to reach me to ask my a homework assignment outside of the classroom.

Visualizing with Technologies

I feel very strongly about using visualizing with technology. I feel like they should be used in teaching. I am a very visual person and using visual aides helps me a lot in understanding a concept or illustrate something helps me. I think visuals in Math helps me for the most part. For example; the geometric shapes, base 10 blocks, these objects actually let's you have a visual in your mind on what they actually look like versus paper or a worksheet. I think visuals help you make the lesson and helps the students understand and accomplish the goals you, the teacher, are wanting the students to have. I think this should be a top priority for teachers to have in their lessons.

The impact that visuals have on learning is that it makes students more interested and stay focus on the lesson you are teaching. The students has something to visually look at and take an interest in and have them understand more in depth. I love having visual aides because it is something you can check the students comprehension quick and see if they get the concept or is it something this student needs extra time with. 

Podcasting

I learned a lot from Podcasting, it made be creative and actually observe all the tools that can be used in a blog posting. I think this will be good to put to use in a classroom because it makes it more interesting and will make the students more engaged in the presentations and lessons versus a plain and boring slide, post or lecture posting. I think anything that has something extra just draws my attention to it. If I saw a post that just has words and the plain Jane information versus someone who has pictures, different links to look at and be interested in that post a lot more. 

I think the use of Web 2.0 and Podcasting are the same as far as the technology goes. It just spices up the information a lot moe where it makes it more interesting to view and be more engaged into the lesson. I think students will be more enthused if their was other things to look at besides the regular information. Especially since kids now days are just use to daily technology use and more involved to make them interested.

I use the iPod and I use it for music, apps, games, texting, and emails. I can use it in the classroom by using certain apps such as; Remind101, Lumosity, Quizlet, Easy Grader, Calculator, strategy games, etc. to show whatever lesson I am doing. I think that is why I love the Promethean Boards because you can put your phone underneath the projector and show them exactly what is on your screen. I work with middle school students and it makes them more engaged and focused on the lesson because they can actually do it and use the apps when they get home and makes learning more enjoyable and fun for them, instead of doing problems out of the book. 

http://edtechteacher.org/index.php/teaching-technology/presentation-multimedia/podcasting

http://www.pearsonschoolsystems.com/blog/?p=292#sthash.1yps4tU4.dpbs

http://www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2011/07/14/study-emerging-technology-has-positive-impact-in-classroom

Web 2.0

I think Web 2.0 is a great resourceful tool that is very easy and accessible. I like how you can manage and create and edit content that you have online. This tool has taught me a lot on how to improve my future students essential skills as well as my own. I think it is very important, especially in today's time to know how to navigate around the world wide web, what we call the Internet. Students' today have so many projects, homework assignments, assignments, tests and other types of assignments for school that they are going to need to know these tools so they can have a successful assignment while on the computer. Children have so much accessibility to the Internet and social media that it kind of sets some teachers back a little just because they weren't grown up with the Internet and the children know a lot more than the normal average person, just because they have had access to it their entire lives so far. I think this will just strengthen and be a more positive outcome the longer it is around and time goes on. I think for us future teachers just need to be more involved and more knowledgeable to the internet and social media so we can know what our students are capable of knowing.

I think a way that we can use Web 2.0 tools to benefit in today's education would be setting up a Quizlet for your class and subject so your students can practice the material in and outside of school. Another way would be showing them how to create their own movie using Mozzilla and doing a presentation to the class about a certain subject you were learning about in the classroom. I think this will help kids with their creativity, imagination, grouping and organizing thoughts and having a way to express themselves through a school activity and having them present it the way they see the lesson we are discussing. This activity would be good in a history class, where you are learning about the certain time periods and have the students pick out a person they think is interesting and they create a presentation that includes these Web 2.0 tools to make them use their essential skills.

Copyright, Fair Use & Online Safety

I have learned a lot in this issue of copyrights, cyber bullying and netiquette. I found out that since the students have a lot more access to the internet than I did when I was there age. It is scary and unsettling on some things that they can witness innocently on their own with no supervision. The first part I will discuss is copyrights, that has been around forever, if not the internet it was a book that students were copying down word for word and now it is copying and pasting certain things from a website into their document that they are typing. I would educate my future students by showing and telling them good examples of "cheating" when you can just copy straight out of book, without noting it in citations, or quotes. Let them know that it's called plagiarizing, that is not tolerable on any level, tell them how serious the matter is and what precautions to take and how to correctly state something or put something in a proper manner in an essay, paper, etc. As far as cyber bullying goes, I think parents need to have more structure, restrictions and access to their child's information on the internet. I think that would control a lot of that. A child between the middle school and high school ages is hard enough as it is, but if you allow certain behavior to be allowed online by your child it is setting them up for far more failure. Children are cruel to each other, especially if they can text, blog, post or comment the discussion without having to tell them face to face. That goes for everyone these days, it is a lot more easier to say hateful things and take things hateful in a text or comment than face to face, because that comment didn't have an expression or meaning behind it so the person receiving these messages doesn't know how to take what the message is implying. I have witnessed so much of this just being an aide at the middle school this year. Kids are cruel, they are unhappy with their selves that they are wanting to bring everyone down with them and making the situation worse. There is a site/app now called Ask.com, I have not used this myself but I have heard parents, teachers and students talk about it and it is a site where you can post anything you want and it comes up as "Anonymous" and not yourself, so anyone can say anything like one post that I have heard is "Name the Top 5 Ugliest Guys in our 8th Class", and then the kids will comment and rank who they think. Now they are posting like it's just a joke, they were just kidding, but what they are not realizing is the damage it is causing for the people that get named in that post. I think more parents, students and even teachers should be aware of all that is going on and be familiar with the sites and apps that are available. Have some restrictions on what they can and can't download, I know that sounds easier than what it actually is but their is so much of this bullying going on in school and in person, why let it keep going where the whole nation can know about the issues. Why would you want to cause someone's death, or addiction from the people that are being bullied.
  I want to teach my students the good, bad and the ugly on this situation, because it could easily happen to anyone of us, especially them the students. I want to make the statement, as mentioned in the text of Netiquette, that when using your Facebook, social media apps, e-mails or your blogs, to remember to treat others like you would want to be treated. The kids that will stand together will stick together and I wish we could get all the students and kids on board, but those kids that are making these posts about other children, are having rough time with themselves. We should reach out to them, but as a person we want to lash out and scold them because of their wrong doings, but things are never what they seem. I have learned that more and more since working with middle school age, they hold so many things in, they don't want to talk and their way to relieve the stress, the anger, the depression is to make up issues with others so they can be brought down to their level as well. I would like to start a program for parents to be more involved and understand the situations that are going on in their children's lives. I am so thankful that I know this information and I am at the between age where internet wasn't around when I was growing up, at least not like it is today, but I am in College and didn't graduate high school too long ago that I know what the information is meaning as well as all the apps and websites that they are talking about and I am very much aware of what is going on. I hope something gets created in time that this gets less of an issue than what it is right now.

MAPping Information

I conducted an online search by going to www.google.com and typing in the information I was wanting to know. I use Google almost everyday on my iPhone. To me, Google is the best and easy accessible site that I have found that doesn't get me in such a panic or frustrated trying to use it. I like how every time I pull up Google I am not interrupted by an advertisement or banners, I can immediately go straight to the search bar. I learned more in detail in this lesson about the different search engines and what to look for. I think this will help me in the classroom as well if I am needing to look up something fast and efficiently. I just now found out about the different search engines. I mean obviously I knew about Yahoo, Google and Bing but not the others, out of those I would say Yahoo is my least favorite to use just because the site is too busy and gets me distracted on what I am supposed to be doing and searching for.


After doing the MAPping Information activity I think my habits won't necessarily change because I am still going to use Google, but it will make me go into depth and search on what is the best information for me to choose from out of the search. I will continue to search through Google and if that website happens to be down or unavailable I will have to go with Bing. It is probably the closest to the Google search than any of the others listed. I think this will affect my knowledge on teaching just because I know the search engine I choose will be efficient and accurate every time I go to it. If something happens in my classroom and I am needing information fast or something for a lesson I know that Google will have my back in those types of emergencies. I think that my students in the future will be affected by this search engine by them getting use to the particular search engine I use.


I am so thankful for having this class. I think this is such a beneficial class to have especially now days in the classroom with so many technology changes being done within the school and classroom. I think after understanding and knowing these different routes and strategies to input in my knowledge and in my classroom I will be more successful knowing all this. This search engine will help me by going to reliable search engines and as well as my students on what search engines that will help them in there research information. This is good information to have and help me to be more successful in my future classroom.

About Me

I am Tristan Morgan, I am currently an aide at Sulphur Springs Middle School and loving it! I absolutely love this age group. I never thought I would like this particular age, of middle school kids, I was always in love with the smaller ages, elementary age, but I feel like after this year being placed at the middle school, I think I could be any where and be extremely happy. I am a junior at TAMU-C and I will graduate in December. I couldn't be more ecstatic that my dream is about to come true. I am the oldest sibling of 5 and the youngest is 7 years old. I have been around little children my whole life, so not being involved and being around children I feel like something is incomplete. Teaching is something that I have wanted to do every since I can remember. I was the child that was "teaching" and pretending to be a teacher with my little sister growing up. I am looking forward to this class and what all I can learn and benefit from it.

My vision for Technology in the Classroom is a positive thing. I mean I do have some negative and disadvantages that comes from technology but I feel like there is a lot more positive though. The Promethean Board is probably the coolest and most helpful technology tool in the classroom that our district has, so far. It is amazing on how much you can do on the Promethean, how much more I can tell the kids are focused and more into the lesson versus the white/marker board. I know that I am much more interested and feel like I pay attention more as being an aide/co-teacher in the classroom than I did when I was a student, just because the students can interact with the board with clickers to take a classroom quiz, come up to the board and work out problems and so forth. I really look forward on what more the schools can get in technology. Also, our district just got the electronic dictionaries and that is going to help a ton, especially on the state test. Technology is all the kids know now days. Almost all the kids have cell phones, not only cell phones, but smart phones like the iPhone, and the kids don't know anything different. That goes the same with a computer, iPad, or laptops, they know how to navigate, use these types of technology better than I can. Going into this class I hope to learn a lot on how to guide and keep kids on the positive side of technology not on the negative side.

My goals for this class is to learn a great deal on technology in the classroom, know the basics and standards on what these grade levels are needing and providing in the classroom. I would like to know how to use different tools, how I can help my students more and try and make my students parents more aware and more conscience of technology that the kids are using at home. These types of technology can help the students with homework, studying, and use better knowledge outside of the classroom. I would like to learn how to teach methods on different ways to teach technology. I am excited and can't wait to learn more on technology in the classroom.