Technology Assessment: 8 Tools

Through out the course of learning Technology Applications for Education, I've gained so much knowledge on things I didn't even know existed. This blog will contain some tech tools that i've come across and used. There are some tools that are great and not as great, but either way hope it benefits some more than others.

Each tool is rated
1 - Okay for use, but needs improvement.
2-Good because it is useful with only minor complications.
3-Awesome and highly recommended for use.

Moodle Rating- 2

Moodle is an online class tool. The University of Guam uses Moodle to it's full potential giving students access to full online courses. Students are able to see anything the professor posts from assignments, to quizzes and tests, and any lecture material. Helpful links and documents are easily posted for students to see. Students are able to turn in assignments and keep track of anything due through the calendar provided. Useful things such as messaging are provided as well. My only concern for this is that it will work best if the Professor is consistent with dates, keeps it organized, and responds to student messages. I've done a handful of online courses through Moodle at the University and i've experienced some difficulties in certain classes. If it wouldn't have been for my technology class showing me the full potential of Moodle I would have completely despised this tool. For now it's not the best, but it is still helpful.

 Chrome Rating- 3

Google Chrome is a great web browser especially for those who are avid users of Gmail and Google apps. It is simple to use, available for all devices including tablets and phones, and it is absolutely free. 

Google Apps Rating- 3

Google Apps is one of the best things to have been invented along side computers. If you have a gmail account, everything is at the tip of your fingers. Google Drive offers documents such as Forums, Doc, Sheets, which are great alternatives to Microsoft office which tend to be expensive. Google is absolutely free. Blogger, which is currently being used for this blog, is a great tool since it is a multimedia app. Gmail account itself is great for all email needs since there is unlimited storage. 

LiveBinders Rating- 2

LiveBinders is digital alternative to an actual binder where users can organize and share online content. It is a great tool for saving useful online links and tools. LiveBinders allows users to color code tabs and set their binders either public or private. Unfortunately,  storage use is limited on the free version and in order to access more features upgrading is a must. Some links may not also work in the LiveBinders tabs where users need to open up a different tab on their web browser to access the link. 

Emaze Rating- 3

Emaze is an online presentation tool with various set templates. Easy to upload photos and videos from Youtube. Anything from powerpoint is easily uploaded into Emaze. Presentations can be set to private or public and links are shareable. Overall very simple to use and leaves presentations looking simple, but eye-catching. 

Linoit Rating- 3

Linoit is an online based canvas where you can organize media using through sticky notes and is absolutely free! It is multimedia where you can attach videos, photos and file attachments. The great thing about Linoit is the limitless amount of canvases users can make. No more buying sticky notes and sign up for Linoit! 

Oovoo Rating- 2

Oovoo is an online conferencing tool with a free sign up that anyone can live with without having to upgrade to the premium. Aside from the ads shown in the free version, Oovoo allows up to 12 people per conference. It can be accessed on a computer, phone, or tablet. A strong Wi-fi connection is highly needed because once that connection is interrupted, audio and video will lag. 

Haiku Deck  Rating- 1

Haiku Deck is another presentation software. It looks easy to use at first and templates are simple as well, however trying to insert a photo of your choosing is beyond difficult. It would say that the photo is too large to fit into the presentation, but it won't give the option to edit in the presentation itself. What is a presentation without photos? Haiku Deck's free trial is limited to certain options. It is not completely free. They offer different packages that are paid monthly. For those who are not avid users of presentations, I highly don't recommend.  

References: 

[Moodle]. (2014, Jan 23). What is Moodle?  [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wop3FMhoLGs

[superMonsterIam]. (2015, Jan 3). 10 interesting Google chrome tips and tricks each user should know. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RwHIwocR7U

[Edtech4class]. (2015, Nov 1).  Introduction to Google Apps. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMWrsRNveSI

[McQuattersclass]. (2012, May 4).  Live Binders Tutorial. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuwVehW2Kdo

[Lauren Stokes]. (2013, Sep 15). Emaze Tutorial. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb9UuYM69ko

[Steve Kuninsky]. (2013, May 4). Linoit.com Tutorial. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLenDjfQMjM

[Safe Smart Social]. (2015, Apr 10). oovoo App- Social Media Safety Guide. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G93cEIFnzI

[Haiku Deck]. (2015, Mar 5) Introducing Haiku Deck Zuru- Presentations Powered by Artificial Intelligence. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxVMpW4eoI

Digital Safety

The availability of technology is accessible more than ever in today's society. Two-year olds are able to utilize iPads to watch video's on Youtube or use various applications to play games. Motor vehicles can connect to cellular devices to make calls easier and play music directly from the phone. Classrooms have smart boards and students have access to computers with internet. With everything being so easily accessible through technology, anyone is prone to various dangers the tech world comes with, especially younger users. As a future Secondary English Education major, I have to be aware of these dangers so that I can educate my students about them especially when they write essays, do research assignments, and just overall practice safety.
National Children's Advocacy Center provides safety tips for kids and teens and it is a great source for simple things to keep in mind. These tips emphasizes on parental involvement. Internet safety starts at home and parents are key factors in helping with internet safety. However, not many parents themselves are aware of these things, or even know how to operate a computer especially older parents. Edutopia gives an idea of how important this is. So in order to ensure digital safety among students, teachers need to offer some kind of digital safety awareness for parents. Most have smartphones, so a suggestion would be to have resources such as links available for parents to read. A great source would be Stay Safe Online. It not only offers great tips to follow for parents, but provides many other resources.
This Digital Safety assignment for Technology Education enlightened us all in the different areas of the issues we may encounter. There is so much to keep in mind, and as future educators being in a technologically literate world can be complicated. I wasn't even aware of "Phishing and Pharming" was. I knew never to give out personal information to unknown sources, but there are deeper dangers where sites can be modified to direct you to the unknown. My group was assigned to do Copy Right and Fair User Practice. We used Emaze and iMovie to present our content with little complications along the way. The only problem with Emaze for group presentations is that only the person under the account can edit the presentation. Copy right was always around us especially in English courses i've taken because writing papers involved being aware of who has done the original work. I wasn't aware of what Fair User Practice was, which is basically similar to copy right, but with certain guidelines to prevent violating copy right laws. Teachers alone have special copy right laws that give a little more leeway than the norm.
All the topics presented in class were very helpful. Aside from fair user practice and copy right issues, Digital Safety and Privacy, Cyber Bullying, Textual Harrasment, and Pharming and Pishing are important categories to keep in mind when practicing digital safety because they all correlate with one another. Bullying and fraud is one of the many issues teachers, parents, and students need to be aware of. These topics can be taught more in depth and though I did learn a lot from the class presentations, I feel that they lacked more information. Groups could have used the whole class time to present on their topics.
Overall digital safety is very important to practice to prevent dangers in the technology world. everything is easily accessed not only for the user, but predators can get to these users. Teachers need to be highly aware of these things and help both parents and students to protect themselves.

 National Children's Advocacy Center. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2016, from http://www.nationalcac.org/prevention/internet-safety-kids.html

 Raising Digital Citizens | StaySafeOnline.org. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2016, from https://staysafeonline.org/stay-safe-online/for-parents/raising-digital-citizens

 The Importance of Internet Safety. (2012). Retrieved May 14, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/internet-safety-importance-heather-wolpert-gawron 

Assistive Technology Power for Students

As a future educator, and other educators alike, it is a key factor to remember the importance of the different learning styles as well as disabilities among the diverse students that we will encounter in our classrooms. With all this to keep in mind, creating lesson plans can be very challenging. With technology rising, it has lifted a load from not only teachers, but greatly on students, impacting their lives. Edutopia's "How Assistive Technology Enables Dreams" shows how technology improves the learning environment for students who greatly need them and help them progress at the same rate as other students.
The video shows various students with disabilities where technology changed their learning lifestyles. One student described that without technology is a foundation of her life and would not exist the way she is. She uses speech activated computers to do her homework, an operated wheel chair, and phone when needed to call for help. Another student learns to play a musical instrument specifically handcrafted to adjust to his disability. Technology is present early on in classrooms containing young children. Specific programs are catered to specific learning disabilities helping students learn at a f

A Lesson for A Lesson

 Being a student is one thing, but being a student pursuing a teaching career is another thing. We preview the life of a teacher, and from a student's point of view, it is not as simple as it seems. Just creating lesson plans to teach students takes time, critical thinking, and hard work to ensure that the lesson being prepared covers all the needs of the subject while catering to the diversity of students in a class. For this particular assignment, not only did we have to keep in mind these different aspects in creating a lesson plan, but we also had to figure out how to incorporate cereal boxes and technology tools. As a Secondary English Education major, I wasn't sure on how exactly I could do this. 
As for this being my first time to create a lesson a plan, I was at a loss. I was not aware of the different forms, models and templates in creating a lesson plan. We were assigned to use the ASSURE model and I had no knowledge on. As I looked further to what this model was, I found that ASSURE is an acronym that stands for: Analyze learners, State Objectives, Select methods, media, and materials, Utilize methods, media, and materials, Require learner participation, and Evaluate and revise. According to Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning by Heinich, Molenda, Russell, Smaldino, 1999, "the ASSURE model is an ISD (Instructional Systems Design) process that was modified to be used by teachers in the regular classroom  The ISD process is one in which teachers and trainers can use to design and develop the most appropriate learning environment for their students." It is used to help improve teaching and learning. 
Now that I know how to use the ASSURE lesson, it was simple enough to incorporate what I needed with the template available online. My problem however was figuring out a creative way to use cereal into a secondary English class while being able to have students use an online tool. Eventually I came up with the idea of having students use cereal box characters by making an ebook using Joomag creating a story of the pros and cons of eating the specific cereals from the characters they derived from. 
My lesson plan titled "Nutritional Stories" is geared towards the 6th grade level with a time span of up to 4 class sessions with an hour each. The students are assigned to groups and are to choose three boxes of cereals with characters. They use the nutritional labels of their chosen cereals for the information they will provide for their stories. They will use creativity in creating their stories while learning how to write proper dialogues and reading nutritional labels. Students will also be familiarized with ebook tools.
Though technology is a great turning point in education and greatly impacts learning positively, there are downsides to this, especially considering that the students I may be teaching lack experience with technology in general. School districts lack funding to have technology tools available for use, and students may not even be exposed to these things at home due to low social economic status. According to Top Hat Blog, the number 4 reason of technology being a con in classrooms is that students do not have equal access to technology resources. Even with the suggestions provided for free services or free tech tools in the community, future educators and educators alike need to consider this. If I were to change my lesson plan, I would have students make their books out of hands on materials such as magazines, the cereal box itself, markers, etc if majority of the students do not have access to technology tools. Though the students will be in groups and there is a possibility of having at least one member having access to technology, it defeats the purpose of the other students being exposed to the tech tools needed for this lesson. 
For further instruction from this lesson, I would continue on having students read more stories and analyze certain themes and meanings using their experience from writing about nutritional facts. They will  also use these skills on essay writing. 
Incorporating technology into lesson plans will be difficult for teachers if their school districts do not have the funding and supplies to provide. Finding other alternatives to lesson plans will be a constant need. Creating my Nutritional Story lesson plan was simple in incorporating all the aspects of the ASSURE method, but looking at all other aspects and future lessons will be a challenge.  
References 

 The 6 Pros & Cons of Using Technology in Your Classroom - Top Hat Blog. (2015). Retrieved April 10, 2016, from http://blog.tophat.com/6-pros-cons-using-technology-classroom/

Higher Education | Pearson. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2016, from https://www.pearsonhighered.com/

Exploring and Integrating Technology in Classrooms

Word Out Game Reflection

            This assignment challenged us as future educators by helping us become aware of the difficulties in finding useful resources when it comes to teaching. We were assigned to groups where our group consisted of Special Education, Secondary English Education, and two Elementary Education Majors. Our goal was to find an educational game that fit all of our majors, creating a rubric for the game and figuring out a way to present our game incorporating an unfamiliar presentation tool. It was easy to agree on what kind of game would fit all of our majors. Reading was our main focus in finding an educational game.

            Exploring all the online educational games available was entertaining and we had no difficulties finding our game, Word Out. The similarity of Word Out to Tetris was what caught our eyes. It was equally simple and difficult. Simple because of the effortless of playing the game simply using arrow keys to maneuver the descending letters to form words vertically or horizontally.  Forming the words however, that was the difficulty of it because of the random letters that is given to form words. It suits the ages of seven and up fitting the perfect age group among our majors. It can help improve vocabulary skills and learning new words. Finding a presentation tool seemed easy because we found several that were eye catching and first settled on Sway. While working with Sway, we found it to be difficult to put what we wanted. Things such as placing specific pictures into specific places of a slide pushed us to using another tool. We found Wix to be a beautiful choice, until we heard half of the class have already chosen this tool. To familiarize the class with other tools, we wanted something different and chose Haiku Deck. It was a more modern, business like presentation tool compared to Powerpoint.

Creating a rubric to rate our game was difficult because we didn’t know where to begin. As students, we are used to receiving rubrics that making one from scratch seemed out of our basic skills. As we continued to get familiar with Word Out, we were able to answer the Five W’s of Who, What, Where, When, Why to create our rubric adding to it by what we felt needed to be known about an online educational game before offering it to other teachers’ use.  As a Secondary English Education Major, Word Out can be greatly beneficial to my students when there is passing time to increase their vocabulary skills. The game being difficult when forming words will challenge students and even helping them create words they didn’t know existed and can later look up the meaning of them. It is also a great game to have students work together to come up with words.

Though students are greatly exposed to the online world, it’s not always a good thing. I believe that with the social media craze around us, vocabulary and grammar skills are decreasing because of the shortcuts given for words or “autocorrect” embedded in our technology systems. According to Association of American Educators, “In recognizing the importance of writing well, education advocates are stressing the need to keep grammar lessons interesting and current” (Alix). Word Out may not be a very reliable game in improving grammar skills, but it greatly benefits improving vocabulary skills while keeping learning interesting and current.  Word Out is not an entirely effective game to use, but it’s a simple, fast one to throw into a lesson. Edutopia however encourages “applications that promote and strengthen a variety of skill sets for students, not just one or two” (Mercinek) so Word Out is too simple and should not be relied to completely improve vocabulary skills.

Working with my group was effortless. No difficulties came up working with every single one of them. We all cooperated with what we needed to do. We made time out of class to meet and if someone was not able to meet in person we turned to using online communicating resources such as Whatsapp and Facetime and worked effectively.

References

            Alix (2012, March 06). Grammar in the Social Age of Social Media. Retrieved from http://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/677-grammar-in-the-age-of-social-media

Marcinek, Andrew (2014, March 11). Technology and Teaching: Finding a Balance. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/technology-and-teaching-finding-balance-andrew-marcinek