Blog Journal Six

An example of the more standard teacher page.

An example of a teacher page separate from the high school's.

I chose to do Leon High School and looked to see if they had any of their own teacher pages up on their website. They did, which came as a surprise to my as my small town high school never had anything like that set up. After going through a handful of teachers' pages I began to notice a trend in the information they provided publicly. A lot of the teachers introduced who they were and what they were teaching, and provided materials such as calendars, announcements, or even samples of what they were doing in the classroom. Some teachers made their pages right on the Leon High School website while others took it a step further and had their own separate site that linked back to the high school's. 

I think I will definitely utilize a variety of technologies both in my classroom as well as in other realms within my job as a teacher. I'm very enamored with the idea of using software such as Class Dojo on a SmartBoard in my class (which is rather unsurprising if you've seen my Independent Learning Project) but I definitely plan on using technology in other ways as well. I've fallen in love with the academic space that's been created on my EME twitter and I think networking and communicating with other people in my field is something I will continue to do as I move forward. 

The Technology sandbox was such an interesting and fun experience! I love that with every single technology they showed us they discussed some of the ways in which it could be used either in the classroom or to teach people in general. I thought the merge cube was one of the coolest technologies there, and definitely one of the ones that I could see getting the most use in a classroom setting. With this technology you take a cube with coding physically engraved on it and view it through an app, which changes the appearance of the cube through the lens of the device's camera. It can become anything depending on the programming, from the solar system to a plane engine. Because of this it has such an incredibly wide range of use and such potential for active learning, as it now allows students to literally hold what they're learning about and interact with it on an individual level.

Independent Learning Project #1

Below is the link that leads to the VoiceThread for my first independent learning project:

VoiceThread Presentation

Blog Journal Four

The digital divide is a very real roadblock for a lot of students and its something that needs to be addressed more within our education system. It very often stems from a lack of exposure to digital devises and technologies which in of itself can stem from many things, a huge one being lower socioeconomic status. From an incredibly personal point of view I have experienced this digital divide due to being too poor to have access to certain technologies at home. For a huge chunk of my life I simply didn't have internet or even a home phone due to this disadvantaged position, and it affected my education in very real ways. I wasn't able to do work that required the internet or type up papers and the like at home. It stole time away from me that other students had, as I always had to rush to do my computer work in the school's library during school hours while other students were able to do their work at home. This was only one of the very real ways in which the digital divide I experienced due to my circumstances affected my school life and such situations are occurring everywhere. I think a way that I would address this in my own classroom is to not rely on technology so much for assignments and papers, and to also allot time within a library or computer lab for students to work in if they truly need access to computers for what we're doing. I think being aware of the fact that not every student has the same privileges and access to certain materials and then framing your classwork around that is so important in making sure a student isn't robbed of a grade or learning experience due to not being so fortunate as their peers. 

I would adore using Class Dojo in my future classroom. I explored the software a lot for my newsletter and completely fell in love with it. I love the idea of giving such personal attention to each of your students, and I also really liked a lot of the resourced included within it for teachers to utilize at their own discretion. 

My experiences with my EME2040 Twitter account have been interesting thus far. I follow only Education based Twitters and other EME2040 students so my entire feed is always filled with with Education based content - which makes me feel very focused and productive. Having access to all these accounts has also made more more aware of what is going on currently in the Education world, which is something that I think is important for myself to be knowledgeable on. I feel like continuing to interact with Educators and people on the same path as mine will ultimately benefit me, and would be helpful in my future career as a teacher. It will help while in my career to keep up to date on what's going on, as well give me fresh new ideas or inspiration when I find myself feeling as if I've hit a roadblock.