Evernote Strategy/21st Century Tool Review

This is the first time I have ever used the Evernote app. I think it is very beneficial and can be a valuable learning aid for students. I enjoyed being able to snap a picture of notes I studied and then being able to edit the notes to my liking for my own personal studies. When using Evernote from my iPhone to laptop, it was a little confusing but I adjusted after playing around with the app. Using this app has been very efficient. I like how you can organize your notes to different notebooks that pertain to different chapters. This makes going back to specific notes a lot easier to find. This tool, I appreciate a lot.

I believe this app would be very beneficial to high school students and college students for note taking and studying for tests. However, I do not think that an elementary student would understand a lot about it. Elementary students do not have a lot of studies they have to take home like older students do. I think this app would be very beneficial for teachers, though. Evernote can serve for an awesome organizing tool for lesson plans and classroom notes and/or activities. Teachers can also use this for personal use, as for wanting to track different goals for themselves, as a teacher or even their students progress, maybe on a particular subject. As a future teacher, I can see myself using the snapshot feature a lot. I can take pictures of work and make notes that I need to come back and review again or even show a student how he or she can improve their work. This app can be a very influential aid for helping any teacher become more effective and efficient in their classroom.

Snap shots of my notes I took throughout the chapters:

Tool Review:

Google Apps for Education- This is a small world of technology, useful for all different types of learning. Teachers use this tool every day at the school I work in. I am still learning how to use all of its features, but so far my favorite is the Google calendar. I can share this and all the teachers can review it to see all of the school activities. Edits can also be made by different people as well. Another feature I like, is the sharing of documents. If my colleague and I are working on a lesson plan in the comfort of our own homes, we can work and save and the other one can open up the document and edit anything and save as well. This tool is very beneficial for students as well. Students can utilize Google for project based learning and documents their progress on specific projects. There are student surveys offered and discussion boards. These are just a few features this small world offers. Everything a student or teacher needs is at their fingertips.

Classdogo- This app is also used in the school I work in, mainly by our 4th graders. I do hear mixed messages from parents and teachers about this app. The website allows parents and teachers to keep up with student behavior/conduct in the classroom. This is also a tool for the student to track their progress on how well their conduct is during class hours. Students can set personal and/or class goals and keep up with them as they work harder to meet each goal. This app is worked on a point system. The teacher can give and take away classdogo points for awesome conduct or misbehavior. As a student, I think to actually see how well or not well I am doing would help me to stay on track or work a little harder for classdogo points. This app also allows teachers to document behavior if there need be a referral to the office. The parent can have a visual of how the teacher marked each tier before the student had a write up referral. I believe this is a very beneficial app for all, teacher, parent, and student. There is always continuous communication.

M1P3-TPACK

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge…TPACK represents the old and the new of teaching for technology. It breaks down how a teacher should know “how to teach” their own area of content to their classroom. TPACK is the framework on how teaching should be integrated and developed properly for each teacher’s specific domain.

Educators benefiting from TPACK:

• ·      Teachers can use TPACK in visualizing the complex relationships between the different domains of their knowledge. TPACK provides teachers with leveraging specialized knowledge when trying to plan and implement education technologies within their lessons and units.
• ·      TPACK can also serve as a tool for teachers when they need enabling an analysis of a teacher’s knowledge and for planning future professional development. Teachers can identify their levels of strength or weakness in each area of domain.
• ·      TPACK can also provide language for teachers to communicate with common vocabulary about activities related to technology integration.

Having a TPACK within classrooms, teachers have a better way of collaborating and understanding each of their own domains, and if they have a weakness in a category they can look to a colleague who is more knowledgeable in that area.  

Teachers can make sure their technology lessons are most beneficial, as when they have integrated the “3Es”…Engaging, Efficient and Effective.  Students need all three of these to receive the most effective and efficient learning outcome. There are many teaching models and strategies that can be useful in classrooms. Models can point out specific learning ideas that need to be more focused on. Making a visual aid sometimes will help a student grasp the information more effectively. Teachers also can use different strategies to help their classroom be a more efficient learning environment. Students can learn individually and then work with their teacher and also work together and share their thoughts and ideas about a certain lesson.  Technology is a large use in the classroom that can help with teaching and learning.  STRIDE is an app that teachers use in the school I work in to help students on each subject, answering multiple-choice questions on their unique learning level. Students progress as their scores improve. I hope to gain more technology knowledge as far as what to use in my future classroom, from this class.

What is 21st Century Learning to Me?

Technology…21^st century learning is all about technology and its growing trend. Not only in schools, but also in careers, technology is always growing and changing. Working in a school, I hear all the time that teachers sometimes may not even have work sheets for a lesson because everything is done on an iPad or computer. This in a way can be helpful since so much of the workforce industry is driven off technology, that students can merge right in after graduating with the knowledge of already knowing how to maneuver around on devices and in programs. I like how our teachers use ELMOS and projectors and other devices to interact with students and showing them how to learn. The touch screens help with more hands on learning, and I believe this holds attention span a lot longer than a lecture or a work sheet. As a future teacher, I am trying to prepare myself to always stay a little head of the game when it comes to technology and how it can help me be a better teacher. I receive emails often about new apps or websites that are for students and teachers, from our central office in the county I work in. Our technology specialist, at our school, often is showing us how to drive around in a new website that will help better prepare a lesson or help show students a new way to learn a concept. With technology, the sky is the limit and I truly believe there is no end to learning. Students can always discover new information and new ways to indulge in their class and homework through the use of technology. No matter the learning level a student is on, there is always an app or website that can assist and help each student excel.