Samantha Cotton

Posts

Week 8 Blog Post

March 13, 2022

Hi friends! I hope everyone is enjoying the start of Spring Break. I found the two videos that we were assigned to watch this week very interesting. In the Sawhney (2021) video, the idea of Janet was discussed. Prior to watching the two videos, I have never heard of Janet. After watching the video, Janet reminded me so much of Alexa, except they have many differences. According to the video, Janet is more interesting and intelligent than Alexa because she is made specifically for students and contains an educational database from all curriculums. She also has a personal assist feature, which can be programmed to suit any individual learning needs. I love the idea of Janet and if I had a Janet, I would use her for daily motivational pick me up quotes. What would you use Janet for? As discussed in the video by Dweck (2014), educators must help students develop and improve a growth mindset. According to the video, research shows that when we praise kids for the process they en...

Week 7 Blog Post

March 06, 2022

Hi friends! This week in class we talked about coding and Project Based Learning (PBL). I have never used coding until I got to college, and I find that it will be very useful as part of elementary learning in my future classroom! I enjoyed reading the article this week about PBL and eLearning. As future educators, especially with the new developments of technology, I think "integrating interactive scenarios and simulations that require a broad range of skills" is applicable to PBL that involves students use of technology. This allows the students to experience a problem or situation and figure out a possible solution. This will help them further develop a range of skills, so that they can apply those skills to their own personal or professional lives. This tip will bind in significantly with a chosen math or science standard for the design process until plan, creating space for the students to use their imagination, show creativity, and their ideas/skills.

Week 6 Blog Post

February 25, 2022

Hi friends! Welcome back to week 6 of my blog. I have attached my Vocaroo link below and I hope you all enjoy listening to my first ever podcast! The topic I chose to podcast about is all about fitness. I love working out and it has been a huge part of my life over the years. Podcasting is a series of audio files that users can download and listen to at their own convenience. I think podcasting is cool and can be used in my future classroom because young people are more likely to listen to episodes on a mobile device. Podcasting has never been a passion of mine, but after my first recording, I think it is a great technology tool that I can use in the future! This week we read an article about connected learning framework and I not only enjoyed reading it, but I learned some things I never knew about. The principal that stood out the most to me is shared purpose. I found this principal interesting because it not only aligns with student podc...

Week 5 Blog Post

February 17, 2022

Hi friends! Welcome back to Week 5 of my blog. During class this week we talked about ISTE Student Standard and Digital Citizenship and explored Google Sites! for our Digital Citizenship project, I chose to complete my project on Digital Privacy. According to the standards from ISTE, 1.2d reads “students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online.” This topic grabbed my attention because I think it is important that students know that they have complete control of their decisions and their privacy. Teaching elementary students how to navigate the internet safely, along with understanding the consequences that follow poor behavior, is very important as a digital citizen. I am looking forward to weaving digital citizenship into some of my future lesson plans! Dickenson and Snedeker talked about some very useful strategies in their article, and I do believe they are all important in ...

Week 4 Blog Post

February 13, 2022

Hi friends! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. In class this week, we talked about virtual field trips. After reading the article by the Professional Learning Board, I believe all of the steps are important for the success of each and every student, but the lesson plan step stood out to me. I believe that teachers need to clearly understand the learning objectives prior to research, so him/her know what key points to look for when researching. I enjoy virtual field trips because it is something that each and every student can have access to in the classroom since we do not know their home life situations. For example, I played softball in Portland, Oregon and would love for my future students to take a virtual tour of the city I was able to explore and show them pictures from my trip after. I may even have them create their own pictures of what they noticed from the virtual tour. Personally, I enjoyed watching the Skype video. I think it was cool to see the students visit the botto...

Week 3 Blog Post

February 02, 2022

This week in Dr. Gierhart's class, we talked about evaluating a digital tool; Prodigy. I like the idea of Prodigy, but it would not be my first choice when teaching mathematics to my students. A con of using Prodigy is that students may not be as focused as they would be if they were to physically work out the problems, because some students are more hands on than others. A pro of using Prodigy is that students can develop more skills; such as communication and writing skills. I also learned how to annotate a video and an image file, it's pretty cool! This is a skill that I think will benefit every future teacher in the classroom.

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