Tech post

1.     My tech life

If I had to live out my tech life in a wordle, it wouldn’t contain the variety that Dr. Scanlon’s does. 

Before, coming back to school, in my personal life, I was involved in most of the popular social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube etc.) and I used those either via my smart phone or computer on daily basis. I also used academic tools for work such as Microsoft office, prezi, and video-editing software like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. Over the last year, however, my tech use in the form of social media has been extremely limited. I use the computer and Microsoft tools for schoolwork mostly. This is very different from the college students I currently work with who have the latest technological gadgets from fitbits to apple TV and they use all of them daily. I recently reactivated my Facebook account because I felt like I was somewhat out of the loop, which was ok with me, but I realized that the less I stayed connected into current tech trends, the further behind I was becoming in catching up with all the new technologies and social media platforms that are being released. My former teachers operated in this way. Most seemed not to be able to keep up with the latest technology, which created a student-teacher gap.

2. I tried out VoiceThread for an assignment for another class I am taking this semester. I ended up not using it for the assignment. I used WeVideo instead. While VoiceThread allows you to add video, pictures, and sound to create video stories, I didn’t like how the voice overs had to be recorded. In VoiceThread, if you upload a large number of pictures that you want as the background for your video story, you have to narrate each one separately. However, on WeVideo you can upload all your pictures, or videos, put them in the order that you want, record your entire narration all at once and then just place the narration under the images/videos. It also allows you to add music and to cut or lengthen the images/video so that they match the audio. I think both platforms offer the same concepts, but WeVideo is more user-friendly and flexible. I will be using WeVideo with the new group of peer mentors that I will be working with starting in June. They will use WeVideo to create a digital personal narrative to share with their class of mentees as an introduction. Here is a link to the WeVideo I created for another class. The peer mentors will do create something similar.

2.     Authentic Tasks for Students:  Here are a list of a few tools that you can use with students to write virtually.  Why is this important?  What are the benefits? The risks?  Write about your favorite discoveries. 

Today’s students are so virtually plugged that it does them a disservice to not take that into consideration in ELA classrooms. As our text points out, allowing students to use virtual tools in their writing can provide engagement and heighten interests. It can also allow students to collaborate with each other and it provides a larger audience for students to share their writings with. When students who that their writing will be shared with a larger audience they will be more willing to put forward their best effort and their best work. Some of the risks that come with virtual tools and writing include digital responsibility. In sharing their work in a virtual space, students may become vulnerable to cyber predators and cyber bullying. It will be important for me to ensure that students are taught good digital citizenship along with the use of these technologies and virtual spaces.  These are all great virtual resources provided and I LOVE flipgrid. My group members and I used it in a group lesson plan presentation last week on a lesson on personal narratives. I loved how it allowed students to be able to share their writing in a different form and also have their peers respond to their writing in a more dynamic way. One of the things we learned from the implementation of the lesson, however, is that some students may not be comfortable sharing their writing in that way so choice will have to play a role when using some virtual tools in the classroom. Popplet seems interesting. It reminds me of a cross between an infographic and a Prezi. I’ve used Prezi in the past and I describe it as an upscale PowerPoint. I enjoy using word images and one that’s not on this list that I like using is called Tagul. I like it because it allows used to change the shape of their word cloud along with some other cool features. Here’s an example (I used it for my word cloud above as well):

4.     What Lies Ahead?  

What I noticed was that I was familiar in most of the first 10. However, of the 100 there were a lot that I didn’t know. I was excited though that WeVideo was one of the new tools. Even though I didn’t find it out on my own, I was glad that I learned how to use it and that I’m planning to use it in the future. It was also interesting to find that Adobe Premiere and Adobe Illustrator are being used in schools since I used it professionally when I worked as a reporter.

5.     The Thinking Matters aka Choose Your Tools Wisely:  

There are so many digital tools that can be applied and adapted into the classroom. However, review of the Bloom’s Taxomomy chart below indicates that teachers should be intentional about which area of expertise each digital tool used in the classroom develops. This will allow teachers to ensure that they aren’t overdeveloping certain areas and underdeveloping others. A balance will be created.

6.     Based on your exploration, what do you want to try next? I only try to get good at one tool at a time. Currently I have been working on HaikuDeck and my next is FlipGrid.

I’d like to do some more exploration into quizizz. I create a midterm and final review game for the peer mentors to lead in their classes each semester. We are currently using Kahoot and jeorpardylabs, but I want to check out quizizz more to see if they could be some new options.  I’m also fascinated by popplet. I might consider using it in my training meetings with the peer mentors.