Cool for the Summer - Web 2.0

The last of our days are upon us and it is time for me to say farewell to my fellow bloggers out there in the blogosphere...for now. I know that in the coming weeks I will be bogged down with the return of the school year and starting a new school. Going back to my favorite grade (5th!!) is something that I am so excited for and I cannot wait to see what this year holds. I am hopeful for a school environment that is better suited to my needs as a teacher and I am excited for a fresh bunch of coworkers, parents, and students.  So for now, I say goodbye to my blog. I'm not deleting this space, only putting it on the back burner for now. At some point, I hope to return to blogging and would love to see it at the forefront on my list of priorities. For now though, it will serve as a reminder of what I have learned and loved throughout summer 2022! :) 

Who would I be if I weren't consistent? The discussion board has once again got me thinking about the topic of this blog post. So without further ado, here is my list of favorites from this semester!  Favorite Challenge: The Week Long Twitter Challenge! So fun getting to interact with each other and not have to be so formal, like discussion board posts!  Favorite Tool:  It's a tie between Padlet and Trello. They are super similar, but both have unique features that allow you to do different things.  Favorite Week/Topic: Week 2, Digital Natives & Produsage. This is the week that thinks really started to take shape in my mind, so it stands out as the favorite for me!  Favorite Assignment:  Definitely the Produsage assignment. It allowed me to be creative and to think outside of my comfort zone, which is what I need sometimes :) Favorite Discussion Question:  This was a hard one. I did a lot of searching through the discussion boards, but ultimate de...

I think that a little reflection is good for the soul, don't y'all? When I think back to the beginning of the summer, I didn't even know what Web 2.0 was. I had never heard the term and was completely in the dark on the subject. However, this class has opened my eyes to the way we use social media and how it can be used in education.  We've talked about developing PLNs and communities online. We've talked about sharing resources and asking for help. We've talked about how social media can influence and help learning, and also how it can hurt learning. Through it all, I have learned so much.  Knowing now that there are tools out there that I want to use in my classroom so that my students have a better learning experience is so important to me. I know that this class has made me a better teacher, even though I'm not currently teaching a class. I have learned from Dr. Dennen, from Omer, and from all of you, my peers. We have shaped and discussed and listened a...

Also on the discussion board this week was a topic about making online communities accessible for international communities. The biggest part that stood out to me when I first thought about it was the language barrier. Elementary school teachers are often the first ones that a student who doesn't speak English is exposed to, when coming to a primarily English-speaking school. As a teacher, knowing that there is this huge barrier between you and your student can be a daunting feeling.  However, the technology these days that allows for us to communicate with one another is amazing. Translators and programs that allow for students to learn in their first language are so helpful. I think that these have allowed for us to design more learning towards students who speak a language other than English.  Upon doing some further investigation of the topic, I came across this article . It discusses how computer technology is helping students, who don't speak English, take tests. It firs...

As usual, the discussion board topics got me thinking this week. The last topic on the discussion board is one that asks if the internet is truly international and if it isn't, what implications does this have for education? This led me to thinking about censorship and the countries that censor websites that might allow for others to speak out about the government there. Restricting access to certain websites is the norm in countries like China and North Korea. It would seem that this is about more about restricting what people could learn from these sites and less about the sites themselves. Censorship is a dangerous game to toy with because it leads to a central way of thinking and doesn't allow for others to form opinions. They can only have the opinion of the one doing the censoring.  In education this could be very problematic. Students should be exposed to all kinds of different cultures and lessons so that they can learn about others and learn from others. Now, this isn...

I don't think that I've given much thought to what other countries do about their social media use. It seems that even though I know and realize the US isn't the center of the world, I haven't ever really explored social media use in other countries.  This week's reading and discussion board prompts really made me think about how I use my social media accounts. I know that the premise of this class has been to make us think about social media and how it can be used for learning, but this week showed me that it's not just the US that uses social media for learning purposes.  However, I did realize that we have more advantages here than other countries. There are some places certain social media sites are blocked or restricted in some capacity. Which seems wild to me.  First world problems here would be that we use socials for so many things that it seems unimaginable and unreasonable (to some degree) to us that developing countries don't have the same usage a...

One of Dr. Dennen's blogs this week got me thinking about our social media use and how we often use it for our own personal life. We post pictures, videos, gifs, tweets, etc. and it's all usually about us. We use it as a sort of digital time capsule to make sure that we don't forget what has happened in the past. Old posts come back around to us and we remember the good times that we had when we posted those things.  I think social media is great. It's one of the most useful things to come with the advancement of our time, but I think that it has the power to do so much more for the world than just being our own personal photo journal or thought log. We've seen the power that social media has had with social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, but also with other movements like climate change, voting rights, and gun violence. And it's astonishing that topics can spread through the sharing of a link or through a hashtag.  These issues come up of...

One of the discussion board questions this week really got me thinking about my students. I work with elementary schoolers and it is so funny to watch them with technology. They are so much more advanced with it than I was and I grew up with a computer at my house -- shout out to the family desktop that was in our dining room! I find it funny to watch them with technology, though, because they usually just know what to do when they get to a website. Some of them already know how to get to the website, without my help. And others are somewhat clueless, but it still usually only takes me one time to explain something before they have it. And now they all have their own devices. Our district purchased Chromebooks for every student when we had a digital option during COVID.  So now, we have the added task of making sure that they are being monitored not only in real life, but also online as well. We have the job of creating good citizens in their real life community and also in their d...

My sister in law is a pharmacist and I always joke with her that if she tells me about her patients then I'll tell her about my students, ya know the whole HIPAA vs. FERPA thing. Obviously, we're always joking and we don't share actual information, just random crazy things that happen in our respective days.  But, all jokes aside, it made me really think about FERPA and how it really regulates what we do with information we have about our students. I know that I never  want to violate my students rights or put their personal information out for everyone, in anyway. So I usually think about it like this, " Would I want someone to see this if it were my information?"    Just because kids don't have a strong social media presence doesn't mean that they don't need to be protected from it. We hear in PD all the time that information on our students is constantly trying to be stolen (which is WILD to me). Teaching these days comes with the added task of not ...

While I love Pinterest, I have found myself moving away from using it as a resource for teaching. These days I find myself migrating to Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Social media use within classrooms is growing as the years go on and I think that it’s important for teachers to utilize tools that are out there, within reason. Making sure that the tools are appropriate for the age group is so important. I wouldn’t expect my elementary school-aged kids to do the same thing with social media as I would high school-aged kids. As mentioned in the reading this week, Pinterest has become a place for linking to outside sites, like TeachersPayTeachers (TPT). TPT is a great place to find resources and I think that it has usurped Pinterest for the landing place that teachers go to find inspiration. Using it as a social media tool is interesting though because you have the ability to follow your favorite creators on there and you can leave comments on the products that you purchase. This very mu...

I think that as time goes on, classroom learning is becoming more and more informal. Teachers are constantly challenged to make lessons more exciting and more interactive. This is so students will stay engaged and learn, instead of tuning us out. This is both exciting and daunting at the same time.  It's exciting because it gives us teachers the ability to reinvent what we have been doing and it allows us to see what works and doesn't within the realm of our classroom. Old lessons can be refreshed and reworked to fit the needs of current students. Every teacher has, at some point I'm sure, found a lesson done in a previous year and reworked it for the current class that they have. It's something that I think can be so rewarding to do, especially if it works to the benefit of your class.  However, informal learning can be daunting because there is this constant pressure to be fun and exciting for every lesson. Making lessons, or remaking them, can be exhausting for some ...

I think that the tools this week are interesting.  On one hand, you've got Slack which takes me back to AIM days because you can set away messages, mark yourself as away, and silence notifications (although I know we all miss the open door sound from our AIM days!!). I like Slack because it's alternative to email and Twitter. It's less formal than email and more private than Twitter and it's instant, like texting. It gives the opportunity for connection, no matter where you are or what device you're working with. I love that you can react to messages and send gifs and videos, just like texting. I would like to think that if AIM were still around, we would have those capabilities too 😂 On the other hand, you've got Trello, which gives me very strong Padlet vibes. I like that you can create your own threads, comment on others, react to them, etc. It feels like a great way to discuss topics that are presented and have more interaction than just a formal discussion...

This detox came at the perfect time. With all that is going on in the world, I think that we could all use a break. All of the news coming from the Supreme Court kind of hit all at once, and it was hard to be on the internet without falling into the pit of despair.  Nevertheless, she persisted. I stayed off of Twitter and Instagram for the most part. It was hard, but I knew that scrolling through everything wouldn't help me. It was helpful that this week was one that was different for me. Our school district had a big conference on Tuesday and Wednesday for the new Florida standards. We are switching curriculums as well, so we had to be trained on that too. It was a welcome distraction from the outside world.  I had some FOMO, but it wasn't as terrible as I expected. I read more, which has been a goal for me this summer and that was so nice. I really wanted to take a trip to the beach but the rain has been putting a damper on that. I planned for the new school year a bit. I...