First and foremost, my personal web presence needs to be professional. It also needs to reflect "me" by the words, articles, posts, captions, and pictures, that I choose to include. The layout needs to be easy to manipulate and all links working. All contact information show be easily visible. Having and maintaining a professional web page can prove to be valuable for it provides a way to showcase and share my skills, certificates, knowledge, and resources, with others. It also provides an avenue for me to connect with others with similar goals and interests and learn from them.
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There are so many positives to having and maintaining a professional network. It is most effective to use a combination of strategies. For me, I find that once I find a group or organization that I am interested in. I go in person and make the initial connection, like attending a local zumba class or attending a race. Then, I meet tons of people that share the same interest and I share contact information with them. Later, we connect again via social networks and I expand my social circle based on my interests. Eventually those social contacts have become friends, colleagues, and/or business partners. I have learned so much from others and maintaining these connections has proven valuable to me both personally and professionally. After watching the informational explanation of a "wiki," I immediately thought of a positive use for education. Right now, our district is struggling with the implementation of Common Core curriculum. Since there in no "program" given to us, it is up to us teachers to develop it. With the help of "Wiki", teachers in the district could work on developing the curriculum collaboratively. Authorized teachers (perhaps all district grade level teachers) would be registered and could add content and revise lesson plans as a group. This would be helpful, so not all the work falls on one person.
I especially enjoyed the short article, "Considering a new avenue of communication: the Weblog." It was a brief and accurate description of webblogging. After participating in the weekly blogging routine for this course for a few weeks, I see how beneficial it is. It is interesting and beneficial to see how others view and respond to the same articles and information. It is helpful to me. I have notice that I have a tendency to be to "long-winded". This article highlights the importance of being brief. The article, "Info tech advisor, I thought Wikis were creatures in "Star Wars" Athletic Therapy Today," defines wiki as a online collaboration web site of information. Initially, I was thinking of how "wiki" would be helpful to teachers for lesson collaboration, but the author also pointed out "wikis" potential of engaging students in a class project. I like this idea. It would motivate and engage the students. They would enjoy that. After reviewing some of the apps useful for Ipads provided in the three lists, I noticed I already use some, and I saw others that I would like to use in the future. I was given an Ipad last summer at a 5 day Math training, and we were given time to download several suggested free apps. At this training, I downloaded, CS core, Edmondo, Dropbox, Geoboard, Docer, PocketRulers, Docs U Free, MathSnacksHD, Geometry Pad, and a few others. Of these apps, I have used Edmondo and Dropbox for teacher collaboration at a district level. I am also a big fan of GoogleDrive this app allows me to access many of my big computer files on my phone and Ipad. This has been extremely helpful.
Our district has informed us that Parlier will be receiving classroom sets of Ipad very shortly, so I am looking forward to exploring more of the interactive apps with the children. I liked the description of Nearpod, which seems like it will engage the students and help the teacher monitor and assess learning. Another app that sounds exciting is the Number Line. Students need a lot of practice with this math concept. It is a major concept in the new Math Common Core. Students must feel comfortable with it and be able to justify their answers using a number line diagram. So digital practice with it will only give the students yet another avenue to understand the concept. There are others that I would also like try, EarthObserver, Leafsnap, and Khan Academey , to help supplement the common core standards in History and Science. I think the children would enjoy the app Scribble Press to spark writing and drawing. This will supplement the Language Arts curriculum. Ok, so I already had a "LinkedIn" account prior to its requirement for this FPU course, but I really hadn't completed all the components of setting it up. So today, I spent some time updating it. I added a current photo and changed some of the outdated info. I am still uncomfortable linking all this information about my personal career path and goals together on one site. But, I know it can help me in the future.
The major difference I see between a "Facebook" site and "LinkedIn" site is the tone. "Facebook" is a more personal and lighthearted because it includes current pictures and microbloggs of everyday occurences, whereas, the "Linkin" site is more about setting up connections based on common interests and displaying your professional work experiences. Hurray!! I successfully upload my first "podcast." I am shocked at how easy it was. Once again I was so nervous and procrastinating on completing this component of Module 3, and within a few moments it was done! Now, I am excited and want to record more. I am not sure how this will fit into my future career goals, but at least I have accomplished one more thing that I haven't done before. I feel great!
I was excited after reading the article "Ticktrack" It is essentially a self tracker of a fitness and eating program combined. I have always wanted to do something like this, but the idea of tracking my food on one site and my fitness goals on another seem too time consuming. The program boasts that it is easy and even whole job sites are offering incentives to jump on board the program. I want to try it.
I really enjoyed watching and listening to the lecture by Wade Gilbert, a PH.D in the Kinesiology Dept at Fresno State. It was entitled "Infinity and Beyond." His first point which made his lecture title appropriate was based on the Buzz Light year character and his famous words of "Too Infinity and Beyond" We should not set limits. We have all heard the saying "the sky is the limit" well no, it isn't, and so we should look even beyond that. His discussion centered around three main points to being successful. After you set a goal, you must 1) strive for a need 2) strive for mastery in action 3) have the right setting. His quote of "It's what you learn after you know it all that matters." really stuck with me. Being in the academic setting, I am a firm believer in being a "life-long learner." I really appreciated his "3 Movement Breaks", and will definitely use them in the classroom: 1)"Apple Picking" 2) "Do the Twist" and 3) "Full sit-1/2 sit. My second grades and I would benefit from periodic movement breaks like these. The last two points I wanted to mention that I valued from the lecture, was his explanation of the "fixed mind-set" vs. "growth mindset." The "fixed mind-set", Wade Gilbert described as either you have it or you don't, and when you fail you move on to something else, whereas the "growth-mind set" is the idea that anything is possible, and to be great at something, you must fail a lot initially. Many times my students will view things as "well it is easy for you, because you are the teacher, and you know it already", but I have spent so much time trying to explain that everybody starts at the beginning sometime. It is a journey, and I may be further along than them currently but it takes time, patience, dedication, and work. The list "Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012" has 22 web applications that I frequent often. Applications like Facebook, Word, google search engine, gmail, and youtube, I literally use everyday both personally and professionally. Others, like Moodle, Dropbox, Powerpoint, Excel, and Edmondo, I use for educational purposes. There are two web tools that I have yet to use but I am itching to start, are Skype and Pinterest. I do have international friends that I email and want to chat with. Now that I have a new computer that has all the features that would allow me to skype, I want to do it. I just haven't made the time. I also want to visit and utilize Pinterest. Some many of friends comment about it and I need to make the time to check it out.
This is one of my favorite poses in yoga. I use to dance ballet when I was younger and this pose reminds me of that time. I love yoga and love to teach and practice it. It seems as though I never have enough time to do the amount of yoga I would like to. I loved this website
This how-to-site, www.howcast.com. is fantastic. It has so many short video clips on a variety of topics. I just learned a few "new" poses that I haven't heard of before. I am excited to incorporate them in my next class. Wow, the internet has definitely changed forever how we get information. Instead of just searching and reading information, we now can actively contribute to the "sea" of information. This has also spilled over into the educational realm. After going through a very lengthy list of current applications geared for educators, I have narrowed it down to a few that I really see myself using and benefiting from.
In my personal life, I love to scrapbook, so being able to do that with my students in the classroom via the internet and this app, BeeClip.Edu would be awesome. It would engage the students and they would have ownership in it because it would be personal pictures of them learning in the classroom. I also liked the app, Thinglink because it allows you to upload images off the web and add text. This sometimes is difficult to do just "cutting and pasting" on a regular word document. This will save time. Venngage is a useful app that I can use to create infographics. This will be helpful to the English learners who need additional support of images, pictures, and text to understand information. Three other sites, I enjoyed exploring were, ikiMap- an app to create maps. This is essential for common core standards. I also think that Inklewriter will stimulate my students to want to write adventure stories, and finally LearnClick an app to create my own cloze paragraphs. My students really benefit from this type of framed paragraph and they could use additional practice. |