Welcome back! Hope
everyone had a fantastic Spring Break, I know was eventful. Surprisingly
enough, during the break, I thought a lot about Diigo. Unbelievable, right?
Well, Diigo happens to be, if not the top, one of the top resources for
students to use for their classes. After interacting with Diigo in class, I
have noticed many ways that students can benefit from this website. Diigo has
allowed me to search for online articles and/or websites with interesting facts
that I think my classmates would like to read, save them, share them, and even
annotate them! In a classroom, Diigo can be utilized similarly by giving the
students an assignment involving looking for online resources to write short
essays about the new lesson being taught that week. Students would provide
their resources on Diigo, so that other students may utilize them as
well. This can be done by bookmarking the resources and sharing them with
the class group. Annotating and leaving comments for the class to see would
also be an essential part of the learning through Diigo, since students will be
able to see their peers' opinions.
Another tool I am very
excited in using is PowerPoint, as well. Recently, the idea that a PowerPoint
presentation needs to be linear is pretty much non-existent in my world. I have
been more interested in interactive PowerPoints, since they engage the student
more than when they are just pressing the "next" arrow, in my
opinion. Looking at Bloom's Taxonomy, I think that PowerPoint can be used to
enhance all levels of the taxonomy. Interactive PowerPoints may test student
knowledge by providing quizzes and/or knowledge-based games. The same idea
will help the student's comprehension why they got an answer wrong or
why they didn't receive points for one question in the game by providing an
explanation as to why that was the result. Other ways of using interactive
PowerPoints is, for example, in math classes, the student using the PowerPoint
may receive homework questions where they need to use their classroom knowledge
to provide the right application to the question, and the presentation
does not move on until the question is right. These PowerPoints can also help
students with analysis of the lesson at hand, for example, in a Biology
class, a student on the PowerPoint may have a task where they need to match
different animals to their nomenclature classification. In teamwork, students
may use synthesis through an interactive PowerPoint by having specific
areas to be in charge of, and then coming together at the end and combining the
information into a master presentation for the class (maybe a quiz on the
Revolutionary War). Sticking around the same idea of students creating their
own interactive PowerPoints, students may team up at their own accord, or for a
grade, to study for an exam by using their PowerPoint to test each other and
learn from each other's evaluations. Very exciting, I know!
By now, all of you can
probably tell I have a slight fascination with the implementation of technology
in the classroom. Well, that is because I live by a simple notion: that we have
to move along with the world around us. The more we grow as a society, we will
see more and more improvements to technology, which means we will need people
to know how to use it properly. The next generation of students will need to
learn to be technologically savvy, for the most part. But, for this to happen,
we need to create an elite force of educators with adequate technological
skills fit enough to educate the next generation. When I say, "elite
force", I don't mean like the "Avengers" elite, rather just
moving towards a society full of teachers who value and desire to teach in
technological environment. For this to happen, educators need to go through
professional development. The idea of improving yourself is an ingoing thing,
and every teacher, in my opinion, should look forward to self improvement in
their career, especially if it involves the use of technology in some type of
way. A resource I like to use to keep myself up to date with latest technology
trends is TED.com. The videos lectures consist of new technologies, innovative
ways to use or improve technology, and methods to help think out side the box.
Sometimes, a video consists of all three. Most videos are an amazing watch and
can teach many of us, including teachers, a thing or two about how to move
along with the world.
Well, till next time,
everyone!
- The Tank
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