The Techie School Teacher

 Final Reflection and Vanity Search 2.0 As a reflection to see what I have learned the past two weeks, I conducted a second "vanity search" to see my digital footprint.  My YouTube comments and recent presentations on YouTube showed up, emphasizing the importance of knowing that any comments you type on a site can show up anywhere!  I was unable to find my Articulate Rise course link, Canvas course, Google Account and Padlet but I know they are still there! The most surprising thing was one of the first images that popped up was the photo I use for my digital and paper resume.  This was quite surprising as I did not realize I had a photo that was that public.  This would be a good activity to show students how what they post is more easily found than what they think.  I do like that my digital footprint, while public, leans towards my professional rather than my personal life.  I will continue to curate and add to my professional portfol...

The Changing Nature of Web 2.0 Tools   After exploring different Web 2.0 tools the last few weeks, I began to reflect on how to keep up with the ever changing nature of technology, and how difficult it is to stay up to date.  It is so easy to get attached to a royalty free image database, interactive whiteboard, or digital student presentation tool, without realizing there is a newer, more popular version available in the past year.  I find the best way to stay up to date is to converse with colleagues and fellow educators, either in person or online, to find out what web tools people are using and enjoying.  I often get great ideas from seeing what people post and host on their classroom websites for others to see.  Even something as simple as the popular, visually appealing, Bitmoji classrooms, I never would have thought of if I hadn't seen so many great examples of.  Even reviewing my fellow classmates blogs has made me see how limited this particular bl...

 Social Bookmarking My Web 2.0 exploration continues this week with a dive into a Chrome Extension titled Diigo.  The extension allows you to bookmark sites as you explore them and stores them in the Diigo site itself.  This is nice as you don't have to login to your own Google account to access your bookmarks.  As my boyfriend and I sometimes borrow each other's computers this would be a useful feature.  It also lets you highlight and add sticky notes and saves them for you in the bookmarked site in your library (on the Diigo site).  This may not seem that useful, but for e-reading and researching this could make it a lot easier if you have a big project and get interrupted or need to stop for a day.  This also might be a useful tool for students who are reading online.   Another feature of Diigo was the "groups" feature where you could share websites or pages with a group of similar interest.  Although I enjoyed reading the shared post...

Adventures in Hyperdocs This week I set out to rediscover the world of hyperdocs and gain new ideas to make my technology integration more engaging and student centered.  I first began using hyperdocs in 2012 with a "web quest" for some of my 4th grade Social Studies teks about Texas which did not have very engaging resources.  While my students enjoyed the novelty of it, they had to take turns sharing the four desktop computers, dealing with slow internet speeds, and reading articles which, unfortunately, the only difference between their paper counterparts and they, was that they were online versions with opportunities for students to type their responses instead of writing them. Ten years later, the possibilities of hyperdocs have come a long way!  More students have access to their own device without having to share with 23 other students.  Embedding colorful images is faster and adding a fun meme, giph, or emoji to spark the student's enthusiasm only takes ...

Using Youtube and Twitter  with Ed Tech   This week I continued my exploration of Twitter and YouTube as resources for ideas and collaboration forums with other educators.  I got some new ideas and found some interesting channels to add to my EdTech toolkit! 💻🎯✔🔖 First I explored Youtube.  I typed various search criteria in the search engine including "teaching with technology," "edtech,"  "learning with technology," "technology tools" and various "how to use....Canvas, Jamboard, Google Slides, etc."   I found some cool channels which I followed including and my favorite  https://www.youtube.com/c/NewEdTechClassroom .  In this channel, Matt Miller gives insightful videos introducing new technology tools and giving ideas on how to use familiar ones.   Top Tech Tools for Teachers in 2021 One of his videos covered  https://www.whiteboard.chat/   a collaborative tool which allows teachers and students to coll...

  Twitter Adventure This week I explored Twitter as an educational resource tool and was pleased and surprised to find what I had been missing out on all this time!             I first begin by simply using my #etec527 from the Educational Technology course I am currently taking to see what my fellow classmates had tweeted.  One of my classmates found a very useful article about Canva, a design program I have been wanting to explore more with and I found the tips in it very useful.  Another student shared an article which provided useful hashtags for educators, and another classmate shared some useful tips for using Peardeck, which I had used before, but found the lesson plan template that came with it very useful. I also was able to view a few linked tweets from my professor, including "Ten Best Apps to Enhance Your Cognitive Ability and Keep Your Brain Sharp." From this link I discovered the app Lumioscity which I feel will be wor...

  Web 2.0 and My Digital Footprint This weekend I conducted a "Vanity Search" to reflect on my digital footprint and use of Web 2.0 technologies.  Although it is probably a tad paranoid of me, I have always been reluctant to use my last name in any Social Media accounts (including Google) which I have set up in the past.  I am more relaxed about it now but when I was younger, I wanted a clear separation between my job and my personal life (partly because the scrutiny educators are always under) and replaced my surname with a name of my own choosing for my Social Media "handle." Looking back on my footprint I have been subjectively scarce online.  I have an Instagram account (which did not show up), a deleted Twitter and a deleted Facebook.  Ironically the websites that showed up the most were comments I had made on others Youtube channels, especially because a friend of mine tried making a Youtube channel a few years ago and I was trying to support her by commen...