Blog Post #7

Bloom's taxonomy is a method of learning in which students move up to different levels of understanding. The six levels, in order from least difficult to most difficult, are remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. As a teacher, we can use PowerPoint to support our student's learning at each level. For example, if I were trying to teach a Language Arts lesson to my elementary students about the difference between a verb and a noun, I would start at the first step of remembering. So, I could use PowerPoint to create "flashcards" out of the different slides, like one slide could present a word, and the next slide would identify the answer as to whether the previous word was a verb or noun. In order to teach the next step of understanding, I could show a video on PowerPoint that explains the difference between  verb and noun by showing different examples of each through pictures and action videos. Then, after showing them the video, in order for them to apply the information, I would let my students create a chart, one column being verbs and the other column being nouns, and allow them to list in each column as many words as they could think of. After that, I would use PowerPoint again to  have the students help me to create a Venn Diagram that compares and contrasts different verbs and nouns that they choose, in order for them to apply their new knowledge. I would then present a quiz to the class. They would see a word on PowerPoint, then individually decide at their seat whether it's a verb or a noun, along with a reason to justify why they think so, in order to practice evaluation. Finally, for the last step of creation, I would assign each of my students to create their own PowerPoint Presentation to which they would choose 5 words and would have to teach the class, through pictures and definitions, as to how they know the word is either a noun or a verb.

I think adaptive technologies are very important in order to support all student's learning. If a student has a learning disability that hinders his or her learning experience, or excels their learning above others, it it imperative that they receive the appropriate assistance in order to learn at their full potential just like all of the other students who may not have any disabilities, or advantages. There are many types of disabilities that can deal with reading, hearing, seeing, communicating, and so on. But, the great thing is that we now have the ability to help these students through new inventions in technology. I never knew how many adaptive technologies existed in the world today until reading this chapter, as I have only ever witnessed a personal amplification system, for hearing problems, in my own classrooms. I have also known that audio books and recorded texts exist, but I never realized that they were used for those who may be sight-impaired or who may have a harder time processing written words than others. I also appreciate the technologies that help linguistically diverse students excel in school, like different websites, MP3 players, and interactive whiteboards. I can't imagine what it would be like to enter a school where nobody speaks your primary language. Overall, these adaptive technologies are defiantly beneficial to the students who need it in order to enhance their learning, but I do see some challenges that could arise with them in a classroom. First of all, I think it is very important for all teachers to be trained in how to teach kids with disabilities or language differences, because right now not all teachers are and they do not know exactly what to do to provide the best learning experience possible for everyone. Secondly, I also get afraid that if a student has to use these special technologies, or receive extra attention from the teacher, the student may become embarrassed of his/her situation. Teachers need to be sure to try their best to treat all students mainly the same so that the ones who may have a little difference do not stand out from everyone else, as that could lead to them being discouraged in learning.

I really enjoyed the Web Page Design assignment for this week. I never realized how easy it is to create your own personal website, and I found designing it to actually be very fun. It was helpful to learn the different aspects that we have to keep in mind while creating a website, like proximity and contrast, in order to make the page as visually appealing as possible. I now realize that websites work best when they are simple, organized, and easy to navigate, and creating our own web page helped us to apply those aspects on our own. The only thing that I had some trouble with was when our group was trying to move things around on the page to where we wanted them to be, and sometimes Weebly would not allow us to do so, so we had to stick with their original layout. But other than that, there were no other problems. As a future teacher, I could definitely see myself creating my own webpage for my future class. It would be an easy and efficient way for parents and students to keep up with what is going on in our classroom and around the whole school. It makes it easier to have the information readily available at all times so that I can avoid tons and tons of emails from parents about questions that have already been answered.
Here is a link to my group's webpage: http://eme2040g1.weebly.com
Here is a screenshot from our website's home page: