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EdTech Debrief

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  Participating in this class has given me so many great tools to enhance my classroom.  I was able to directly take some of the items I learned and apply them to my classroom with great success. Apart from the tactical technology pieces that were a part of this classroom, I also benefited from the resources and connections that were made.  I can think of three specifically: Professional groups such as the ISTE give a centralized space for connection and collaboration Edutopia and other key educational websites have given me a solid research repository where I can find helpful resources on a given topic Our interview assignment pushed me to connect with educational experts and create relationships that I would not have had otherwise Thank you for all of the hard work and the feedback you have provided over these last 8 weeks!
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Current and Future EdTech Trends

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  References Burns, M. (2016, May 3). Harnessing the Power of YouTube in the Classroom. The Edvocate. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/harnessing-power-youtube-in-classroom-monica-burns Lederer, K. (2012, January 19). Pros and Cons of Social Media in the Classroom. Campus Technology. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/01/19/pros-and-cons-of-social-media-in-the-classroom.aspx Lynch, M. (2017, October 17). 10 WAYS TO USE Facebook IN THE CLASSROOM. The Edvocate. https://www.theedadvocate.org/10-ways-use-facebook-classroom/ Lynch, M. (2017, October 17). 10 WAYS TO USE TWITTER IN THE CLASSROOM. The Edvocate. https://www.theedadvocate.org/10-ways-use-twitter-classroom/ Marr, B. (2020, January 20). The Top 5 Tech Trends That Will Disrupt Education In 2020 - The EdTech Innovations Everyone Should Watch. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr /2020/01/20/the-top-5-tech-trends-that-will-disrupt-education-in-2020the-edtech-innovations-everyone ...
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Discussion: Assistive Technology and the Deaf Learner

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Assistive technology in deaf learning There will almost certainly be a need for sign language interpreters when assisting deaf learners.  However, there are some areas where assistive technology is making it easier for deaf learners to learn at the same level as other learners with limited intervention. Some of the assistive technologies that are most prevalent in educational settings now are FM systems, which amplifies the voice of the teacher into a headset that a deaf learner can connect directly to a hearing aid.  Recently, there has been considerable advancement in real-time closed captioning which can be used in online videos like this one by clicking on the “CC” button at the bottom of this YouTube screen.  This auto-generated closed captioning has also been integrated with web conferencing applications such as Zoom and Google meet.   All of these technologies provide instant educational assistance to a deaf learner at minimal cost. References Castelo, M....
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Technology Presentation- Screen Sharing

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 The following video is a presentation I created to show a possible integration of technology into a classroom instructional session regarding US Geography. https://youtu.be/y8YsNu8Cp1I Written Explanation The technology tool I am choosing is Sheppardsoftware.com. This website provides interactive maps where students can discover geography within the parameters that the teacher provides. I am choosing this specific tool to allow my students to interact at their own pace with the content being provided. After completing this lesson, I feel this was an engaging technology tool to enhance student knowledge of US Geography.  Looking back at this technology choice, this tool provides good pacing, individualized learning paths, and a smooth interface while also meeting the needs of the lesson objective.  Overall, I believe this was a good choice.   References   Fresh Air. (2011, Sept. 21). Love Longitude? ' Maphead ' Locates Geograph...
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Gaming

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  Why d on’t kids love school?   Scott  Hebert says that at some point in our education , play, fun, and discovery are replaced with silence, standardization, and  schedule  ( Hebert, 2018 ).  The  benefit of having games in the classroom is to  generate curiosity, discovery, and   fun .     The challenge of introducing games into the classroom is when they are done as a fill-in for actual instruction.  As with  implementing  te chnology, games for the sake of games   is   meaningless (Wilson, 2016) .  The re  must  be an educational objective.     One strategy I have when gamifying a lesson is to be an expert  on  the topic.  I challenge my students to point out countries in Africa  faster than I can.  When I am engaged and knowledgeable, my students tend to be more excited about the content.     Conversely, gaming becomes inappropriate when t...
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Professional Development- Joining a Professional Organization

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 The following is a video of my presentation regarding "Joining a Professional Organization": https://youtu.be/N5PSIVFtQ3c
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Discussion #2: Data Collection

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According to Roblyer and Hughes (2019), we are living in the adaptive learning era where technological ubiquity allows schools to gather, track, and synthesize more data than ever before.   In a HBR article from 2012, Big Data is called the “Management Revolution” (Mcafee, 2012).   And that revolution includes schools.    Some of the physical data points we collect from students are attendance from Powerschool, feedback uploaded from other teachers on Google Drive, and, of course, grades from class assessments, among other data points.   The more data we collect, the more accurate our decisions will be about how to reach our students collectively and individually. When it comes to teaching my students how to gather data, I have been able to pass along my 15 years of expertise as a data analyst.  In one example, we compared the average monthly temperatures taken from two different cities: Nashville, TN and Sydney, Australia (Climate-Data, 2020). Once stude...
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