Sophia EME2040 Class Blog

In my future career, I hope to be a first-grade teacher so I will be teaching all general subject areas. That said, I see a plethora of ways that I could use Excel and other reporting tools in the classroom. For example, I could use an Excel spreadsheet to keep a record of grades in a specific subject and track students' progress throughout the year. This would allow me to see if there are certain topics where multiple students are having issues or if a student is not progressing as they should be so I can focus in with these students to work towards improvement. Also, I could keep track of student attendance and see if there are any troubling trends. Although many schools have software that already keeps attendance records, I still think that it will be helpful to do it in my future classroom in case there is ever an error in the system. One could also use spreadsheets to report the captured information to supervisors or parents to help you formulate a plan for the student future ...

The “Flipped Classroom” is a classroom in which the standard lecture during class time and homework activity are flipped. What this means is that the lecture that would normally be given by the teacher during classroom time would be recorded and sent to the students to view as homework. In turn, the classroom time would be spent by having students engage in the material in hands-on activities, with the teacher there to help. This style of learning is very beneficial because it allows a student to spend an entire class asking questions and interacting with the material. With this being the case, students take on more responsibility for their education and develop a better understanding of the material as a result. The responsibility also better prepares the students for higher education, in that a lot of the material delivery in higher education relies solely on the student. This style of delivery is great for student that are sick or have to miss class as well, because the lecture is ...

Individually, I discovered a website called Education Week, which I had never heard of before. It offers really useful links to subject specific development websites. It also give a teacher forum where teachers form around the world can interact and give advice and opinions on certain topics. One interesting aspect of the website was the new feed that allows teachers to stay updated on the different trends in education. From others Diigo bookmarks, I found websites about TED Talks and LinkedIn. TED Talks allow for educational professional to share information about their field or research with the educational community through video. It covers a wide range of topics from just data gathered from students to new ways teachers can communicate with parents and other important development in education. LinkedIn is a sharing website, wherein teachers can share presentations, opinions, and what they found to work effectively in the classroom. LinkedIn, also offer for teachers to communicate w...

      Adaptive technologies are used in the classroom to help the educational process of exceptional students, by assisting their unique needs. Some exceptional students include physically and mentally disabled, gifted honors students, and linguistically diverse students. Adaptive technology aids disabled students by accommodating to their needs, like a screen reader for a blind student, StickyKeys to help those with motor handicaps, and high-interest low-vocabulary books for the mentally disabled. In terms of helping gifted students, adaptive technology allows them to work at a pace that keeps them learning and focused, as opposed to getting distracted in an average classroom setting. For the linguistically diverse, adaptive technology helps them learn new languages and interpret new cultural material through language learning software like ESL Tower. I have used some of these technologies when I was younger, because I had a speech disability that kept me from speaking i...

While working individually, I found a very interesting article on screen readers. I have heard of screen readers before, but I ever knew the logistics of how they worked or the different styles offered; however, after today I found out that there are two types, verbal and Braille, and they adapt to a number of different processing programs. Also, I learned that they can also vary for different languages and translate a screen's content to the language of the user. When watching the presentations, I learned about the different strategies for teaching exceptional students. In my presentation, I learned about devices used for students with visual and motor disabilities, like StickyKeys function. From other presentations, I learned about how technology can help gifted students work at their own pace while still being part of the class. After looking at the different Diigo bookmarks, I discovered many applications to accommodate students, including Audible and Go Play for audio books.

I have learned so much from my experience on Twitter. I never expected the application to be as useful as it has been to me. I’ve learned a lot about the benefits of social networking for education, like how sharing information can really open a teacher’s mind to new techniques or how to use different technologies to supplement their lessons. One thing I found to be particularly interesting that I saw on Twitter was an account that once tweeted out a link to websites where teachers can submit applications for grants specified for technology and could receive advice on writing their proposal. I never would have even known where to begin on grant applications, but social interaction allowed for me to find a starting point. One issue I have experienced, however, is the struggle of deciding whether or not to trust an account. When using a website, it is easy to find out if it is reliable, by using the strategies we have learned in class, but when using Twitter, it is difficult to tell if ...