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I have been a digital native since I was a child. I never knew I was digital native until I began to meet other children who didn’t not understand how to explore and let loose within the technological world. My parents allowed me to digitally explore the Internet with safety limits, but realize that there is more to our world than just paper and pen. I grew up being able to use a computer, a digital camera, a copier, a scanner, learning about Websites and how and why they are used. By learning about technology at a young age, I was able to explore further as far as “html codes”, building websites, and troubleshooting. Through the information that I learned when I was young, I was able to bring it into the class of EDST 221. Now, after taking this class I am more apt to expand my horizons even further and go beyond the depths of searching just within Google search engines. I realized that there is more to the Internet that meets the eye. I always thought of myself as tech savvy or a digital native, but when taking this class I became a digital learner to so many opportunities. I learned about the Smartboard and smartboard tools, and its many uses in the classroom and office space. I also learned about Google, in the past I have used its search engines, maps setting, news archive, and mail. What I never learned to discover about Google was its documents application and website builder. They are easy to use and interpersonal. Knowing about technology, I figured I would use it in the classroom, such as teaching the children how to use a computer, what a computer is, the basics of a computer. Therefore, they are not completely foreign to technology. After, taking this class, I want to integrate technology nearly completely into all of my lesson plans. Whether it is an announcement across Smartboard displaying the day’s assignments or a video from Xtranormal explaining class rules for the day. I would like the children to be interacting with technology every chance they get. They can be making crossword puzzles online, printing them out, and completing them as their homework. The kids could make a poster explaining the War of 1812 on Glogster. Anything to get them excited to learn and ready to explore the Internet safely. If they are learning about exploring the Internet safely at a young age with an adult by their side, the lesson progresses through till their older. I believe that students today have the same aspirations to explore the Internet and technology as my generation did. When each generation finds a new experience or challenge to beat they must explore it and realize how it works. These generations of younger students are just as explorative as my generation, to find how out what is going on within the Internet and other technological devices and how they can make their contribution.

eBistro

The website is really well put together and it incorporates a lot of the material we did in this class. If you were a person or child who was a digital learner then this website would be a perfect fit. This website would be able to explain how to go about putting an imovie and iphoto into the classroom presentations. It also goes on to explain about Digital Storytelling, what it is, and how it is done. This website entails EVERYTHING that happened in this classroom. It is a perfect representation of what we did in this class. Our whole class curriculum has been concluded within this website.

Floorplanner

I am an extremely visual person and I love drawing out every detail. When I found floorplanner.com I was so thrilled, this is exactly what I love. Floorplanner.com allows you to set up an exact floor plan of any area you may live or work in. It is perfect for figuring out a new living arrangement or for a new classroom arrangement. With floorplanner, you are able to be organized and prepared for your classroom. It is also great for students to use. They can be creative and design houses or a classrooms, with geometric or mathematical shapes and figures.

Technology Projects Enhancing your Classroom

Technology projects that enhance your classroom for Teachers

1. Tech newsletters
2. Voice Thread
3. Smart Board
4. Glogster
5. Digital Storytelling - Slideshare.com
6. Online Whiteboard

Technology projects that enhance your classroom for Students

1. Voki
2. Google Docs
3. Big Huge Labs
4. Wordle
5. Interactive White Board
6. Google Earth

Wix

I didn't create a site on Wix, but I spent a lot of time messing around on it and I believe I am going to use Wix instead of Google sites for my portfolio. Wix has the professional look I wanted to portray in Google Sites. It would take me too long create a whole site on Wix, so I figured I would just continue to work on my portfolio. Google Sites allows you to add html whereas Wix does not allow users to add html.

Rubric

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYURe54JswUPZGNoNDY0cXRfNDZ6OHZzYm1nag&hl=en

Podcast about French Nouns

I podcasted about French Nouns. I would play the podcast in my class everyday for my students to hear the nouns and become familiar with another language and soon learn the language. The nouns would change every week.

http://aloberg1.podbean.com/#

Podbean was a little bit easier than mypodcast. I had to do my podcast on Garageband because I own a mac. After doing my podcast, I was able to simply transfer my voice on to Podbean and then describe what is going on in the podcast. Mypodcast would not allow me to open a new page or create a new page without first creating a podcast with my voice through Internet Explorer or a PC.

Tech News for Teachers

Here is our PLN's Tech News. It's an innovative way for students to learn about new technology and for parents to learn about them as well. With descriptions about each website or application and pictures showing the product.

Wikispaces

http://hannahross22.wikispaces.com/

Our PLN made this group wikispace, it is a great space for children to make a website to deliver information.

School Games

http://classtools.net/widgets/quiz/quiz51419.htm/

French Tools through Classtools - Students are able to practice a few french phrases and verbs to become aware of different cultures and understand a different language. The repetition of different verbs and nouns in a fun game becomes easy and soon becomes second nature.

http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/code/BuildWordSearch.asp

I made a wordsearch about the Solar System. This would be a great worksheet for the kids to work with to remember the parts of the Solar System.

VoiceThread

http://voicethread.com/share/936193/

Voicethread is very interesting, I looked over some other people's voicethread's before I began mine and I realized that you could draw on the picture being presented. You can also project your voice, write a comment or do a video of yourself. It's all very cool, I will be using this in the future and now.

In my voicethread I asked questions about the networking site, Facebook. Is Facebook becoming a universal networking site? I mean, universal as in more than just your close friends but also your family, and people around the world. Could Facebook soon become the next Gmail or even Google? Could it possibly be integrated into classrooms or workspaces as a way to communicate?

Glogster & Xtranormal

Glogster, in my opinion, is definitely made for the use of pre-teens. There were a lot of pictures and add-ons that I remember seeing throughout my teenage years. I probably wouldn't use it as a teacher, and I wouldn't even suggest it to students. The pictures and links can be graphic and depressive. I would not any young children being introduced to dark and depressive site as such. The site is obviously designed for children ages 14 and older.

Here is my link to glogster: http://aloberg.glogster.com/edit/fruits-vegetables/

Xtranormal, I have played around with before. It is easy to manage. Kids can have fun making movies and I believe I will probably make little reminders on it for my future students. Great site.

Google Earth & Rubric

Pageflake

I was going to begin a pageflake account. I began to look at the other websites and I realized that all the websites are exactly the same. I already have an igoogle webpage that I use avidly, (I literally check it every minute). I don't really see the point of having another webpage that has about the same little boxes telling me about my mail, weather, favorite quotes from tv shows, favorite arts, and a calendar. I think I would get more out of these sites if I was in your position, a teacher and I had more going on in my life than just school. I mean, I currently only get four to five emails a day, sometimes 10! If I had to look up multiple lesson plans, worksheets, how to teach students a certain subject, how to get somewhere, pick up certain tickets, etc. I would find more use for more accounts from pageflake and igoogle.

FRENCH VERBS!

French Verbs

I believe when I become a teacher I would like to teach my students a few french phrases and verbs. I don't want my four years of french schooling to go to waste. A little website like this would have helped me when I needed refreshing on french verbs and chem bonds. Oh, how this would have been useful in high school. That is why I will shove it in my future students' faces.

Youtube & Math

I have a difficult time learning and understanding math. Any videos about math would really help me elaborate my lesson plan and allow the students to understand the material a lot more. All the videos I found were math related. The three videos I found were related to place value and angles. I was also able to find a website called yourteacher.com, which gives you practice, self-tests, worksheets and videos for middle school and high school math. I could still use this site for elementary school students, because elementary school students begin to learn middle school math in 4th and 5th grade. The problem with this site is that it's a pay for site. I could refer the students to the youtube videos for extra homework help. My other video is a fun video from a musical group of guys that sing about angles, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 9s, just math in general. These guys repeat important facts about math, so then the children remember and understand

the material.

Livebinder & Simplybox

I believe if I had more time for this and I wasn't so sleep deprived this week. I would be more interested in researching on bookmarking. I was at first really excited about bookmarking sites, because there are multiple times when I am at someone else's place and I want to show them some funny video or a good cooking site and I cannot for the life of me remember the URL. All of these bookmarking sites will be really useful when I become a teacher, and I don't wanna lug around my heavy laptop, I can just access the school computer and find all of my bookmarks online. I had trouble using livebinders and simplybox this time around. Simplybox wouldn't let me box any of my bookmarks, so I couldn't save any of my bookmarks on my simplybox. Livebinder wouldn't let me load my bookmarks either because of a load error. I wanted to load all of my cooking sites and share it with my friend, but no. Oh well.

Internet Safety in the Classroom

Internet Safety is very important in the classroom, because it keeps the students safe from identity theft, being kidnapped, being robbed, etc. It is our job as teachers to keep the students safe from predators outside of the school, it even means the predators online. Internet Safety means that the students are not allowed to open restricted e-mails from unknown recipients, because it is exactly the same as talking to a stranger. The students are not allowed to go to restricted websites during class time, because it not only wastes useful class time but it could also send the students to harmful sites. Copyright means that the exclusive rights are granted to the author or creator of the original work. A teacher must explain that to a student, that you cannot steal another's work without giving them credit because the author or creator did the hard work to find the information.

SMARTboard Lessons and Differentiation

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/clock.html

If a student is having difficulty learning to tell time, they are able to play with this clock on the SMARTboard. Instead of just staring at the analog clock and a teacher explaining to the student how a clock works and how to tell time. The student is able to play with the clock and is able to differentiate the difference between a minute of time, five minutes of time, fifteen minutes of time, or an hour. It is really useful to visual learners. I especially had difficulty learning time from an analog clock, I would have loved to have this in my classroom on SMARTboard when I was young.

http://www.theteachersguide.com/InteractiveLitSitesSmartBoard.htm

This website has a lot of links to other websites, that provide literacy sites for the SMARTboard. With these literacy sites, have word guess, connect the dots to letters, other little games for grammar and literature. These sites can be very useful for students that once again have a difficult time in the classroom understanding the concept of the literature, reading, or writing. These students typically need to practice a little bit more and these activities allow them to practice more.

Thinking and Linking about Differentiation

I believe that differentiation focuses on the enhancement of each student. Each student must learn the same lesson plan, despite fact they have different learning styles. Through differentiation, a teacher is able to realize the different learning styles of each student and focus how to teach the student through the given lesson plan. It allows the teachers to see their students as all the same, but as a variety of individuals learning the same lesson. The teachers must adhere with the challenges and facilitate a successful teaching environment.

I wrote the above in ThinkLink, but the website would not let me export or transfer to Word. Anytime I would want to export or transfer the page would cancel. I just copy and pasted. Here are my views and definition on differentiation. The thinklink website was very interesting. I have been noticing a lot of internet sharing websites on your lesson plans. They all seem quite the same. You are able to type and and share among others. With thinklink, you can open a new page to write on but in order to write with others you need to add others everytime you write on a new page. Another interesting fact about thinklink was that you are able to chat with the people you are typing with. You can collaborate and chat about what you will soon type on your thinklink tablet.