Top 10 Tech Tools

Top 10 Tech Tools I Can't Live Without

1. Internet-An essential tool to help connect with family and friends. A convenient way to shop from home and it helps keep me up to date with current events.

2. Animoto-An automated presentation generator that focuses on using images to communicate a message. An excellent tool for class collaboration.

3. Glogster-A personal web page that is complete with embedded links, sound and video capabilities.

4. Smart phone-An important tool that I use for texting, taking pictures and browsing the web.

5. Delicious-A social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing and discovering web bookmarks. It also find bookmarks from other users on the network.

6. Facebook-A great source for connecting with family and friends.

7. Twitter-A useful tool to stay in contact with other people. It's easy to use and you can create as many accounts as you want.

8. Prezi-This tool is simple and easy to use. It can be used to create a presentation.

9. Desktop Computer-I truly feel lost without it.

10. Evernote-A great tool to use. It's an online service provider that allow me to save, organize and retrieve all of my notes.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps for Language Arts:

1.Dictionary.com-is one of the best apps for education. It provides a thesaurus and word of the day feature. The dictionary.com provides example sentences, audio pronunciations and word origins.

2.Story Kit-this app is an International children's Digital Library App. It provides features that allows you to create your own stories, complete with pictures. It also allows you to add text boxes, images, record sounds for your stories and add, reorder or delete your pages.

3.Grammar Up-the free edition of grammar up consist of 50 multiple choice questions and over 10 categories that provides a quick test of your student's grammar skills. Some of the categories includes verb tenses, prepositions and conjunctions.

4.Exam Vocabulary Builder-helps to keep vocabulary skills in the minds of students. It allows students to practice on a hundred words or more to improve their vocabulary skills. This app has a quiz mode that is easy and has challenging levels.

Digital Citizen

Why is it important to be a good digital citizen?

The importance of being a good digital citizen is to treat yourself and other people with respect. A digital footprint tool is now available to view what you have posted online. It can also view what you have posted in the past. Always contribute to the social media in a positive way. When others are being bullied or harassed you should stand up for them. A good digital citizen should not waste alot of time playing games and conducting other entertainment online.

What value does a good digital reputation have?

A good digital reputation should be responsible for their own actions. You should always use precautions when you post an email or send pictures online. It could ruin your reputation. All hidden or erased files can be retrieved. Never give out personal information.

3 Kinds of Material Generators That I Would Use In My Classroom

1.Test Generators-The test generator would be a great tool to use in the classroom. It allows teachers to create tests item by item in formats such as multiple choice, matching, true/false and fill in the blank questions. It provides students with an effective feedback and also helps to improve their performance.The test generator is time consuming for teachers and papers are easier to grade.

2.Puzzle Generators-I would use the puzzle generators to help create word search, criss-cross, spelling puzzles and other activities. This generator is easy to use. It is fun for students and helps them with their learning skills.

3.Rubic Generators-The rubic generators helps teachers to grade students test more accurate and fair. Students are allowed to self-assess their own work prior to submission. It also helps in the improvement of students performance.

Five Types of Instructional Software

Chapter 3 in Roblyer and Doering Book", Integrating Educational Technology Into Teaching" introduces the concept of technology tools for 21st century teaching. It discuss in details five types of instructional software. They are as follows:

1. Drill and Practice-an instructional software that provides exercises in which students work example items, usually one at a time, and gives feedback on correctness. Drill and practice software can include chart fil-in activites, flash cards and branching drill. An example: Earobics. http://www.earobic.com
2. Tutorial-provides a complete sequence of instruction on a given topic, similiar to a teacher's classroom instruction. A tutorial can be linear, which provides the same instructional content in the same order for all learners. An example: Congress for Kids. http://www.congressforkids.net
3. Simulation-a computerized model of a real or imagined system in order to learn how the system works. A simulation software can include a physical simulations that teaches about something or procedural simulations that teaches how to do something. An example: Sim City. http://simcity3000unlimited.ea.com/us/guide/
4. Instructional Games-a software that add game like rules and/or competition to learning activities. An example: Reader Rabbit. http://www.learningcompany.com
5. Problem Solving-an instructional software that focus on teaching component skills in problem-solving. There are two main approaches: content area skills and content free skills. An example: The Geometer's Sketch Pad. http://www.keypress.com/sketchpad

Web 2.0 Resources

This week assignment was really time consuming and challenging. I had fun designing some of the web 2.0 applications. My favorite tool was creating the animoto. It was easy to use and it required only a few quick steps. The glogster page was a little complicated at first. But overall it was a useful tool that helped me to organize my thoughts. I used the big huge labs for my free choice. It is a fantastic innovative tool. This was my first time using it. I enjoyed creating activities with it. 


Glogster
http://oliveoil4.edu.glogster.com

Animoto
http://animoto.com/play/dgkYmQxt6QZ3qvT1ob7IMA

Big Huge Labs

http://bighugelabs.com/deckb1eaa35fe27ebfe2d1a9bdd1d435fae

Should Students Play Games in School?

Games should be played in our schools. It helps children to develop in their thinking and learning skills. It also helps them to improve the coordination of their hands, creativity and problems solving. There are alot of educational games on the market to help them to advance to another level. These games helps to provide both computer-based instruction and track and report on student progress.