Blog #3

The ELA technology standard I definitely feel the most prepared to teach with my prior existing knowledge is the "producing" tech standards SL.5 of using digital media. With the help of my EME 2040 class I have began to learn different ways in which I can use digital media and incorporate it into a learning environment. My professor has made me personally use digital media such as Twitter and my blog site to help us learn in class and grow as future educators. The ELA technology standard I wish to be more prepared for is the "consuming" tech standards L.5 of vocabulary and the use of context clues. I believe that this standard is especially important for the younger grades, the ones in which I hope to teach. I do not really know how to help students find the meaning of words through the use of context clues in the sentences that are around the word. I hope that in one of my future education classes I will learn to teach students how to use dictionaries as well as thesauruses.

Based on chapter 9 from my textbook, some of the technology software and applications I would like to use with my future students are blogs where students are able to type their thoughts out on a personal account where their work can be viewed by peers and they can leave each other encouraging and thoughtful comments. My blog right here is for my EME 2040 class and I think it is an excellent way to educate others as well as allowing me to form coherent ideas about the topics I learn in class. Another technology application I would like to use with my future students is a site like Edmodo, it replicates social media formatting but it is safe for educational use because students are not exposed to others' posts that are not monitored and may be inappropriate for their age group. The digital citizenship concepts I will need to address would be that my students should be able to demonstrate "netiquette" actions in their web interactions with each other. Whether they are commenting on each others' blog posts or commenting under a post I make to a website such as Edmodo my students should be polite and never disrespect one another. My students would be at a younger age where they may not be aware that the Internet is a big space where others can see your information and I would also have to teach them the skill of keeping their participate on the web private.

A new skill I acquired from working on the Newsletter Design assignment is how to organize a page that would be appealing for parents to read instead of throwing it in the garbage. Organization is key in a newsletter because if it is a big mess with a lot of words people will not be interested in reading it. What I liked about designing a newsletter is that I was able to be creative and make it appealing for others to read. I did not like this newspaper design assignment that much because I am not a teacher yet and it was difficult to come up with idea on what information teachers find useful and want their students' parents to know.  I know that it will be easier for me to improve next time because I now know the gist on the layout of a newspaper and will know what types of information I could put into a newsletter for parents. Something useful has come out of this assignment that I can use in my future career, how to greet and draw people into my newsletter in a formal yet playful manner.

My Newsletter Design: