ThirdGradeFun

Foundations of Educational Technology So here we are at the end of our 8 week course. What a journey! I wasn't sure what to expect, as this was my first online course. However, I think that having two (I would have preferred 3) in person sessions, meeting my classmates and the instructor really helped with the online collaboration. My favorite part of our in person sessions was the escape room experience with Breakout EDU. This was a great example of the 4 C's: collaboration , communication , creativity , and critical thinking . As we move towards teaching 21st century learners, we too must make a change and adapt to a 21st century classroom. This course on the foundations of educational technology reaffirmed many ideas that I came across as our district began to implement the use of technology into the classroom. The biggest idea that was validated for me, is that we should be using technology to enhance student learning, as it was explained in the SAMR model . Substitut...

Hi All,  Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July festivities! Which by the way I know it's suppose to be a celebration but I usually get the blues because then I start to see the "Back-to-School" signs! 😞😓 Then I start to worry about all the things I haven't accomplished, that I said I would do during "my time off". Let me tell you, when you have children, "my time off" isn't really mine!  Moving on...A few weeks ago, I had to explore a plethora of digital resources for my Ed Tech class. The instructor had a video link to how to make a screencast . A screencast is a video recording of your computer screen. You can narrate a video to explain an assignment or make some kind of tutorial. This tool can be used to implement flipped teaching. I found that screen-cast-o-matic was easy to use. If you sign up with your google account, logging in is easy. Check out this short tutorial to create your own screencast! Another digital resource I...

Wow, so on my last post I discussed PLNs (Personal Learning Networks). Although there are many different tools that can be used to connect to different networks, I have found Twitter to be quite fascinating. I was a bit skeptical at first, as I thought of Twitter as a platform for a younger audience. I possibly got this idea from my teenage kids that laugh at us adults that use Facebook. Anyhow, I have explored Twitter and have begun following many of my favorite groups that keep me up to date with strategies and politics on education. I like that I can instantly retweet something or I can view something and share the link externally via text message or email with my coworkers that are not on Twitter. Although my goal is to get them to sign up! 😉  So you might be asking yourself, who should I follow on Twitter? Here are a few of my favorites, so far: Kasey Bell @ShakeUpLearning has great resource and lots of Google ideas/strategies to help you in the classroom. EduTopia...