March 26, 2019: Blog Journal 8
          I have learned a lot from working with Diigo. Diigo and Twitter have been the first times I have used tags, so I learned how to categorize articles with relative tags in Diigo. I have also learned how to annotate articles that I will share with the group and how to comment constructively on others' articles and annotations. I word my annotations and sticky notes so that other people in the group can understand and expand upon my comments. The application can be useful in a classroom because as a teacher, I can ask a discussion question on Diigo, and my students can answer questions and reply to each other. This develops their online discussion etiquette. With team members, I can share articles on Diigo that are relevant to our project and annotate the articles in a way that prompts discussion and communicates my views. For my individual professional efforts, I can use the Diigo tag function to categorize articles that I find useful or interesting so I can come back to them when they are relevant to me.
          PowerPoint is a very versatile tool that I could use to support learning at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy for a lesson. For example, if I was teaching about the water cycle, I could support the "remember" level by creating a question and answer on a slide where the shape over the answer disappears with a click. For "understand," I could create a Smart Art graphic that shows the steps of the water cycle. For "apply," I could make a choose your own adventure presentation with action buttons and hyperlinks where the students can go through the journey of a water droplet and apply what they have learned to choose the correct path. For "analyzing," I could have have scenarios on slides, such as what happens to salt water, where the students would have to break down the steps of the cycle in order to understand. They could click to reveal an answer that makes an animated entrance.  For "evaluate," I could have slides with true or false statements, and if the students click true or false, the hyperlink will take them to a slide that tells them if they are right or wrong and why. For "create," I would have students make a short PowerPoint presentation on the water cycle that they will present to the class.
          Technology changes rapidly, so it is important for teachers to work on professional development in order to be educated on new technology that they can share with their students. Teachers should stay on top of new developments in technology so that they can implement innovative education strategies and teach their students rather than having the students teach them about technology. It may be difficult for teachers to find the time for professional development, so I think incorporating it into social media increases efficiency. To stay informed, teachers can follow Twitter accounts on education technology. With a quick search, I found many including @techineduau. This account posts about technology in education and shares new innovations and unique ways that educators use technology. Some of their posts include one about drones used in a photography class and one about using coding to make a robot walk. They are from Melbourne, Australia. Check out the account here.

March 7, 2019 - Blog Journal 7
          So far, my experience from Twitter has been mostly positive. I love learning new things from my classmates and organizations that I follow. Today, one of my peers tweeted about how theatre education can help students who will one day become doctors because they develop communication skills that will help them collaborate and share their work. I had never thought about theatre that way before I read her tweet. The benefits of using Twitter include connecting with people you would otherwise never meet. When I participated in a Twitter chat, I got to learn from teachers who live across the country. Another benefit of Twitter is that you can learn about new resources. Today I learned that JSTOR just added a new function that allows you to share articles with other people in your class. The only issue I have with Twitter is that sometimes I can get carried away scrolling, and it distracts me from my work.
          The Web Design assignment was the first time I had ever created a website, so I learned a lot of new skills. I learned how to embed a calendar that automatically updates. I also learned how to embed a Create Commons license. Overall, I felt that Weebly was very straight forward to use. Creating a website was easier than I thought it would be. I liked how you can drag in images or text boxes and create multiple pages. However, I felt that uploading images was not very user-friendly. I could not figure out how to change the size of my images. I think next time I could improve my website by making it look more aesthetically pleasing. In hindsight, my color scheme does not match, and the overall design is too simple. I would add more images to make it more exciting. In my future career, if I become a teacher, I could create a website for my class and include announcements and a calendar. This would keep my students and their parents informed. Check out my website here.
          Assistive and adapted technologies help make learning accessible to all students, including those who are disabled or who cannot come to school. For example, an audio version of a textbook can help those who are visually impaired, and closed captions on videos can help those who are deaf. I knew someone who was visually impaired who used a screen reader program in order to access information on the Internet and on apps. The text would be read out loud by the program. If I were a teacher, I think I would be challenged by adaptive technologies if I had a student who was homebound. I would gladly work to make sure that the student was still learning course work, but it would be a challenge to record extra lectures, write notes, and adapt assignments to be online for the student. I would hope that my school would offer adequate resources and support so that this would not be a challenge for me.