Major Project Week Two - Writing Some Letters

                For my second week of working on calligraphy for my major project, I started with the basics. The book I bought had a page full of practice strokes to make. I started with some notebook paper, and one of the Sharpie calligraphy markers I bought. I didn’t want to waste the good expensive paper on my very first attempts at calligraphy, and I also wanted the guidelines that notebook paper could give me.

Here’s a picture of my attempts at both the practice strokes of general calligraphy, and of Sans Serif, the font I chose to work with. 

Not very good. Even without seeing the exact way it’s supposed to look (I don’t want to take pictures from my book and then upload them here), you can see the inconsistencies in the same shapes. I was really struggling to hold the marker at the 35 degree angle necessary for this script.

But this is my first time, so I soldiered on.  I practiced the letters of Sans Serif several times, which actually ended up taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Getting the angles and motions right is a struggle, especially since this is “an art” and I am most definitely not an artist. Here’s a shot of my first and second tries. 

It did get a bit better the second time. I started to get a feel for how to do them, though I’m still nowhere even near being right. I was still struggling with holding the pen at the correct angle.

Next week, I plan to continue practicing with this font. I want to try to make it look better, and try writing some words and not just the alphabet. I am also considering trying to use the actual pens my calligraphy book came with instead of the calligraphy Sharpie, because there's a chance using the real pen could improve my style.

Cool Tool Review - Little Story Maker

            For my last cool tool review, I used a storytelling tool. I used the iOS app, Little Story Maker, to make a short “book.” The app is free to download from the App Store, and as far as I know there are no in app purchases. You don’t need to make an account, just download the app.

            To showcase the app, I made a book about my boyfriend and I’s trip to Walt Disney World in May of 2015. To be reflected upon later, you are unable to save your book to your phone, so I took screenshots of every page I made and turned it into a Power Point that I saved as a video so I could upload it to this blog post.

            This tool makes books. You can choose to add a new story. 

You then give your book a title, a cover, and choose a layout. 

The title is limited to so many characters, I tried to add May 2015 to the end of my title and it would not fit. The cover must be a square. Then you go page by page, adding photos and texts. The text on the pages is also limited.  There is no option to save the book, you can only view it in app.

I personally believe this app does its job kind of poorly. It does work, but I think it could be done a lot better. It could possibly be because I’m using an iPhone and not an iPad, but when I was typing the text, I couldn’t see what I was typing, shown in the photo below.

 I had to check my spelling after I saved the text. You’ll notice some of the first letters aren’t capitalized. I tried to go back to fix it, but I couldn’t highlight the word to fix it without deleting everything, which I found to be very inconvenient.

If this app worked as it was intended to, or I suppose to my possibly high standards, I would definitely be using it in my future classroom. I could use it to create biographies of students, or we could make a book about something we’re learning about in class, such as colors or shapes. This could definitely be a technological component of TPACK. If we were learning about shapes, they could take pictures of shapes to upload to the class book about that shape.

I would use this tool because as we learned last week, e-books in the classroom are simply awesome. You can see a full post about e-books here on this blog post of mine. They are a good way to get students excited about something, and seemed to motivate them like nothing else. Being published is huge for kids, even if it is just in a classroom app seen by us. They could write a book on paper, then edit and “publish” it with the app.

Students could easily use this app on their own. All you do is tap the screen to add pictures, then type your captions, nothing too complicated. It is very self-explanatory, and was the first cool tool I didn’t have to look up anything about to use. There is a help page in the settings, and while reviewing it after finishing my story there are some features I wasn’t aware of while working on my book. The only issue I could see arising is students having trouble typing on the screen. I did get a little frustrated myself while using it, because the app can only be used sideways, and that’s not how I ever use my phone, making it a little difficult for me.  

This is a pretty decent app, just not one I would choose to use further. It does, however, does what it is advertised to do. 

Wide Open (Learning) Spaces

            This week’s topic was about learning spaces. It involved by the physical and technological “space” children can learn in. This article gives a pretty good summary about the physical learning spaces. These flexible learning spaces really do encourage learning and engagement. In this video, the teachers and students discuss how having a room that is adaptable to change has impacted everything for the better. Students being able to collaborate and move around and act like kids while still learning really is making a difference for them. There were several other videos we watched this week that showed different types of learning spaces, and this video showed these massive structures that could be used for all different types of learning, which was amazing to me. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and my dream would be to someday be teaching in a school that allows open learning environments like these and doesn’t just want their students sitting in a desk the entire day. Another video showed a class of younger children, around the age I want to teach (early childhood), and their classroom that can be moved around and adapted by all the individual learners to accommodate their needs. This is a wonderful idea and something I hope I can adapt to my own classroom regardless of the school district I’m in.

            Google Apps for Education is a great resource for the digital portion of a flexible learning. This webpage gives a brief overview GAFE, but it’s basically an education based way of using google apps such as gmail and google docs. I think it could definitely be used in the classroom and help develop learning space. It can be accessed by anyone at any time, which is a difference from the standard eight hour day that students can contact their teacher in now, only while they’re at school. It facilitates a more open, inviting, and accommodating learning environment than ever before.

            As we design future learning spaces, we should question the traditional eight hour school day. I know I did it for 13 years, but the thought of it now exhausts me. Knowing that there are different ways that children learn, there’s a chance that someday, the school day could change. It might still be an eight hour day, but part of it might include distance learning. Even if it is still an eight hour day of school, we should question the structuring of the school day. Like mentioned in the topic video with Brueck this week, is 8 hours of switching classes every 45 minutes necessary? Possibly not. As seen in this video we watched, this is a nontraditional high school that is innovative and doing things in a completely different yet seemingly very successful manner. A full day spent sitting at a desk doing worksheets is just not what the future holds in education, nor should it be.

            As for the University of Akron, I am not on campus for almost anything other than my classes. The more open learning spaces I’ve observed are tables in the library for working with peers, along with the study rooms that one can reserve in the library that you can work with someone in. These are for one’s personal time. In class, there is very little room or even ability to move around and collaborate the way seen in the videos this week. I personally tend to work alone, so I’ve had no issues with Akron’s campus, but someone who needs collaboration could definitely have an issue with the way Akron’s campus and most classes are set up. It’s build for traditional schooling, with a teacher at the front of the room lecturing, not for working together with your peers. 

Cool Tool Week Eight - Prezi

            This week, the cool tool I chose to work with was a presentation tool everyone has seen before – Prezi. It was always given as an option in my classes for making presentations, but I always went with a standard PowerPoint. Prezi is a website that you can use to make presentations that are similar to PowerPoints, but look a little cooler. It is also stored online rather than on your computer making them accessible from anywhere, though you can still download them. In order to make a Prezi presentation, you must make a free account. There are paid accounts that have more features available, but that shouldn’t be necessary for the average person. The biggest difference between free and paid accounts is that all the Prezis you make with a free account are public, and cannot be made private. Prezi is available on both the App Store and the Google Play Store, though I'm not sure if the features would be any different.

            Prezi is a very cool thing. I’ve always been intrigued by it, but never had the push to actually go out and use it until now. I made two Prezi presentations. The first was a short and easy one I made to introduce myself to the website, and it was about E-books, this week’s topic.

           The second one I made was pretty much my major project blog post from this week summarized.

            I think Prezi could easily be used in the classroom. It definitely fulfills the technology part of TPACK. As I stated earlier, it has always been an option when making presentations as an alternative to PowerPoints. It is customized, and instead of being individual slides, it’s one big “slide” that zooms in on the information being presented. It could be used by the teacher when presenting something to the classroom, or by a student making a presentation.

            This tool would be used because it is an easy to aid one’s teaching. Since you want several different ways to give information to keep the class fresh and not boring or stale, a Prezi could be an alternative to doing traditional PowerPoint slides to give information. I would use Prezi because it is user friendly once you get a grasp on it, and it’s honestly just more fun to do and look at than a PowerPoint, or really almost any other way to present information to students.

            I believe it could definitely be used by students, but maybe not until they’re older. I had to google how to do things a few times, and there is a bit of a learning curve that I think would be difficult for younger students. Once students get to an age where they are writing papers and giving presentations, I believe Prezi would definitely be an option, especially for people that don’t have PowerPoint, because Prezi is free to use.

            Prezi is a great tool. It’s free to use, can be used by anyone that can use a computer, and is a good alternative to paid presentation options such as PowerPoint. 

Major Project Week 1 - Getting Started on Calligraphy

                 When I was about nine years old, I went to the public library in downtown Akron with my grandma. In the children’s section, I got a book about calligraphy. If you google calligraphy, you get the definition “the art of producing decorative handwriting or lettering with a pen or brush.” Simply put, it’s pretty writing. When I got the book, I didn’t realize you needed special pens and paper to learn how to do it, so it went untouched and returned. For my major project, I’m going back to calligraphy and finally learning how to write in it.

            I’ve done some googling, and found a subreddit on reddit.com completely about calligraphy, with a FAQ that was very helpful. It says it can take 1-2 months of daily practice to become intermediate at calligraphy, and years to master. Working full time and also being a full time student, I’m obviously not going to have the time to dedicate every single day to learning calligraphy. My goal is to become proficient – able to make the letters well and do some writing without issues. I hope I can keep up practicing following this class, because my mom is getting married in May and I’d love to be able to help her make things she needs in a pretty script (calligraphy jargon for font).

I made a word cloud using Tagul full of words about calligraphy in the shape of a calligraphy pen. It's small, but I think it's pretty good and is a nice example of what I'm trying to do, make art with words.

            To prepare for this project, I got on amazon and searched calligraphy for beginners. What I ended up buying was this book. It included a beginners guide, some paper, and pens. The reviews said the pens weren’t the best, and since I’m not looking to go into professional calligraphy anytime soon, I just bought a set of sharpie calligraphy markers to get started. 

There is a lot of supplies needed if you are truly dedicated to writing in calligraphy, but being kinda broke like most people my age, I just got the essentials to get me started. Here we go! 

E-books in The Classroom

This week’s topic was about e-books. I'll be the first to admit that I usually am not the most engaged viewer of the weekly topic videos, but this one was truly awesome, for lack of a more accurate word. I’ll also be the first to admit I wasn’t sure how I felt about e-books in the classroom – the technology to make them could be expensive if you’re using iPads, younger students might have a hard time with the technology, etc. – but this week’s topic video make me do a complete 180. Jon Smith’s e-books he has made with his classes are phenomenal. He turned kids that hated school into the biggest fans of writing, which is so inspiring.

In the Topic video this week and in the two articles we read about Smith’s special education classroom, it was amazing to me how his students didn’t want anything to do with writing, and as soon as they started writing books, they couldn’t stop. I believe students publishing books for the world to read is definitely a great motivator, and could engage even the most unwilling of children once positive feedback starts coming their way from strangers in the form of downloads. You can involve them for every part of the writing process for anything like John did with his class – brainstorm some ideas, write a rough draft, edit, repeat until the book or whatever you’re writing is done and it’s published. This could be integrated for almost any subject type. Write a book about math like Smith’s school did, or a science book like the kindergarten class did about bats. It could be a game changer for exciting the students, and making them really loving their work.

Using e-books could be beneficial in any classroom. I definitely am seeing a place for it in my future classrooms. I’m going to be teaching early childhood, and have always struggled thinking about how to integrate technology into a classroom of such young children. This struggle was quelled by Smith’s website with all of his e-books, however. There were many books by young classes about things such as shapes, animals, and food. I don’t have a Mac or iPad (though this video about Book Creator for the iPad is tempting me to the thought of getting an iPad), so I was unable to access it, but one of the books description said they took pictures then wrote a sentence about that picture using capital letters and periods. Even with the youngest children I could use books to help with grasping concepts like that. The main consideration I’ll have to make is if what I’m doing is truly helpful to my students, or if I’m using technology just to use technology. I’ll have to ensure a healthy balance of different ways to teach things and not overdue the e-books that I’m currently so thrilled about the concept of. Another issue is just parents not being sure about their children being on the internet at such a young age, which is something that can hopefully be solved with internet safety talk and permission slips.

           

The most striking thing about Smith’s presentation to me was the fact that over the last two and a half years, his e-books had close to 25,000 downloads, and possibly exceeding that since the topic video was recorded. Those 25,000 downloads have been in al but three countries that iTunes sells to. I know that in this class that we constantly are talking about sharing worldwide, but hearing that figure made me realize it is truly worldwide. Almost every country that these books can be downloaded in has downloaded at least one. That’s incredible, and I’m sure young students would think so even more than I do. I’m thrilled about the possibilities that this presents.

Cool Tool - Tagul

This week for my cool tool, I used tagul.com to make a word cloud. You must make a free account to use this website. There is an option for a premium account so you can download word clouds in higher resolution and have no ads. Using words you choose, either by typing them in or importing them, it creates a shape with them, usually something that is part of a general theme. You can choose the color, the font, and the size of the words. You can also choose the shape the words you choose are in, whether the words will repeat or not, any animations, and with the orientation of the words within the shape. These word clouds can be saved to your computer, printed, or even printed onto things such as t shirts to be purchased.

I made two word clouds. The first one I made was just getting used to the website and how to use the tools. I chose to use my name as the focal point that repeated to fill in the shape I chose, and things I love as the other words in the word cloud.

The second word cloud I made was a bit easier since I had a hang of the software. It was a word cloud comprised of Ed Tech terms, with Ed Tech as the central repeating idea. I went through the weekly Share Your Thoughts, and made a word cloud of the central term used each week. I put them in a shape of the globe, as Ed Tech is all about sharing. 

I believe this could be used in the classroom very easily. It can be a way to organize parts of something a whole idea. In my future Early Childhood classrooms, I could create a word cloud with about me items for students, or as a big chart of classroom rules. Beyond simple ideas such as those, if you “google word clouds in the classroom” you get 549,000 hits. The first hit is this weblink, https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/108-ways-to-use-word-clouds-in-the-classroom-word-clouds-in-education-series-part-2/, with ideas such as a course outline at the beginning of a school year with your outline on it. This could be beneficial in the classroom because a lot of students are visual learners. When they see something laid out in a pattern like these, it can really bring together concepts for children. Visual aids can benefit everyone.

This app could easily be used by older students. Younger students might struggle with using it, and benefit more from the final product. It is slightly confusing to use, such as how exactly you make the word cloud is unclear. There isn’t a guide that I was able to easily find on how it works. When I googled how to use it, all I got was a FAQ, which didn’t answer some of my questions.

Word Clouds are a wonderful tool both inside and out of the classroom, and can benefit anyone using them.

Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use in The Classroom

This week, we had two Weekly Topic Videos from YouTube, CreativeCommons & Copyright Info and Understanding "Fair Use" in aDigital World. These two videos were all about copyright, creative commons, and fair use. As a future educator, knowing about what I can and can’t do with someone else’s work is so important, because the internet makes sharing and using things you find seem effortless and that you can do it without a second thought. I never knew that if someone creates and posts content, they automatically own a copyright to it. I thought it was something you needed to apply for. I also didn't know that creative commons licenses were free and could be as restrictive or not restrictive as the creator wants it to be. 

            In my future classroom, I need to make sure that I am only using things I have a legal right to use. I know as a future early childhood education educator websites like Pinterest have a lot of ideas, and I need to do my best to make sure anything I download for use in my classroom is something the original content source has permission to post, along with myself having permission to use it as well in the way that I intend to use it. There are also certain rules regarding copyright in the classroom. I knew teachers had a bit more leeway than others with fair use, but the University of Akron's library has this guide that lays out some of the specifics that I thought was very helpful regarding classroom exceptions, such as using things in the classroom but not anywhere else in a school, and things can be performed or displayed, but not passed out/distributed. 

            As for my students, I know at that young of an age there isn’t going to be too much worry with them violating any copyright laws, because I doubt at the early childhood level there is going to be too much opportunity for them to even do so. The beginning of that stage however could be in the third grade, the tail end of early childhood where sometimes students start doing reports. When it comes to that point, I would explain that using things without the owner’s permission is stealing, and that stealing is wrong and we cannot do it and be respectful citizens in our classroom. One of the required readings this week was this page about Teaching Copyright, which lays out a curriculum, including work sheets, about teaching copyright, which could definitely come in handy with older students that actually need to know the rules regarding copyright. 

            The biggest thing I see an issue with regarding copyright is the illegal downloading of music, movies/tv shows, and pictures. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never really seen the big deal – they make so much money already, it’s so easy, what’s the impact of one download? The problem is that many other people share that attitude, and it can spiral out of control and the creator of the content loses out on a lot of possible money because of it. Like I said previously, it is stealing, it just doesn’t really “seem” as bad as, say, stealing a physical copy from Best Buy seems. With my students, I can explain that they’re really hurting the people they’re stealing from if things are illegally downloaded, because it can prevent them from making money and living their lives. Hopefully that plants the seed that in the future, they need to make sure they are only using/downloading things on the internet they have the right to.

Week Six Cool Tool Review, bubbl.us

This week, the cool tool I chose to review was bubbl.us. It is a concept mapping tool. You start with a central bubble, and can make bubbles off of that, and off of those ones, and so on. You can save the concept maps on the website, or export them as a picture. It is free to use, but there are upgrades you can pay for. They do have an iOS app along with their website.

The website is very easy to use. I made my free account, then began. I started with my central bubble, then made the bubbles off of it, and so on. You can change the color of the bubbles, or of the text, which makes it customizable.

I made two concept maps. The first one is very simple. I’m currently in another class called Understanding Literacy Development and Phonics, and a very important concept is phonological awareness. I made a concept map of the things that make up phonological awareness that I can use to help study. It is somewhat small, making it harder to read. If you click on it, it is much bigger easier to read.

Another concept map I made was a more fun one. It was about Harry Potter books. I started with the central idea of Harry Potter, branched off into each book, and then summarized each book. They were very quick summaries, missing a lot of detail. It could go much more in depth, listing things such as characters, setting, plot, etc. It has the same issue with being small and harder to read on the blog post, but when it is clicked it becomes a lot easier to read.

This tool could easily be used in the classroom. I personally am using it as a student making the map about phonological awareness. The Harry Potter map can also be used in the classroom. You could have a child make a concept map about anything. They could make it about a book they read. They could do a map about major historical events. They could do a map about a science concept. The possibilities are endless. This can be both the technology and pedagogy part of TPACK. In my Introduction to Exceptionalities class, a class about special education, we learned that graphic organizers are a very effective way to teach and help students tremendously. As a teacher I could make graphic organizers to pass out to students to help them understand something by understanding how things relate to each other, or I can have students make them for me so I can assess their understanding.

This could easily be used by students, as shown by my maps. I could predict there being a bit of a learning curve about how to operate the website as first, because I did need to read their help page. Once I did that, it was easy to use. Most of the map is made through typing, which could be an issue if a student has typing problems.

Overall, I really think this tool could be used effectively and easily in the classroom, as long as a child is able to read and write and type. In a kindergarten class, this wouldn’t be able to be used the way it would in a high school class. Younger children might not yet have the ability to bounce concepts off of each other and type them out in a concept map.

Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying and Internet Safety, oh my.

            Digital citizenship. To me, digital citizenship is using the internet responsibly. Both personally and professionally, that means I need to be careful about what I put on the internet. I've been using the internet and social media regularly since seventh grade. There are almost definitely some things that I posted on social media that I would be embarrassed by. The older I get, the more I’ve realized that everything is on the internet forever, so I try to not post things that could paint me in a negative light.

            Going off of that, cyber bullying is a huge issue with social media and the internet. Anyone can say anything they want about anyone, whether it be on Facebook, ask.fm, tumblr, etc. It can be anonymous, or your name can be attached to it. I’ve gotten into my fair share of “fights” with people on Facebook. The people that were then my friends and myself, hurling insults back and forth through both comments on statuses and personal messages. This hasn’t happened in many years because as I said previously, I don’t like to cast myself in a negative light, and saying mean things to people on a public forum definitely doesn’t make me look like the good person I know I am. In addition to that, the older I’ve gotten, the less things that I used to fight about with people seem to matter, and aren’t something I would even spend any time dwelling on the way I did then. But when my “Facebook fights” were happening, I was in high school. They were the thing that mattered to me then. I was fifteen years old, and didn’t understand the consequences of my actions and words the way I do now, four years later with a lot more experience with the internet. Now, I use social media in a positive way, the way I think it should be used by everyone.

            Keeping that in mind, I understand why adults would have concerns about internet safety for both themselves and their children. If anyone can do or say anything they want on the internet, why would someone want to take the risk of actively using it? I have some concerns about internet safety myself. I recently made every social media I have private (except for twitter, so everyone in Ed Tech can see my tweets about my blog posts). However, this type of attitude, that the internet can be evil place, is holding everyone back. The internet can be a safe place if you follow “the rules" and use it responsibly. A webpage we read this week, Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship, outlined the nine main points of being safe on the internet and using the internet well. As long as you follow those, internet safety can be achieved. If someone just avoids the internet out of fear and ignorance, they’re missing out of all the wonderful knowledge the internet holds, and are depriving the world of their possible contribution.

Cool Tool Review - PicMonkey

For this week’s Cool Tool review, I used the website PicMonkey. It is picture editing software. Some of it is free, and other effects are only for paying users. All of the effects I used on the two pictures I edited were free.

The website is very easy to use. You just click on the effect you want to use, and it either automatically does it or you apply it with a brush. There are some things you might need to look up to figure out exactly what they are, such as the exposure of the image. There’s not much of a learning curve, you just need to figure what you do and do not want to use. The website also has the option of making collages, which I’m using to do before and after of the pictures I edited.

I did two edits. One was just a simple edit, using a filter on the picture, blurring out the background, and using the auto adjust for the website to automatically change things such as exposure. Here is a before and after.

You can see a clear difference in the pictures – the first doesn’t look as bright.

The second edit I did was using their seasonal editing software. I made a picture of my boyfriend and myself into a vampire and a zombie using tools that changed our skin color and added fangs and blood.

Obviously there’s a difference here.

  

Using this tool in the classroom would vary by age. With older kids, especially in middle school and high school, you could use it show how different an image can be from the original. This could especially help girls because it would be able to highlight the fact that editing a picture can remove acne, even out skin tone, make someone thinner, and even add makeup. This could potentially help with self-esteem, because a huge problem with modern day media is the unrealistic ads that we see every day portraying perfect people. It could integrate into TPACK as a tool used in a health class for a lesson regarding mental health and self-image.

With younger kids, it might be a little harder to integrate. It could very well be a fun activity seasonally – editing class photos for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. It could possibly be used for TPACK as a tool when children are learning about different holidays as they school year progresses, as there are stickers on the holiday pages that you can put on the image.  It could show them things such as menorahs for Hanukkah, Christmas trees for Christmas, American flags for Labor Day, etc.

I would use this tool in the classroom because pictures are everywhere. Smart phones have changed the general way of life in that you can take a picture at any time. You used to need a camera and film handy, and now you have a high quality camera in your pocket. Integrating PicMonkey into the classroom would be a step further than just integrating a camera into the classroom. There could be a classroom digital camera used to document what is happening in a classroom, and the children could take turns editing pictures of what’s been happening. Those pictures could be used in a newsletter sent to parents to show what’s going on in the class on a regular basis.

This web application is something students can easily use. It is easy to use because it is so intuitive. There’s no complicated way to edit the image or software you need to learn, you just click and drag your mouse. The biggest issue I can see is something you have to use a very small tool for some things, which could definitely be an issue for younger kids that have more hand eye coordination issues. Older students, however, should have no real issues.

Students could also edit their own pictures along with classroom pictures, and could use any computer. I visited the website on my smart phone, and the webpage says it’s not yet available on mobile but that they’re working on an application for it.  It is definitely an effective web application to use, and does exactly what it is intended to do.

Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge.

TPACK. Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge. Before I watched Dr. Gary Holliday’s lecture on TPACK, I’d never even heard of the word pedagogy (it’s the how of teaching – how you actually do your lesson). It took a while for me to understand what exactly all of it meant. It’s a very interesting concept, the integration of technology in the traditional combination of pedagogy and content in the classroom. A very good video we watched on YouTube called TPack in 2 Minutes is a great summary of what Dr. Holliday gives us in his video.

Technology/tools are something that are becoming increasingly available and necessary in the classroom, though they aren’t always the easiest thing to integrate. There are many questions to be asked about it. They start with is this technology effective? Can I easily integrate this into my lesson? Will it be beneficial to the lesson? Is there any chance using this technology will hurt my lesson? How accessible is this technology? The list goes on and on with possible issues, but the benefits of using technology outnumber them.

Those positives are enormous. Technology can make something so much simpler. In one of my high school classes to prepare for a debate we used a class set of iPads to look up information. We got up to date information at the click of a button. Had we been using books, it would have been outdated information that took a lot longer to find. There’s also the ability to find other resources on the internet and with technology to enhance the class – in a lot of classes I’m currently in my professors will use videos to show something that they simple aren’t able to demonstrate in a classroom. There are some very significant barriers, however. Money is a huge issue for many schools. They can’t afford a class set of iPads, or computer labs for the students to use. There’s also the issue that depending on the place one is teaching, technology just isn’t very accessible.

In my future classroom, I want to be able to integrate technology. Since I plan to teach first or second grade, however, it’s going to be a little harder to integrate technology that it would be in a high school classroom. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find applications on computers that students can use. YouTube videos are something that keeps a child’s attention usually, and could make a lesson more fun. My hope is that I’ll have a smart board in my future classroom that can be used for both myself and students to write on and use the technology. I want to keep a constant rotation of new things in the classroom, both to motivate students and to eventually find something that really works for me and my students.

TPACK was something that was very confusing at the beginning. By the end, I think I mostly get it. My remaining question is simply how to integrate technology effectively into a lesson so that it’s not the entire thing, but as a supplement. For the answer to that, I’ll just have to keep using the internet and using the tools myself that I hope to integrate into my classroom so I can find out.