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.