Gamification: Yay or nay?

When considering using gamification in the classroom you need to consider many things. Some gamification can be fun and some are just bad. Some teach the kids a lot and others close to nothing at all. Gamification could also lead to the students being obsessed with playing the game. This doesn’t sound bad because they are learning. Although it can lead to the students not getting homework done and other responsibilities, which is not good. The best example of gamification that I saw was the Osmo game of numbers. The student is trying to free the fish back into the ocean and has to break the bubbles keeping him from the ocean with addition problems that add up to the numbers in the bubbles. It's fun, easy and help the students learn addition. I definitely do not think the gamification is just a fad. I believe that it is only going to grow bigger from here. Soon almost all of our lessons will include gamification. Researchers are coming out with new games every day. Who knows what we will see next? 
 

How I keep current!

In order to stay current, I use Pinterest and twitter to stay updated on the latest technology and fads. I personally like Pinterest better because I like how you can group everything into categories and get many different ideas all in one place. You can get bulletin board ideas and crafts and activities. It's never ending. There so many things that I have never thought of before. But at the same time, twitter is nice because you can share ideas between each other in the blink of an eye. You can also post a question to a group and get hundreds of answers from teachers of all over the area from all different backgrounds. Staying current also includes staying involved. Teachers need to communicate with each other on different activities and technologies that they are using in their classrooms. In order to stay current teachers also have days where students have off of school, but the teachers still come in for meetings and workshops to learn new technology and apps to be used in the classrooms. Making our twitter and Pinterest pages just make me even more excited for my career to begin!

This is me when I find a new craft or idea on Pinterest to try! 

My Pinterest is: https://www.pinterest.com/am016/

My Twitter is: https://twitter.com/am016lvc 

Where we've been

When it comes to educational technology, it has been very slow to change. There are many hurdles and challenges that teachers have to face because of this. Back when there were not many technology advances, teachers had to find different ways to keep the students engaged during the whole class. They did not have videos or fun websites to keep the students engaged in their learning. They had to stand in front of the class the whole time and teach the students. As we come to the teachers of today, they have it much easier when it comes to keeping students engaged. They have different fun websites and videos to show students. Many of the more privileged schools even iPads for every student to use for activities. For the less privileged schools they face the challenge of knowing there is better advanced technology that they could be using but are not because they can’t afford it or don’t have the funds to get it for every class. Some schools have technology in the classroom but don’t have enough for everyone. As a teacher I’m going to try my best to keep everyone engaged and do as many hands on activities as possible instead of always using the computers or iPads. Although I will also try my best to stay updated on the latest technology and learn how to use it so I can teach my students how to use it as well.    

Google Docs vs. Microsoft Office

I found this assignment to be extremely frustrating first of all. I started on this assignment over the weekend when I went home to visit my family and had to put it away because I hated this assignment. I am I heavy Microsoft user. Microsoft office is all I know and how I complete all of my assignments. I started with the Microsoft word and power point first but ended up putting it away because it was so simple that I thought an elementary school student could do it. So I then moved onto google docs and slides. This frustrated me even more. I have never used google docs before and have no clue where to find anything or even how to use it. I ended up searching where to find everything I needed to do in the document because google docs is a foreign thing to me. Then I got to the part of google slides where we needed to add sounds and to my disappointment found that you can’t add sound. Disappointment because of this difference between power point and google slides, but also because I was searching for five minutes for a button or tab to add sounds to find there is none. I feel that Microsoft is easier to use and would be the application that I would use in my classroom. Many people tell me that google docs is better because you can access it wherever you go, but Microsoft is the same way. I have Office 365 for my computer and can get to my projects no matter what computer I am on. When I got my office 365 I also got 20 free gigabytes of storage in Dropbox to store pictures and files. But this is just my opinion on google docs versus Microsoft.  

What to consider when you have students searching the internet?

When letting students search the Internet you have to keep in mind a few things.  First of all, these students grew up differently than us. They grew up with this technology at their fingertips from the moment they were born. Some may know the technology that were using better than we do. As we grew up with baby dolls and cars to play with. They have iPads and iPods. Most of students these days are glued to these devices and barely get the time to go outside to play. This is one of the main reasons that I believe that we are seeing more and more obese children. So, children have more time to figure out how to get around firewalls and protection that are on the computers. When letting the students search the Internet they must be supervised at all times. Students will search up anything that interests them. Most of the time what they are searching has nothing to do with what the teachers asked them to search up. Teachers not only have to watch the students they are right next to but the students that are across the room at the same time. This might sound silly and unimportant, but I have a little sister. She is not much younger than me, but I know that she is always on things that she is not supposed to be. As soon as she hears me walking over to see what she’s looking at she closes everything out and hides all the evidence with just a few clicks. Now I think that if children are doing this at home, they are most certain to be doing it in school too. When they do teachers need to learn that hacks and “secret tunnels” to get to the information they need to get to. Whether it’s what was the student looking up or what new application did they install on the computer and hide somewhere where the teacher can’t see it. Lastly we need to watch the firewalls and protection applications that are on the computers. They are there for a reason. One click and the firewall and protectors can be down. And with that same click a student can click on a link on google or Bing or any site and be directed to a not-so-student-friendly site. They could also click on something that puts a virus onto the computers. When letting students search the Internet we need to watch what they are searching and what exactly it is that they are clicking on. 

Some good resources may include:

http://www.abcya.com/
this is a website that incorporates writing and math skills while also teaching the students how to use technology

http://www.e-learningforkids.org/
this is a website that has interactive learning videos and works really well with an interactive white board

https://www.brainpop.com/
this is my own personal favorite, its a website that shows videos to help introduce a topic or help fully explain something to the students 

How did you choose your blogging platform?

When choosing the blogging site that I wanted to use, I had to consider a few different things. First I had to look through the different sites that were recommended for us to use. The last option was Wordpress. I have used Wordpress before for my own blog. It has some disadvantages to it. Like not always being able to get to the editing site or the videos that you post don’t always work. So out of the four options to pick I eliminated Wordpress. I decided to choose the first option. No real big reason besides it was the first one listed. Although I wanted to choose a reliable site. One that would fit my needs and be appealing to the eye. I like how I can edit virtually everything on this blogging site. I can change the background and the colors. As well as edit a post very easily without having to delete the old post to correct a simple error. The nice thing about having a blog is being able to share your own unique thoughts and opinions with the world for free. While also getting feedback from the subscribers that visit your blog through comments. I’m very excited to start blogging with this new site!!