Blog Post #3

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Infographics are supposed to display information in a clear and concise way, and this one in particular does not. This infographic is a map of the United States that is trying to show the relationship between where people attend school and where people earn the most income. The infographic displays it's information by layering three different kinds of charts on top of each other. The charts are either pink, yellow, or blue, based on the certain statistic they are showing. However, once these three charts are layered on top of each other, many more colors appear including greens, purples, and browns. This causes the viewer to move over to another key in the lower left hand corner to compare the new colors that may have appeared. Not only is this graphic confusing to look at, but it also takes way to much time to try to distinguish and understand the information being displayed. It's title is also very vague and does not simply state what the infographic is even about. Overall, the infographic is too confusing, takes too long to figure out, and is not immediately clear to the viewer when he/she looks at it. The information needs to be presented in a simpler way.

As I hope to one day become an Elementary School teacher, I think that the use of Electronic KeyPals would be a great way for students to have multicultural exchanges and broaden their existing knowledge. Chatting with another student of the same age is a fun way to make new friends as well as work together to learn from each other. When I was in Elementary School, I had a PenPal that I would write letters to. I loved when I received letters back from him, although it usually took a while for the response to travel through the mail. The use of email today really allows for students to communicate in an efficient way in the classroom. However on the concept of digital citizenship, as a teacher I would have to monitor what is being said in these emails, as 7-9 year old kids can say some inappropriate things sometimes. In order to ensure that the conversations between Electronic KeyPals remain on the topic of discussion going on in the classroom, I would require all of my students to share their responses to and from their KeyPals with me and the rest of their peers. This way I can make sure that nothing inappropriate is being discussed, and the other students in the class can learn from the other conversations and ideas that their peers are discussing.

Working on the Newsletter Design assignment made me realize that I really didn't know about everything Microsoft Word was able to do. I knew that you could add pictures and textboxes into the document, but I wasn't aware of the many formatting tools that accompanied them. I now see that you can change the shape, color, boarder, and many more aspects of the pictures and textboxes in order to make them as visually appealing as possible. I also liked learning that you can shade different parts of your page different colors. This way you can focus the reader's attention on one important aspect at a time, like a bulleted list. I think this assignment was very helpful to us. As hopeful future teachers, we need to know how to present information to students and their parents in a clear, eye-catching, and organized manner. I will definitely be creating an informative newsletter to send home with my students on the first day of school in order to ensure the parents that it will be a successful year.

Blog Post #2

In the past, I've mostly used Microsoft Word to write essays and research papers that were assigned to me in my classes. Once in a while, I would also use it to copy and paste a picture from a website in order to print it. On rare occasions, some of my teachers have used Microsoft Word to present their notes for their lessons, rather than using a Powerpoint Presentation. But, the majority mainly used it just to create their tests, quizzes, and worksheets. From the textbook, I realize that there are many more ways that Microsoft Word can be used creatively in the classroom. For instance, it can create brochures, or flyers, or movie posters for fun and interesting projects that students can do. It can also be helpful when teaching a Language Arts class, or some other kind of writing class, as a teacher can project Microsoft Word up on the screen and show the students exactly what steps to take in order to properly format an essay or to successfully outline notes.

In my past educational experience, I really didn't understand the importance of copyright and fair use until high school. Once I had to start writing research papers and essays that required me to quote the author, or use a picture from a website, I finally understood the seriousness of plagiarism. My teachers made sure that we all learned how to properly cite sources in an essay, and how to give credit when using someone else's picture in a Powerpoint Presentation. Since then, I have been very careful in every assignment I do to strictly follow these rules. As a teacher, it's very important that you explain the severity of plagiarism to your students, and that you teach them how to avoid it. As a future teacher, I will probably provide my students with some type of educational video that can help to explain plagiarism and how to properly give credit to those who need it. I will also most likely include a day in my lesson plans devoted to teaching the different ways of quoting, citing, and creating bibliographies when using outside sources to gather information, in order to ensure that all of my students completely understand fair use.

As an active Twitter user before enrolling in this course, I already knew pretty much all of the basic Twitter uses. I knew about retweets, hashtags, communicating with other people, and all of the other fun stuff it can do, but I never realized how helpful in can be in the educational world. After following a variety of Educational Technology pages, I am constantly coming across so many interesting articles that inform you of what is occurring in different schools around the country. I also realized how easy it is to communicate with other students in your class, as well as your professor. It makes contacting teachers for quick questions or help much simpler. As a teacher of the future, I'm thinking that I could use Twitter in a very positive way for my students. Maybe we can create a class hashtag, so that if a student has a homework question, or any other question about the upcoming school day, instead of emailing me individually, they can tweet me the question with the hashtag so that all of the other students in the class can also see and benefit from my response. I can also create a Twitter page that parents can follow, so that I can post class announcements and updates in order to keep them informed on what's going on in their child's classroom.

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