Technology and Literacy Reflections

I think that Vimeo is largely overshadowed by YouTube, although the platform itself isn't bad. One benefit of YouTube is that it easily links with the Google Suite, which is the predominant platform of most schools and personal accounts. On the flipside, you can download Vimeo videos so you aren't reliant on working internet to ensure that a video plays, which is nice. In addition, lots of teachers have uploaded educational videos for professional development on Vimeo, so that is beneficial, especially for running low-cost professional development. In addition, YouTube has done a lot of advertising recently and not all of it is school appropriate. It can also be problematic that YouTube starts playing a new video at the end of the first, depending on the content of the second video. Ultimately, if I were to upload a video of my own I would probably upload it to YouTube because it is easy to post my videos to my students in Google Classroom or to post to my Google Sites. However

I really enjoyed the leadership styles quiz that we took last week, and I was really surprised with my results. I've taken a lot of personality quizzes in the school I've worked in. It seems like we have a new test to take every year from True Colors, to the Indigo Assessment, and more. These quizzes almost always end with me learning that I care about other people's feelings and that I am a good team player. However, this quiz that we took was different because it focused more on leadership rather than personality, and I thought it was useful for me to see myself in a different way. I would not have guessed that my leadership style was more about vision than empathy. However, as we were discussing the results, I realized that those skills that I bring to the table are very relevant and I was able to explain a lot of my behavior in curriculum writing teams and on various committees and projects I work on. For example, I don't like to work on projects that I don't se

I was very apprehensive about the Blended Learning text, because it is rare to find a textbook that is practical and provides good resources to really implement the strategies discussed. I was so wrong about this book--it was so well written. As I was reading my assigned chapter, I kept thinking that I'd either already tried that resource or strategy and had it work really well, or that I hadn't tried something yet, but I could envision myself using what was recommended. Once we presented out on our chapters last week, I realized that my chapter was not the only one relevant to my teaching. The Blended Learning strategies that Tucker describes are useful and she includes so many great resources for implementing them. I particularly loved when we were discussing the idea of a Flipped Classroom and I had so many concerns, especially around students completing their work, and the author just addressed them so well and moved on. I was blown away that an educational text could actua

I chose to use a WebQuest model for my literacy project because I was looking for a tool that would allow me to choose the content while also allowing for opportunities to personalize the lesson for students. The goal of my lesson was not only to teach students about Ellis Island, but to ensure that they were able to develop historical empathy. By using a WebQuest model, I was able to differentiate my instruction for my individual students while still ensuring that all students had access to the same content, which is so important, particularly at the beginning of the school year. The lesson went well overall. Students were able to stay generally focused and on task and were able to access the content fairly easily. This is one of the benefits of the WebQuest: student frustration is more limited because there are clear instructions about which resources to use which cuts down on the student having to struggle to find the important information. Despite this, I still had some students

I have used both Diigo and Pinterest in the past for social booking marking. I used Diigo predominantly for collecting research and articles pertinent to my professional life while I've keep my use of Pinterest fairly personal, collecting recipes and things relevant to my various interests. I honestly find both of these sites challenging to use and time consuming. I mostly use the internet to search things with a very specific goal in mind. Professionally, I tend to collect articles for specific projects in a Google Doc or I use PDF annotation software to take notes and annotate. As I was reflecting on this assignment, I realized that there is a type of social bookmarking that I use both personally and professionally, and that is the save function on Facebook. Scrolling through Facebook is one of the few times I'm truly just "stumbling" across interesting ideas, articles, and yes, even recipes. As I scroll, I often use the save feature to return to interesting ideas a

Grayson's Revised Website This project came at a great time, because I was recently asked to present at a Google Conference hosted at my school next month. I had to include a link to my resource page or website, and it was a required field on the form I was completing. I created this site for a different class, but realized it was the one that I could continue to use from a professional standpoint because it hosts a lot of my free online resources that I've created over the duration of my program. I updated the site by captioning each tool and providing a link to the free resource. As I develop my resources for my upcoming presentation on using Google Hangouts in the classroom, I will add a new tab and direct the audience there. I'd love feedback in terms of if it's set up in a user friendly manner because I'd love for it to be a resource for the people I present to next month.