EDTC 6037 - Team Blog

What is Educreations ?   Educreations is an online tool that allows you to create using a blank canvas and record your voice as you go. The saying used on the webpage is "Teach anything to anyone from anywhere" which sums up what educreations is all about. It allows you to create video tutorials for access at anytime. You can use images saved to any platform you may have or even screenshot things from the web to use as apart of your video. Once you record your videos, you are able to share them through email, post to YouTube, Twitter, on your Website , or even save to your camera roll, dropbox, or Google Drive. Educational Value Pros:  - Allows educational videos to easily be created. - Videos can be played or replayed anytime. - Can be instantly shared to various platforms - Gives you familiar whiteboard tools to use. - Can import images and backgrounds - Can manage privacy - Can view videos on Ipad and on Web - Voice recording Cons: - Limited whiteboar...

Greetings!! My name is Kim Good, I graduated last May / 2019 with an MLIS degree from ECU. I'm currently working as an Exceptional Student TA/ Job coach. This is my 19th year with the EC population.  I'm hoping to advance in my profession upon completion of the Special Endorsement program.   In this class, my hopes are to learn how to use instructional technology in a diverse learning setting and other areas to meet the needs of the 21st Century "global" learners.   My role in education doesn't require technology integration experiences. The only experiences I have been taking classes and learning from other educators outside my classroom. 

What is LucidChart? LucidChart  is an online website that allows users to create any kind of diagram online, from flowcharts to concept/mind maps. While it is oriented towards the industry and business world, it is useful in the education world and for students. As the website says itself -- "everyone has been drawing out ideas since childhood." LucidChart offers a free educational account if you log in with your edu address. For more advanced features, they offer an EDU premium plan which allows for unlimited documents and storage space, along with extra features for districts & IT admins. However, with the basic plan, you can create your own diagrams. For example, the screenshot below shows the types of templates students can create for a concept/mind map: Here is a screenshot of a blank canvas. Note that there are many features familiar to those who have used Google Docs or Word, such as shapes, and font customization. What's really cool is that...

In Chapter 12, Code and Go Robot Mouse was one of the coding tools that was mentioned in the text. I have used Spheros and Dot and Dash with students, but I have never seen the Code and Go Robot Mouse in action. I decided to dig deeper and learn more about this coding gadget. As seen in the video, Code and Go Robot Mouse is an excellent way to introduce coding to the younger students.   Students are able to build a maze with a piece of cheese at the end. Then they will code the mouse to travel through the maze. It includes activity cards that allow the users to create grids based on the cards in which the mouse moves. First, the students are able to use the coding cards to plan their code, and then they can code the mouse with the buttons located on top of the mouse. Pros: Introduction to coding which will lead students to code more complex things. It doesn’t require another form of technology to program the robot, which makes it more affordable for ...

I have used many of the tools mentioned in chapter 12. One that I have heard about but never used is IXL Math . It is a personalized learning program that covers many subjects. For this I am focusing on the math part since that is what I teach. Here is a  fact sheet  I found on their site. It is broken down by grade level. One down here is that it is not Math 1, 2, and 3 but rather has Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Precalculus, and calculus. However, if you click under membership on NC Standards... BAM! There they are. This is cumbersome though. You have to scroll through the standards but you can pin-point exactly want to focus on and have the students work on that. I like that they have the NC standards here so we can easily access them and see what our kids in NC really need. There are many pros to this site. I like that you can click on the recommendations and it will give you an overview with actual questions of skills for that grade level. As a teacher, I app...

Technology Review 1. Research show a significant amount of children in the United States battle with obesity.  I would like to learn more about the program " Sugar Stacks " it's a program that provides images of everyday food items with the grams of sugar contained in each one represented as a stack of sugar cubes. I feel this program is a great way to talk about sugar consumption with the students since it makes the word "grams" tangible for them. This technology program could be used for the health/ PE and math curriculum. http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm   The cons are eating healthy could be expenses. Children usually eat what their parents could afford. The working parent's families does a lot of dining out with kids indulging in unhealthy snacking after school.  The pros are you could have a better quality of life if you're aware of good vs bad sugars.   Educators could use this tool in math class to help with adding, subt...

Blog #2- Definition of Educational Technology I believe educational technology is the facilitation of technology to enhance student learning with the integration and collaboration of meaningful educational practices. After reading about the perspectives of technology, I agree more with perspective 3 and perspective 5. As a science teacher, perspective 3 (educational technology as vocational training) is described as preparing students for work in the real world and incorporating practical ways of teaching content area. With career choices available in the science and engineering fields, students need to be able to start learning the use of technology in the classroom, in all grades. I feel this perspective coincides with perspective 5 and can essentially go hand in hand. I would love to integrate technology in my science class in a meaningful way. Since we are a rural, poor area with minimal school funding, I need to find free integration. I would love to introduce me students...

Reflection on Existing Technology Integration Strategies After reading chapter 2 and learning more about the differences between direct and constructivist instruction I personally find myself incorporating a mix of the two in my classroom based on the content being taught, the time frame I have to teach the content, and the complexity of the content.  Direct instruction is basically the teacher delivering content and the students receiving it. I find myself using this in mainly my tested subjects (math and reading). For me, it's just a confirmation that students DID receive the content.During direct instruction I mainly just use the tv in my classroom and my document camera. We complete guided notes as a class and I don't require my third graders to copy them because I tend to lose their focus on the content because they are focused on getting the words on their paper. After that days lesson I post our class notes onto Google Classroom for the students to reference as n...

Reflection on Existing Technology Integration Strategies Directed instruction is simply that, me as a teacher, I am delivering the content to the students and they are receiving it. The focus is more on learning skills, methods, practice, and memorization. This is something I do often in my math class. I use guided notes so that we can focus more on them practicing the skills rather than them taking the notes. I have a Smart TV in my room that is also an interactive whiteboard. So I download the notes to the TV and I write their in different colors and then I save the document and upload them to our Canvas page for absent kids and everyone to be able to reference. The TV is the only technology I use in direct instruction. The students use graphing calculators and desmos for a lot of the concepts we are working with in Math 3. I also post videos from Khan Academy for students to reference. It seems to help when they get home and are lost in their notes. One goal for me is to video me...