Nicole's Tech Blog

Prior to this project, I had never used Prezi. Therefore, I chose to create my presentation it in order to familiarize myself with the website. Although I found that I prefer Microsoft PowerPoint, I found Prezi to be a fun tool that students might find more engaging. My presentation is aimed at teaching students about the characteristics of polygons. Attached is the link to my presentation: https://prezi.com/view/IoBc7r9PPfrcL7r0b5Vx/

We reviewed Mrs. LeBlanc's Kindergarten Classroom Website from Diplomat Elementary School. https://app.oncoursesystems.com/school/webpage/452539/494293 Contrast:      The contrast is well done and you can read everything quickly. When you hover over certain headlines with your cursor, the headlines turn a different color which allows you to know exactly what you are clicking on. This is a very helpful tool and makes the website look more neat. Repetition:      Mrs. LeBlanc uses similar visual elements repeated throughout her webpage. For example, the titles are bold and the headings are both bold and underlined. She also uses images throughout her page consistently. This helps to create organization for the webpage.     Allignment:      Although she did a great job with her webpage, similar elements are not alligned within her website. If she did this, it would improve her webpage greatly. She could allign her content wi...

     In class, we have already learned to evaluate websites but I liked that this assignment in particular exposed us to evaluating teacher resources. This is a useful skill to have as a teacher. Through my individual efforts, I was able to learn about RescueTime. This website manages your time by keeping track of what teachers are doing as they surf the web. By viewing the bookmarks and annotations of others, I was able to learn about other interesting teacher productivity tools. Most of these were new to me and I found them very interesting. I was able to discuss these resources with my classmates.

     I visited a few of Diplomat Elementary School's Kindergarten class pages. Information that I see publicly includes teacher contact information, the class' weekly agenda, the classroom schedule, and important upcoming dates and activities. This is essential information that all parents should have access to in order to be involved with their child's education. I like that the teachers to keep their websites up to date by updating them each week with new learning goals and agendas. Each of the websites also has a sidebar with important links such as the school district website, parent portals, and additional resources that parents can have their children use to aid in the learning process. Check out Diplomat Elementary School's page with links to classroom websites! http://dpl.leeschools.net/classroom-websites Here is a classroom page that I thought was very helpful for parents.       As a teacher, I can envision myself using too...

     This week's topic revolved around the use of Web 2.0, which allows users to interact and share with each other online. I was able to experience this myself through the use of Diigo in class. Personally, I really enjoyed collaborating with my classmates in order to have effective dialogue in regards to the website that we were assigned. It has been wonderful to get to know this website. Since I'd like to teach at the Kindergarten level, I cannot see myself using this tool with my students. However, I know that I could use this website to share resources and helpful teaching tools with my coworkers.

I reviewed @smoothjazz_eme blog post about a video project that allows students of different grades to work with each other! #FSUEdTech — Nicole Garcia (@nicolegarcia_ed) October 10, 2017

     Of the Web 2.0 technologies covered in the podcast, I would say that blogs and Diigo are the most useful classroom tools. These tools seem very effective as they allow for teachers to monitor what students are publishing online and how they are interacting with one another. Specifically, blogs allow for students to have an online publishing platform where they have an audience. This gives students some freedom while also allowing teachers to oversee what they are positing. Diigo allows for students to share resources online with their classmates. When students post on this platform, they are posting to a classroom page, which allows teachers to view their content. These tools support teacher professional development as teachers can responsibly oversee their students. On the other hand, I would say that Web 2.0 technologies such as Wikis and Twitter are less useful in the classroom. This is because it makes student collaboration more difficult while also making it ha...