Reflections on Educational Technology

First off, I apologize for the length, but I really wanted to talk about what I did and why I did it because I am actually pretty proud of this project and the work that I put in it. Also, detailing my thought process and what steps I did might help me when I come back to this when I am teaching to make creating something similar to this easier on myself. Last week, I made the Jeopardy game on Google Slides. That was something that was completely created by the teacher. This week, I wanted to focus on something that students would be able to use to create and produce their own work in the classroom. I plan to teach secondary science so I chose to create an interactive notebook for students to organize and display their work. I chose to change the slide format to an 8.5 x 11 size to imitate a real notebook format and to make it easier to print if students chose to print out some of the slides to make it easier for them or to display their work in a different format. The first page I...

As soon as this assignment was discussed, I was excited about it. I am not very familiar with Google Slides, but the basic assignment last week to become familiar with the basic features went well and I felt fairly comfortable making changes. Then, this bombshell was dropped that Google Slides can do all of these incredible things that I had never heard about or would have ever dreamed to use the program for. As soon as class was over I started looking at different options. That did not last long because I have dogs and kids who like food and need their teeth brushed and reasonable bedtimes. So, I put the assignment aside for a few days.  Despite the warnings by Professor Carnill to NOT attempt a Jeopardy-type game during your first foray into the advanced application of Google Slides, I could not get that application out of my head and I knew I had to try it. It might be an abject failure; it might cause me to lose my hair at a higher rate of speed; it might, well probably ...

I had a love/hate relationship with the assignment this week. In a way, it was so much fun to create a fun slideshow. To play with the colors, the fonts, the pictures and everything else to create something that was simultaneously educational and enjoyable to look at and to read. At the same time, it was extremely time consuming to make all the small changes and alterations to turn the slides into exactly what I wanted them to be. Even still, I keep catching small things every time I look at it that I think I want to change slightly. Then, the next time, I change it back to how it was before. It is not perfect, but I think that it was a good first attempt. I did have some thoughts while I was creating my Google Slides presentation though. When I first started exploring Google Slides, I saw that there was an add-on for PearDeck which I promptly tried to download and use. I have seen PearDeck used in practice by a teacher whose classroom I observed. She was kind enough to take the...

I first heard of hyperdocs on the Podcast, Cult of Pedagogy . It was intriguing, but it was difficult to envision their format and use over a podcast. Obviously, I didn't look into it any further at the time since the assignment for my EDU 585 class was my very first attempt at trying to construct a usable hyperdoc. I decided to choose a topic that I wasn't very familiar, but that I could, potentially, have to teach depending on what teaching assignment I had in the future. So, that would be energy that is taught in 6th grade science. I constructed a hyperdoc that attempted to hit on each of the Bloom's taxonomy levels. Of course, the day after I finished it, I was listening to a podcast about teaching vocabulary in an NGSS classroom and the way that I structured the vocabulary was ALL WRONG! But, I think that's just a part of teaching. You try things and you figure out if it works or it doesn't work and then you make adjustments next time. In that spirit, I do not ...