Journal Post #3

After reviewing the current ELA technology standard, I am rather surprised at how much I feel like I can already meet with my current skills. Specifically, I feel as though I am able to successfully meet the standards outlined in the “Producing” tech standards. I have already made many presentations that incorporate multimedia throughout my educational career, so I believe that my abilities to add graphics, figures, recordings, and images to enhance a presentation will easily meet the standards. Also, I have always been able to update my work to keep its quality and accessibility, so meeting that standard is second-hand for me. On the contrary, there were some standards that are going to require me to learn new skills and practices. One such standard requires me to explain how the structure of the technology adds to its overall effect. I don’t think that I can currently meet this standard because I am unsure how to use and locate some common elements of text structure, like sidebars. Also, I don’t believe that I can currently meet the standard for using “Multimedia Literature”. Personally, I have issues reading on-screen texts and focusing on their purpose because distraction comes so easily; however, if I continue to practice self-discipline in this area, it should mediate the problem. That said, I am terrible at incorporating technology into the literature-based discussion and will need to learn the most effective ways to implement technology into the literature that is supplemental and not a distraction.

In my future classroom, I hope to incorporate technology through having my students do basic online research through a search engine and explaining what they have learned in an online discussion group. Assuming my students are older elementary, 3^rd-5^th grade, I would give small groups of students a topic to research and teach their fellow classmates about. Having them teach through a private discussion group, allows them to work collaboratively and on a greater scale, so they may be teaching or learning from students across the state or nation. This implementation will require me to ensure that my students are showing good digital citizenship. For this specific project, I will need to address the guidelines of:

• ·      How to connect to and navigate the web
• ·      Locate target information for personal academic use
• ·      How to report online abuses of cyberbullying
• ·      Be respectful in interactions
• ·      Avoid digital plagiarism and piracy
• ·      Offer meaningful contributions to the digital community

Although this may seem like a lot, a simple lesson covering how to properly research, interact and cite sources should address these guidelines. Additionally, through using a private, academic discussion board, I am able to protect the students by placing them in an academic online environment, as opposed to a general discussion board.

            After working on the newsletter project, I feel as though I acquired a bulk of new, applicable skills. These new skills include how to shade in Word, incorporate word art and graphics, create a permission slip, and how to add a working email link. I know that having these skills will aid me in my future classroom, as it is very common to use Word in the classroom and it will help me in the overall quality of my Word-based creations. I am happy with how the Newsletter turned out, specifically, I am really delighted with how the shading and graphics use turned out. At first, I was unsure of how to integrate these elements, but incorporating them added variety to the piece, separated sections, and added a visual aid to a topic being described. Contrarily, I think that my “cut-off” form should have included more options for the parent and required more information. Also, my articles should have been shorter to ensure that I don’t lose the parent reading it. The following pictures are my newsletter.