Blog Journal 10

As a kindergarten or first grade teacher, I will need to use tools like Microsoft Excel to keep track of the students grades. Using an online spreadsheet would be more effective than a physical grade-book. With an online spreadsheet, corrections can be easily made and saved, information would not have to be completely erased to be fixed, and can be accessed anywhere. It can be used for more information than just grades. I would be able to use it keep track of student and parent contact information. This way I will be able to store important things without worrying about losing them easily. ClassDojo is another reporting tool that I found many teachers use in their classrooms. With ClassDojo, teachers can create their own classroom rules and give or take away points on a students behavior. Parents are able to see these changes on their phones using the ClassDojo app. This is a quick and easy way for parents to see how their child is doing in class and can see the feedback the teacher is giving. 

The topics I found most interesting to read from my classmates blog posts were the adaptive technology tools they found and the creative ways they used PowerPoint or Word to create their unique assignments. After seeing what my peers could do, I felt like the things I had turned in were boring in comparison. I am a pretty plain person so when it came to presentations, I always picked boring fonts and only ever used two colors. Those were what I considered aesthetically pleasing but I realize that I could do so much more. I also liked reading about the adaptive technology they found. In my blog posts I mentioned a few technologies that can be used for students with physical or learning disabilities, but looking through other blog posts, I learned that there were so much more than I thought. Even something as ordinary as an iPad can be used as an educational tool.

There are a few technology-related skills that I would like to learn that I feel will be helpful in the future. Excel confuses me and I have never even opened it before. I am afraid it might be too complicated but I know that we will be learning about it soon so I wont have to worry about it for much longer. I would also like to learn how to use all the cool functions of a SMARTboard. I know it is easy to project and write on but I know there is so much more to it that I could use to teach my students and I would love to learn those skills. As I have said before, I am not very good with technology, so really, I am down for learning any technology-related skill. 

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