The web is such a vital component of technology to me.  I have been studying web technology and web tools for many years, so it was interesting to think of and analyze this from a pedagogical perspective.  I really love seeing how other teachers implement technologies, and I always gain so much by watching and talking with other educators.

I was most excited to learn about VR and AR during this semester.  I discovered many novel resources, but the module really made me hungrier to learn more.  I especially want to learn more about VR specifically and incorporate it more into my curriculum.  What I love most about being in education is that is forces you to learn more and push yourself as a person to continue to become a better teacher for your students.  I need that because I tend to be wary about changing my instructional strategies sometimes.  This year, being in grad school while simultaneously dealing with COVID, has forced me to reach well beyond what I am comfortable with, but it is going to really make me a stronger educator.

Lastly, the ELL module was an interesting aspect of this class.  Working on the ELL report and focusing on tools that address personalization really helped me plan for differentiation.  I plan to develop some differentiation artifacts to use in the future.  My ESOL students and my lower achieving students will benefit from what I discovered through focusing on my ELL report.

I enjoyed this module, but I need to spend more time researching and absorbing VR/AR to truly understand it better and be able to incorporate it more into my curriculum. I am proud of my virtual tour that I created but am disappointed that Google is discontinuing the service because I would like to use it in my class. I see that you can export and import it into Google Earth, so that is promising; however, I have not yet had a chance to investigate how well this transition will work. The issue I have with the virtual tour is if it will be versatile enough to be incorporated into my curriculum. It seems extremely specific, and I did find an effective use for it without too much struggle. I could see how it might serve specific concepts well, such as social studies topics or biomes in science. As a connections teacher, I cover these topics to an extent, but for some, I think it might be much more difficult to incorporate. I can see three of the 4 c’s being utilized clearly with Google Tour and Metaverse, but collaboration is the “c” that I don’t see. Both of these augment communication well and provide another means of representing content. The tools really help boost critical thinking, because they help build connections between concepts and provide visuals and context that are harder to understand in a more traditional approach to pedagogy. Both provide an effective way to incorporate creativity into your lessons. However, I wish I had the ability to better format my content. For example, I incorporated a web address in Google Tour, but it only showed up as plain text. I would much more useful if you had the ability to click on the link. I love 360 photos and 360 videos. I think it will continue to grow in popularity, especially as more people are viewing web content as entertainment. I have been wanting to purchase a 360 camera for a while now.

​The lack of technology available for classroom teachers illustrates the digital divide at my school the most. I am blessed to have a computer lab with thirty-three student workstations; however, most classroom teachers have 1 or 2 computers at most. In a normal year during testing, myself, and the business teacher here at McClure must give up our classrooms for weeks for testing. I know that in other school systems, all classroom teachers have laptops for all their students in their classes. Do you have laptops or desktops for the majority or all your students? The Coronavirus disruption has made our technology gap much worse because our school and system have loaned out all the laptops that we had available for classroom teachers. Overall, I really don’t think the Coronavirus has contributed necessarily to widening any educational technology gaps. Some may argue that it has helped some students understand and use technology even more. I have used more technology this year than usual. I don’t think the virtual learning that has been an outcome of Corona has been a positive overall, but regarding technology, it has been successful in my school system. I feel that Cobb County did a better than average job providing equity for students during this challenging time. Our LMS, the Cobb Teaching and Learning System (CTLS) "is a digital learning environment which precisely identifies what students know, supports student learning, engages parents, and empowers teachers with one goal: student success."  (Cobb County School District, first paragraph).

CTLS has streamlined and provided many tools to enrich instruction. Within the system, you can also receive training. The support for the system by staff in the county has been positive. The problem I see is that many other systems do not have the same resources and technology available to them. Just within the state of Georgia, I believe that Coronavirus has revealed that we are not even remotely ready for 100% digital learning.

Two things I am doing now that I did not do previously are that I accept all my assignments online via CTLS now. To say it has been a learning curve is an understatement, but I know that in the future, it will be easier for the students. Another concern that I have had is planning lessons that both face-to-face and virtual students can do at the same time. I enjoy game-based learning (GBL) and am trying to embrace it more. GBL has challenges but utilizing Minecraft Education has been a real lifesaver for me. It does a fantastic job supporting all subjects, including social emotional learning. The students love it and are engaged. I use it to teach computer programming and have been amazed at how well things have been going with it. Both my face-to-face students, as well as my virtual learners, have been able to access the same content. Other websites like Khan Academy, Code.org, and Common Sense media do an amazing job helping bridge the gaps that have arisen over the Coronavirus disruption. Without the disruption, I don’t think I would have incorporated these resources quite as much. 

Reference:

Cobb County School District. (n.d.). CTLS — Cobb CTLS. Cobb Teaching and Learning System.
     Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://cobbctls.com/

Some tools and resources in the module were ones that I am familiar with like Twitter and Podcasts. Although I have gotten away from using Twitter very often, I certainly see a benefit for teachers.  Personally, I would not recommend it to my students. I listen to podcasts all the time. As a tool for students, I think it could be a wonderful way for students to express themselves creatively and they could certainly collaborate on podcast projects. I think a downside to something like implementing podcasts is there is a large learning curve. Many of my middle school students would struggle with putting together something as sophisticated as a podcast. It is a challenging task for some adults. I explored Canva for this module. I have heard of it before, but I have never used it before. I found a great tutorial on how to create infographics using Canva. I have a project (Brainstorming Challenge) that I am going to incorporate that tutorial into, because it requires them to synthesize data from research they are doing on real-world problems in our world. As Sheninger (2019) states,
[In] an information-saturated world, students are drawing on tools that help them analyze and understand multiple representations from a range of disciplines and subjects, such as texts, data, and photographs.

I have found that infographics help my students express and organize their ideas. This project is also a group project, so they will be working collaboratively. Adobe Spark is another tool to that I have begun to explore and can see the potential for creativity and collaboration. This is another tool I am planning to incorporate more into my curriculum. Two extensions that I find super useful for myself and am going to introduce to my students are Grammarly and MyBib: Free Citation Generator. My students are not great spellers. Grammarly will help them with suggestions and corrections when they are writing, as well as provide them with definitions if they are not sure about what a word means. I do not do much written work in my class, but sometimes I do. It is important for me to know what sources they are using for their research. MyBib makes it super simple to cite work and will allow me to do detective work if needed regarding their projects.

Most of the tools I have found and used are extremely helpful and useful. The resources you can get for free are amazing, so I hate to cite too many problems with them. f I must mention a disadvantage or problem with the resources I have used, I will say that I wish they had more of the premium features available for free. Another disadvantage is that extensions that you find for Chrome aren’t always available for other browsers.

In my classroom we mostly use desktop computers; however, we do use our browsers a lot and I have not incorporated extensions and add-ins (we are Microsoft) very much prior to now. I do enjoy exploring these add-ins and extensions and can see their usefulness, particularly with exceptional students.

My county uses Vision software to manage our student workstations. I can see their screens and have options to use when necessary. I even can log into their computer and control their computer if necessary. It has come in handy over the years in various situations, but once they know you can view their computers, you usually do not have as many issues as before.

For me, implementing mobile technologies is a bigger issue. I have seven iPads, but I do not use them as much as I would like, because of compatibility issues. I could train the students on how to transfer movies and artifacts from the iPads to their workstations or the cloud, but honestly, I just have avoided it. I have used my iPads to record STEM builds and to photograph projects that I transferred over later. Also, I have used them for enrichment with students and some enjoy using them, others do not seem to care as much. I know many rely heavily on BYOD, but luckily, I have a computer lab. I insist that they do not have their devices out for the most part.

The best way to keep students safe of the Internet is to educate them. The Common Sense Media curriculum is an amazing resource. Some strategies I suggest would be to implement Common Sense Media lessons and game-based learning (digitalcompass.org) into their curriculum. There is a vast library of lessons, activities, and support material available for educators. Begin to develop and build on vocabulary that addresses digital citizenship and digital responsibility. And lastly, reinforce the vocabulary and concepts introduced in Common Sense media throughout your curriculum.

References:
​
Common Sense. (n.d.) Common Sense Digital Compass™ | Educational games for kids to help 
     teach digital citizenship and digital literacy skills. https://www.digitalcompass.org

Curtis, E. (2016, October 8). Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs. Control         Alt Achieve. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from
     https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/10/special-needs-extensions.html

Gonzalez, J. (2018, April 15). 4 Ways Microsoft is Making Learning More Accessible. Cult of Pedagogy.       Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/inclusive/

Sheninger, E. (2019). Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times: Digital Leadership:
     Changing Paradigms for Changing Times (Second ed.). Corwin.

Singh, N. (2020, October 13). How to make an infographic. Learn; Canva.           
​     https://www.canva.com/learn/how-to-make-an-infographic/

​I chose to make an informational presentation highlighting Quizizz for fellow educators. Most of my artifacts up to this point have been for classroom use with my own students. I wanted to instead focus on speaking to fellow educators. I know that some educators still have reservations about incorporating technology in the classroom, so I wanted to highlight how easy Quizizz is to use, while also highlighting aspects that it provides that are important to all educators. My hope is to be able to have presentations like this to share with educators that I may work with as a potential future IT. This will help open the door to build a relationship with those I may be helping and training.

First, I am a big Adobe fan and have been using their products for a long time. This was my first experience using Spark. I use Office 365 quite a bit, and it reminds me a lot of Sway. A strength of Spark is the integration of the image search, and I loved how it credited the author of my image without me having to do anything! I can see how this could be appealing to teachers who may want to use images but are concerned about fair use. I do not recall Sway having that feature.
The mixed modality of presenting images alongside text, like Spark and Sway, could certainly help ELL students to help them with comprehension. Combining Spark with Google Extensions and 0365 Add-Ins could certainly assist with a huge group of students who struggle with everything from dysgraphia to English as a second language.
​
Another area where Spark could help strengthen project-based learning is differentiation through the ability to view a presentation as many times as needed, synchronously or asynchronously. I demo things often in class, and it is a life saver to have resources to post for students to view to help clarify concepts and gather context for projects. 

  I can see how these tools can support collaboration and communication, but it supports communication the most. Comprehension and interpretation can be an issue with everyone. I love how much progress Microsoft has made regarding accessibility in Edge. Natively, the browser supports read aloud, immersive reader, and translating the content to a second language. I have even shared this with some of my students recently, and one of them told me that I was the best technology teacher she ever had! I discovered some of these resources in a project I did earlier in this program for a special education student I worked with, but this module provided even more options, and a variety as well. Just the Control Alt Achieve article alone was mind blowing! 

I decided to download two Chrome extensions: OpenDyslexia and Mercury Reader. I tried them both and OpenDyslexia worked as advertised. It converts everything to a specific font to help dyslexic students be able to read better, but I need to research it more. I am assuming it is recommended to be used along with other strategies like read aloud and concept mapping, because dyslexia is such a complex issue. I worked with a dyslexic student earlier in another class for this degree and wish I would have known about that before, so I could have tried it. I know the student’s mother well and will let her know about it if they may want to try it. Mercury Reader was the second extension I used, and it worked well with individual articles, but not as reliably with other pages, like home pages that lead to secondary pages. Interestingly, Mercury Reader detected that, and sent me a message telling me that it works better with individual articles. The extension also had some personalized settings integrated that were useful, like changing font size and contrast. I love having the extension information at my disposal, but I am not a fan of extensions. However, regarding supporting students with a need, I can certainly see the benefits. As I mentioned earlier, I like that Edge has many of those features built in already.

As far as how these tools can support students with disabilities and provide differentiation, I feel I have covered a lot of that already. There are areas that could improve in the future. For example, I converted the text of a web page to another language, and it worked great! But then I tried to read aloud that same text using Edge’s Read Aloud feature and it was not the most elegant reading. I know Immersive Reader does read text in various languages, but it would be nice if you could just have that available without sending it to the Immersive Reader.

Features like Read Aloud, Microsoft’s Translator, adjusting fonts, contrast, and text size all are helping bridge gaps in communication and student disabilities. I just think you must be careful regarding how much you customize your applications, or they can create the problem they are meant to help solve. Do you really need to order an Uber or a coffee from Starbucks inside Microsoft Word? Is that increasing productivity?

​References:
​
Curtis, E. (2016, October 8). Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs. Control
     Alt Achieve. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from
     https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/10/special-needs-extensions.html

Gonzalez, J. (2018, April 15). 4 Ways Microsoft is Making Learning More Accessible. Cult of Pedagogy.       Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/inclusive/

Hobgood, B., & Ormsby, L. (n.d.). Inclusion in the 21st-century classroom: Differentiating with   
     technology. Learn NC. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from
     http://web.archive.org/web/ 20180125110137/www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/every- 
     learner/6776/

Microsoft. (n.d.). Using Microsoft Translator for Education. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from   
     https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/using-microsoft-translator-for-education-f96d43c2-
​     b5a4-40e5-b1b5-43763e6f10b6?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us

I created a Twitter account to use for professional purposes.  I have used Twitter in the past but deleted my personal account a few years ago.  I have a good bit of experience using the platform and certainly know how much of the market share it consumes.  I followed several of the educational technology companies that I use in my classroom, as well as some others that I have heard about while in the program here at KSU.  I also followed Dr. Jim Knight and Eric Sheninger because I loved both of their books.  I would rather have a smaller, yet stronger group to follow and branch out from there.  I can certainly see the power of learning about features, tools, and personalities related to educational technology and digital leadership by using Twitter.  What I really don’t like is all the unsolicited information that is forced on me by the algorithms of the app itself.  I use social media as a part of my curriculum, especially when teaching about digital citizenship.  My students and I discuss their responsibilities regarding what they view and post online, as well as their digital footprint.  I also use digital compass, which is a game-based activity created by Common Sense Media, that weaves in the activities as they relate to different lessons regarding digital citizenship.  I will also use Twitter to promote my students during our First Lego League season next year to the community and other stakeholders.  My school also has a Twitter account, so we can help promote each other.

​I previewed the TedTalks and looked over the NPR podcast directory.  I have listened to podcasts by both organizations numerous times over the years and find them extremely useful and educational.  I use TedTalks (videos) in the classroom to showcase various topics and love them!  I love how Edpuzzle integrates TedTalks right into the website, and plan on utilizing that aspect in the future.  Some of the TedTalks videos can get lengthy, and I like the idea of cutting videos, as well as annotating in Edpuzzle.  Most of my students respond better to shorter videos.  Also, the ability to share and post in an LMS is also very appealing.  That level of personalized learning is something that helps me focus my time in the classroom on things that matter, like conferencing one-to-one with students and answering questions, as opposed to being their technical support representative.  My colleagues in the county and I have discussed the concept of teaching podcasting to our students and I feel it plays right into the type of experience students of today enjoy and appreciate.  The collaborative aspect can certainly be incorporated into lessons regarding podcasting about many different subjects and assignments.  I am currently developing lesson plans for podcasts, as well as videocasts, or vlogs.  I feel its important to scaffold lessons like podcasts over time by teaching them smaller supporting tasks, which eventually culminate into a larger project like a podcast.

Reference:
​
Common Sense. (n.d.) Common Sense Digital Compass™ | Educational games for kids to help teach 
     digital citizenship and digital literacy skills.
     https://www.digitalcompass.org

I really enjoyed learning about some new assessment tools and resources in this module.  I explored several of them, but I would still like to dig deeper into many others since I had not heard of many of them.  I love how Web 2.0 tools augment my teaching and I feel you can get a lot out of many of the free versions.  I am also glad my district purchased licenses for Edpuzzle.  That certainly helped me with this assignment.  Over the course of this assignment, I discovered the term “in-class flipped classroom”, (Doubet, n.d.) which was new to me.  I even used it in my video!  I had a little familiarity with both tools, but I had not used Edpuzzle much at all.  I enjoy using Nearpod, but I really like how Edpuzzle supports video because I use a lot of videos to support my teaching in class.  It is time-consuming, but it is definitely worth the effort in the long run.  Students retain information much better with my standards with an in-class flipped classroom approach.  But as I mentioned in my video, editing only can help so much.  Time and experience teaching content open other ways of understanding your content and how your students interact with it.  Therefore, the ability to edit and keep it dynamic is crucial.  Edpuzzle is a great fit for that.  Quizizz makes assessing student’s knowledge more fun.  By incorporating memes and gamification, students respond better to it than a more traditional approach to quizzes/exams.  Both resources make administration much easier and provide very important data as well.  All educators value data, especially data that supports their content and how their students retain their content.

 
 I have been using Screencast-O-Matic now since the COVID lockdown and I am enjoying it.  I feel it is easy to use and does a good job.  I mentioned earlier that I use screencasts for an in-class flipped classroom approach, and I am incorporating it more and more each semester.  I have a library of videos that I use to support tasks large and small, and my students are used to it at this point.  Cobb has an LMS, called CTLS, and I upload much of the content there.  I also add much of the content I produce to my website, which also augments much of my instruction.  With CTLS and so many virtual learners (Cobb is hybrid now), the videos really help.  Another way I would like to incorporate it is for my students to produce content in different ways for class.  I have been thinking about that for a while, but I still haven’t tried it yet.  I would love to produce a videocast (vlog).  I am certain they would like that, but the logistics right now aren’t ideal to try it.  However, I am currently planning out some ideas for the future.  I also believe having students collaborate on video projects holds a lot of promise.  Many of my virtual learners rely on video and publicly accessible content to keep them up to date in school.  These tools are one way to provide that accessibility without having to create your own solution, which can be expensive and intimidating.


References:
​
Doubet, A. (n.d.). Flipping the Elementary Classroom | Creative Educator. Creative Educator.
     https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/2015/articles/In-Class-Flip

Sheninger, E. (2019). Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times: Digital Leadership:
​     Changing Paradigms for Changing Times (Second ed.). Corwin.

I agree with a lot of what Alan November is saying in his video, but I don’t know if I would go so far as to say he needs to weigh Iran’s viewpoint as if it were an American journalists viewpoint either.  I do agree in principle with what he is stating, and I do think there are many ways to utilize the universal classroom that we are only beginning to see and think about today.  Even locally, I have been videoconferencing more over the past year, and without COVID-19, I don’t know if I would have done that until I was somewhat forced to do so.

Another point that I completely agree with is Alan’s point on youth and their relationship to technology.  They are nowhere near as savvy as they are made out to be in the media, but it is no fault of their own.  In the world of programming there is a concept known as layer of abstraction.  I relate this to the above-mentioned relationship of kids and technology, meaning they have just come into the world of technology at a much different point than you or I did.  They know how to use technology and have different relationships with technology, but they do lack certain skills, like critical thinking, that prove to be needed in the world of computers and beyond.  But in fairness, I did not have great critical thinking skills as a young man either (sometimes I still don’t).  I do not think that 21st century skills and Web 2.0 skills must be intertwined. There is certainly benefits to thinking logically and in computational thinking, but do we want all young people to think the same way?  I personally do not.  I do think that basic computer skills are helpful and will be helpful to our society, but not all young people want to spend time with computers.  I have many students that just want to draw, or play basketball or the bass guitar, and I like that. I think critical thinking is extremely important, but as a middle-school teacher, I honestly think it is overused.  Now creativity, collaboration, and communication are another story.  I feel they are all vital to everyone, young people included.  I also think we have an obligation to try and instill this into young people at a young age, so they can use it to make their lives more fruitful.  Communication is important every day in so many ways.  Creativity too is crucial, and I see it manifest in music, art, and engineering.  Everyone can benefit from using creativity.  Humans are drawn to it.  Collaboration is the Achilles heel that I see with young people.  Not all young people of course, but many are overly anxious, trepidatious to speak to others, have issues with authorities, just to name a few.  I think where we find ourselves socially is amplifying this.  I really try to find ways for my students to collaborate, and I also struggle the most with getting my students to collaborate, but I feel it is a fight that needs to be waged.
​
Lastly, I certainly feel technology helps support a diverse range of students.  From assistive technology, to accessibility tools, to gamification, there are so many ways to reach students.  This is a world that I have had experience with in the past and continue to work on as a teacher.  It is exciting to see what is available, but I think there is so much work that is still left to be done regarding exceptional students.  Personally, in my classroom, I have been using gamification to help unify and level the “playing field” and it has provided some exciting results.  Some students that excel in virtual worlds are ones you never hear from on other days.  Some love to share what they know as well, which is always an interesting experiment.  I am excited to see where a lot of technology that exists comes together within the classroom and beyond!

Reference:
​
November, A. [The Brainwaves Video Anthology]. (2014, May 5). Alan November - Who Owns the
​     Learning? Preparing Students for Success in the Classroom [Video]. YouTube.     
​     https://youtu.be/NOAIxIBeT90 ​