Revisit Educational technology blog

        I chose to review the Cool Cat Teacher blog this week (https://www.coolcatteacher.com/) published by Vicki Davis of Georgia. The blog is very easy to navigate and well organized into a variety of topics I found the organization of this blog to my favorite aspect because it saves me a lot of time and is to the point. Davis has provided multiple tabs ranging from trends, cool stuff, positions, etc. I like that there is a tab for grade levels so I could easily access information pertaining to my interest. Davis has done an amazing job of keeping up with trends and providing educators with an assortment of resources.

      The bonus of this blog is that it is made up of podcasts that are 10 minutes or less so I am able to multitask or listen on the go. I was able to listen to a lot of podcasts ranging from brain breaks to helping students regulate their emotions. I found for the podcasts to be quite helpful because they have a variety of guests that come on and discuss different topics. After each podcast, there is a "challenge" for educators to apply the lesson to the classroom. My favorite podcast that I listened to was Close the Attitude Gap - Build a Bond from Day One with guest Baruiti Kafele. This podcast allowed me to look inward and think about how my passion for teaching can impact my students. Teachers are in a position of power and if we direct that positively we can have a tremendous impact on our students from day one.

I think I learned a lot of valuable information and will continue to revisit this blog in the future.

Revisit my PLN : Pinterest

       The PLN challenge that I chose to participate in is Pinterest. I found a lot of education resources in Pinterest such as the idea about how to manage the classroom, interesting activities from different ideas of educators, learning templates, etc. I don't have a chance to post my activity or my idea yet, I hope one day I will have time to put some idea on my account. I followed people and organized groups that relate to and focusing on education and special education. I very enjoy and impress with creative ideas, easy tips and how to organize with people and organizations that I followed. It very helps me a lot with my lesson plan for my standard that I focusing on kindergarten. I don't have any problem with my PLN participation. I think my PLN in the future will be to create some classroom learning ideas for my future students.

I think that using Pinterest in the classroom would be great for my future classroom. If I can make one for sharing Ideas in the classroom or make activity learning for students in the future. It would be great and I hope that my students will like my Pinterest.

TIP: Nonlinear PowerPoint

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  Objective: Create a Non- linear PowerPoint- Create an assessment tool using PowerPoint that can be used in the classroom as a learning tool for students and a form of assessment for teachers. The finished product should relate to a Virginia Department of Education Standard of Learning.

VA SOL Addressed: I've used PowerPoint to create a quiz about Shapes as an assisted English activity in order to help Kindergarten students to use shapes correctly. The target teaching standard is English, Kindergarten, K2. d) Use words to describe/name location, size, color, and shape

How would I use this Non-Linear PowerPoint in my classroom?
The main purpose of this PowerPoint is to assess students' remember skills during my unit. This can be a formative assessment taken right after our lesson shapes. Even though the purpose of the lesson is just to remember and be able to identify shapes, I would also like them to remember the correct shapes and can use them in real life. I would have each student go through this PowerPoint as a test in this unit.

How does this relate to Universal Design For Learning and Inquiry-Based Learning?
The Non- Linear PowerPoint supports UDL  because it is a flexible learning tool that can appeal to many learners, especially visual learners. For example, students that don't feel comfortable writing can take this assessment on the computer without having to write anything down.  If a student, is having trouble reading, I can install sound into my PowerPoint and students can listen. This PowerPoint supports inquiry-based learning because it allows students to be engaged while answering questions about the shapes. It allows students to think about questions and answer them.


Here is a link to my powerpoint
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17RdrRzzC6yusZgMWtFanpdDh4iUxTr-t/view?usp=sharing

Powerpoint is Evil

        After I read the article, I agree that "Powerpoint is Evil" by Edward Tufte and the NPR story which is about powerpoint use. I found the important point that powerpoint is always one of the parts of students learning and powerpoint is also useful for a presenter not for the audience.

There are different opinions about the use of powerpoint, some people think that powerpoint helps students with their presentation by bringing information from different sources into each project that they have to present in the classroom, but others will disagree that powerpoint does not help the audience understand the presenter point. Powerpoint is one of categorized as a media, however, I think technology can be both teacher-centered and student-centered for education learning.

           In my opinion, teachers should only use technology when they want to demonstrate something that will engage the class into the lesson. As well as students should only use technology to gather information for a specific class project, When a teacher depends on powerpoint too much, is giving away his or her role of teaching, having students accomplish what it's expected. Powerpoint cannot be the only strategy to teach a lesson, a teacher needs to take responsibility at teaching and making sure students have understood the lesson.

In conclusion, I agree with what Edward Tufte said at the end of his article. He said, "PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content." Powerpoint should only be used as a tool to help teachers engage students in the lesson as well as helping students gathering information from a variety of sources.