Digital Citizenship inside Secondary Education

Sources

Learning to Unlearn

Learning to Unlearn is very effective but it is a long and painful process. You must first learn the subject, unlearn it, and then relearn it so that you can make sure you haven't missed any information.To make sense of new learning, we relearn and construct new knowledge that improves practice.  In teaching you have to unlearn that we have to be experts in our classrooms and that leading is only for those with titles.

Before you can do any of that you have to first learn HOW to unlearn. Learning to unlearn is very difficult and some people just don't get it. But you are not alone. There are many educators out there that are more than willing to help people learn how to unlearn.

Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

I think that Interactive Whiteboards are useful but not essential in a modern day classroom. I honestly think that it really depends on the teacher. I've had some teachers who have not used it correctly and it seems to be a waste having it in the classroom. I've also seen it be used very effectively as well.
Interactive Whiteboards play a major role in differentiation in the classroom. They provide multiple ways for teaching students with different learning styles. With it's ability to go on the web, play games, and interactive activities it can entertain students and keep them interested about what they are learning. According to a study conducted by Marzano Research Laboratory and funded by Promethean smart boards do increase point gain by a decent amount!

The only problem with these IWB is the amount of money you need to set aside for a number of them. Are they worth all the money? My opinion is yes, they are. It's many uses far outweigh the cost of each IWB. With their almost limitless gadgets they help teachers create interactive  lesson plans tha
t keep their students interested.

Differentiation

Differentiation, to my understanding is simply providing instruction in a variety of ways to meet the needs of a variety of learners. I really didn't know what differentiation in the classroom was until this semester but after learning what it was I realized how much it is used in teaching. Thinking back, I didn't see differentiation in my classrooms until about high school.

Technology plays a major role in differentiation. I think that technology makes it a lot easier for teachers to differentiate their lessons. For example, with inventions like the power point and many others teachers are able to easily educate their students, however their learning styles may be.  Technology has also helped teachers find out what kind of learning styles their students have.

Twitter and Me

When I first heard that we had to make a twitter account I was not excited at all. Upon making my twitter account it asked me to 'follow' people. So I typed in all of the famous people and bands I knew and 'followed' a couple of them. Following the first day using twitter I was still a little hesitant about it, but after that I started to warm up to it. After using twitter to answer quiz questions I started to realize how useful twitter can really be.

I have discovered that twitter isn't only for posting silly tweets, although that may be fun. Twitter can be used to share knowledge and communicate with people from across the world. Twitter isn't only used by media infused teenagers but it's used by professionals in education! Following some of these educators is a great way to learn how new technologies are affecting classrooms.

What you put into a tweet is limited due to the set 140 characters. This makes it sometimes difficult for tweeters to tweet exactly what they want to say. This doesn't stop them though. People use twitter to ask questions about certain matters and ask people to 'Retweet it' if they agree. This gets information out quickly and effectively. There are hardly no downsides to Twitter. It is very easy to use and very easy to share and gather information.

The Final Frontier

I was first paired up in a group with two other people. Jessica Franklin and Jessica Smith were my group member. We had to create a presentation using Google Drive. Our presentation was to be based on the article 'Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs: The Final Frontier in Our Quest for Technology Integration?' by Peggy A. Ertmer.  I thought the article was very fascinating. It went into why technology is useful in classrooms and why teachers use it or don't use it in their classrooms. In summary the article addresses teachers pedagogical  beliefs and their technology practices. It goes into what teachers beliefs are, how they are formed, and how they can be changed. It also explains why some teachers are more reluctant to introduce technology in their classrooms.

The collaboration was a total success. At first I was a little confused about the whole Google Drive but as we began working it became easier and easier. Our group got together and assigned certain areas for each one of us. We all agreed that we would try to get on Google Drive around the same time. When we finished our slides we began commenting on what we could improve on. Google Drive was a very useful tool and we accomplished our presentation in decent time and we all had equal parts that we completed. In our presentation we focused on three main parts. Teachers nervous to use technology, Why use technology in the classroom, and How it is used in the classroom.

All About John Huey

My brother and I

Hello! My name is John Taylor Huey. I was born on April 20,1994. I am currently studying Secondary Education with a focus on English. I started thinking about becoming a teacher in 11th grade. I had two teachers that inspired me to become a teacher.

I believe that technology helps improve the quality of learning. Technology has helped students learn in many ways. They can check facts and look up things they don't know on search engines. Students can now just go on their computers instead of looking in a library for a book about a subject.

I feel that technology in teaching is a great thing. Teachers now can use technology to help their students get a better understanding of what they are to learn. Powerpoints are a great way to teach because they give the students a visual aid as the teacher lectures on the subject.

Overall, I think technology has helped a lot with both learning and teaching. My believe about teaching is that it prepares students to become functioning adults when they enter college and move on to get their job.