Final Reflection

When I started out this semester I was knew that technology needed to be integrated into my classroom. In the current world we live in everything is changing so fast and students need to have advanced computer skills in order to succeed in the classroom and beyond the classroom in life. I knew that it was my job, as the teacher, to help them develop these skills. However, I had no idea on how to integrate technology into my classroom.

I learned a lot of valuable things that I think will make me a better classroom teacher because I will be able to integrate these resources into my classroom. One thing that I found extremely helpful was the SAMR model. I like this model because it carefully details the ways in which to integrate technology into your classroom. Through the use of this model I now understand the ways in which to incorporate technology into my classroom.

I also learned about digital citizenship. I think this is important for us to know as teachers. I think we can use this knowledge in our own life to make sure we have a clean digital citizenship. I also think it is important that we teach this knowledge to our students so that they too can have a good digital citizenship.

In the future I will look for more, exciting apps that I can use in my classroom. This can make learning fun, therefore making my students more excited about learning. It is also good resources for integrating technology into the classroom. I will continue to stay up to date on the latest software that is coming out. I will try to integrate technology into my classroom to the best of my abilities. I now know how to do it and I have always understood the importance of it. Overall this class has provided me with the tools to help my students be more advanced learners that use technological resources. I think this will come in handy during my time in my future classroom.
Learn more about what I've learned!

Sources:
http://hallr.com/benefits-of-technology-in-the-classroom/

Real or Fake?

For this assignment, I had to look at a photograph, two hotel reviews, and quotes by Thomas Jefferson and determine if they were real or fake. This was an interesting task. For the first task this photograph was shown:

This photograph is obviously fake. The plane looks much to big to be really present in this photo. It also looks very obviously photo shopped. It is almost as bad as the fairy picture that was used as an example of early fake photography.

Next I had to determine real vs. fake hotel reviews. This was actually a lot harder and it took me a bit longer to figure it out. Both reviews seemed real, however, I believe the first one is real because it provided insignificant details that would only be added if someone really had attended a trip and stayed at a hotel. I have read a lot of hotel reviews and I know that people usually like to provide random information about their trip. This is the main reason that I believe this one is real. I am unsure about the second one. I could easily see it being either real or fake. However, if it is fake I believe someone that works at the hotel probably wrote it to try to get people to stay there. This learning experience could be very helpful in the future. I read hotel reviews a lot and this one will help me in determining if a hotel review can be trusted.

The last challenge was to figure out if quotes were real. This was the easiest because you could google search to see if they were real or not. For the quote, "Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." I learned that there is no evidence that Thomas Jefferson actually said that. The second quote, "That the obliquity of the ecliptic, when these elephants lived, was so great as to include with the tropics all those reasons in which the bones are found," is a real quote.  The third quote, “Gun control works great for the people who are law-abiding citizens and it does nothing for the criminals, and all it does is put the people at risk," is a fake quote.

My Reflection on this Assignment:
Doing this assignment was helpful in learning skills to determine if something is real or fake. It is important that I am able to do this in my future professional life. You need to be able to do this to determine if a source is real or fake. The helpful tips, such as looking for light lines and paying close attention to details can come in handy in the future. I will no longer be tricked by those fake news articles on Facebook that try to freak you out about a war that is soon to come or a disease that will wipe out everyone. With these tools I will be able to tell that those are just fake articles without needing to click on them. I will teach my students these skills by perhaps having them do a similar activity. I like the idea of letting them try to figure out which ones are real without giving them the answers until the end. I think this forces them to think critically and really learn what I am trying to teach them. I will definitely be incorporating this lesson into my classroom. It can help my students with smart internet browsing.

Reflection on Sugata Mitra's 2013 Ted Talk

In this blog post I will be reflecting on Sugata Mitra's 2013 Ted Talk. Here is the video so that you can watch the video before reading my reflection.

In Mitra's Ted Talk he talks about how Britain created the school system to help build people into people that could be apart of the Bureaucratic Administrative Machine. In order to do this they must be identical to each other. They must know: good handwriting, the ability to read, and able to do multiplication, division, mathematics, and subtraction in their heads.  Today, school systems still use this same design. In Mitra's eyes the school system is making identical people for this machine that no longer exists. In his opinion the school system is obsolete. 

The jobs of the future are not invented today. We do not know the skills that they will need.  The school system is not preparing them for these future work forces because they are using the same system they have always used. I think this is very true.  Some of the jobs today were not even invented when I started school back in 2001. Therefore, it is a completely sane concept to me that the children that are entering kindergarten today will have jobs that have not even been thought about yet by the time they graduate college. This is where I think the school system is failing to help these kids. Why do kids need to be able to do math in their head if we can reach in our pockets and pull out a calculator in everyday situations? While I think these things are important, I feel we are wasting too much precious time trying to insert them into children's educations.  These children need to be better educated in the things that are actually going to help them in their future jobs. Therefore, I believe we need to be teaching them skills, such as technology integration, that are going to help them in their future careers. This would lead to less asking of the question, "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" and kids will begin to see that their education is valuable to them long after they leave the classroom. 

Mitra's decided to leave computers in places where kids that would normally not have access to computers would be able to use it. The children were able to teach each other how to use a computer despite not being exposed to one before.  I think this is important because it teaches us that these children are wired to be able to use these computers.  They are very adaptive and ready to learn how to use this technology. This curiosity can help them be interested in their learning and learn much quicker. 

Overall I felt this speaker was interesting and taught me the importance of technology in our present day students learning environment. 

My Classroom Web Page

Hello! I have designed a classroom web page! Check it out!
https://shelbeybradshaw.weebly.com

Puzzle Pirates: A Resource for the Classroom?

      For this assignment, my boyfriend and I ended up playing puzzle pirates. This is a computer game where you join a group of pirates. You then go around and solve puzzles in order to earn money to purchase items in the game. I chose this game because it was my boyfriend's first multiplayer game that he played as a child.  This game was a lot of fun, and even as an adult I enjoyed playing it. I could see elements of this game being helpful in the classroom. For instance, when playing the game you want to solve all of the puzzles so that you can earn the cash to buy things in the game. I could see this being useful because you could replace the puzzles with questions about the information you wanted the students to learn. You could also possibly replace the puzzles with different puzzles that would help the students learn mathematics.

     Gaming is effective in the classroom because it helps students learn not only the information they want to learn. It also helps them learn important life skills.  During game play, children learn the skill of cooperation. During video games you have a heightened sense of accomplishment.  You are asked to problem solve and work together. If you do this successfully, it leaves you feeling good. This can effect my future learning environment, because by playing these types of games in my classroom, my students could learn the importance of working together. This cooperative gaming could lead to them being better cooperative learners.  Once they successfully learn to work together in games they can learn how to work together in classrooms as well.
    I think gaming can be beneficial to learning environments. It teaches students life skills that they can use in their everyday life. It also can be altered to have actual in game learning abilities. I think cooperative games could add a fun learning resource in the classroom.