3 - Tech n' Class

When it comes to the ELA Standards there are plenty guidelines that have been prevalent to my life as a student so it is interesting to learn from a teacher's perspective. The one I would feel most comfortable teaching in my classroom would be: "Make strategic use of digital media (textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest." In high school, digital media was my life. My teachers constantly wanted more with the technology they provided us. We worked tirelessly in SMART classrooms that provided the tools to create and produce interactive presentations that we would later present in class for a grade. But, there are guidelines that I may not consider myself an "expert" in and would not be comfortable teaching just yet. The standard that would give me the most trouble would be: "Authoritative sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess usefulness of sources; integrate info to maintain a flow of ideas; include footnotes and endnotes." The first part of this guideline does not frighten me, but the last part does. I have never worked with footnotes and endnotes so I would not know the first thing about integrating them into my curriculum. It now worries me that I was never provided with that knowledge in my own high school classes. 

The internet is a huge aspect of a student's learning community. As a student I was constantly on the web whether it was for research, presentation, or even just social media. As a teacher of high school students, academic portals and feed readers will be used quite frequently. Research is a large portion of the academic curriculum for high school students and applications like such will only make it easier for them. When it comes to programs for class communication, weblogs will play a big role in my classroom. Educational blogging will allow students to show me that they are completing assignments, understanding, and retaining information. Digital citizenship can go one of two ways for high school students; they either get it or they do not. Students in high school are much more independent as they are young adults which may make it more difficult to control them. The most important guidelines for them to understand are obeying copyright laws and making sure their content and participation is of proper etiquette and appropriateness. It is important for these young adults to understand what they do on the internet can affect them in the long run and digital profiles will follow them forever. Applying their critical thinking skills to the their use of the internet will do nothing but benefit them as children of the 21st century.

The Newsletter Design took me a lot longer than expected. Going into this assignment I thought I knew exactly what I was doing. When it came to the creative aspect I needed to learn not to go overboard because there is only so much that can go into a design with the use of two columns. Completing the smaller components of the newsletter did not trouble me, but piecing them all together was the struggle. I knew how to create two columns, use word and clip art, and how to create lists and hyperlinks, so there was no new knowledge obtained from those aspects. There were no negative aspects to this assignment besides the fact that it was unexpectedly time consuming. I enjoyed that I was finally able to take the creative things I knew how to do with Word and actually create something useful with it. For next time, I need to plan ahead and plan out the the structure of the newsletter so I do not have to struggle with placement and design. As a teacher, this use of technology will come in handy with communicating with teachers. I want to be a high school or middle school teacher, so newsletters never really crossed my mind when working with teenagers, and now I understand ways that I can make it effective even with older students and their parents.