Tech Creation

For this blog I was instructed to produce my own tech inspired creations as the title suggests.  I have always wanted to create my own memes and now I finally had an excuse to do just that so needless to say I was pretty excited about this one.  Let me point out that it turns out making memes is actually pretty complicated but it is a really fun activity to engage in.  When making memes I try to really get into character and it really frustrates me when I get stumped because I feel so familiar with many of the characters I’ve seen in memes that I always felt it would come so natural but it really takes a lot of thought to put together a witty or well put together meme that matches words to a photo.  I will definitely try to implement a lesson that utilizes the power of memes and the critical thinking skills associated with the skill of making memes.

As for the memes you can see my mind was all over the place.  The first one deals with my frustration with Hollywood only appearing to make super hero movies now a days.  This is far from a big deal but I thought of it as I worked with the meme template so I went with it.

My second meme was inspired simply by Will Ferrell who is one of if not my favorite comedians in film.  I just tried to get into character and yeah I’m pretty sure this is something Buddy the elf would say.

Finally I had to do a SpongeBob “how tough am I” inspired meme and well it appeals to how I work through my essays.  I am sure I am not alone.

Again I really enjoyed this blog posting and I hope you did as well.  Feel free to let me know your thoughts, I know I can do better but I was pretty satisfied with these three fun memes.  Also if you’d like to share some of your own memes that you have created also feel free to leave them as well!

Scrubs, More Than a Comedy

If there is one thing that I have time for in between homework assignments and whatever else I do in life watching TV shows with my girlfriend is one of them. First I must clarify, I do not find myself to be lazy but when I want to relax especially to take a break from life I just sit back and watch a TV series with. I am a relaxing pro. Life does not allow this to happen that often and I could not possibly sit and binge watch as there is this thing called a sun and fun things tend to happen when one decides to go out in the sun. Alright enough justifying I think you guys get the point.

Today I just wanted to talk about the show I am currently watching which is Scrubs. I’m not going to assume everyone has watched or even heard of this show but I found out that my girlfriend had not watched it and I figured she would really like it because it is hilarious. This is only the second series that we have watched together and this one is much different than the first show we watched together which was Breaking Bad which can be funny like Scrubs but in the chemistry teacher turning into a drug lord kind of way. I love that I am able to re-watch Scrubs with someone who has never seen it before because I watched this years ago with my dad and I thought I would never watch it again. The nostalgia hits me in every episode and it just really serves as a relaxer for me.

As for the show itself, I think the writing is diverse, creative, and absolutely hilarious as noted before. In my opinion the acting is superb as well and this show does an excellent job at building characters. I will say that the show at times repeats many of its set-ups and jokes but I feel that at times repetition just makes you appreciate how creative the writing is in that they can make you laugh with basically the same thing just by tweaking it just slightly. On a side note, yes this is how I tend to watch things at my age now, like I am a critic for the New York Times. I especially love how this show is highly relatable at least for me. I find similarities between myself in the main character and his mentor which is interesting for me that I see myself in both ways but it works for me.

This parody of Grey’s Anatomy also catches my attention because just as well as this show hits on comedy it can equally pluck your heart strings.  Many life issues that we all deal with are taken on in the context of the hospital Sacred Heart and I feel that many issues are portrayed and experienced by the characters in extremely relatable and realistic manners.  They touch on death numerous times, stress, marriage, divorce, loneliness, friendship, and pretty much everything that us humans have to deal with.  The balance of comedy with meaningful life issues makes this show very fun for my girlfriend and I to get to know each other better as we use the show sometimes as a catalyst to talk about many of these themes and its just really interesting.

So far I must say this blog has lived up to my attempted play on words with the whole stream of consciousness idea where I just talk about whatever is on my mind because truly this post is random I’ll admit. For those that take the time to listen to my rants thank you and for those of you who have watched Scrubs and know who Dr. Cox is you may appreciate my rants but we all know who the king of rants is. Whether you have seen Scrubs or not I left a video that we all can enjoy that will make you understand why I choose to write about a series. Enjoy and thanks again for reading!

Tech Exploration Blog Post:

For those of you not in my class what I am about to write is an assignment that at first glance appears to gauge where I stand in regards to using technology in the classroom. There are six questions and some of them have images that I cannot quite copy to this post. Even before starting this I see where I stand with technology so just bare with me if you could.

1. Consider the terms in the Wordle below and these questions: Are you a digital native, visitor, or resident? How do you live your tech life?

Unfortunately I do not know a majority of and potentially all of the words in the Wordle below. This may have to do with how I use technology in my life. After looking at what it means to be a digital native, visitor, or resident I definitely feel that I am a digital visitor. I tend to be very specific in using technology using it for very specific reasons and I do not tend to use technology to connect with others outside of social media that I barely post to anymore. I use technology to navigate through my classes, check my e-mail, pay my bills, complete papers and presentations for homework, research topics, keep up to date with topics of interests, and play video games. I do use technology everyday but outside of a few homework assignments my technology usage is geared towards entertainment. In the future I am sure I will venture off into being more adventurous as a teacher using technology to enhance instruction in my classroom for the new generation of digital natives but for now the words on the Wordle do not mean much for me as I do not recognize them outside of being useful websites possibly to aid teachers.

2. Tech Tools to Enhance Student Learning: Visit each site. Consider some of the tools that I have used with my students. (These are not all of them just a sample.) Think about how you might use each one to reach out to students, parents, or the community. Choose one and write about it.

After checking out these various websites I thought about how I would realistically be able to use these tools. VoiceThread stood out to me as a way in which I could take documents and add me to the side explaining the documents as I mark them. I felt that the checking understanding websites like the Socratic website were also appealing to me but VoiceTHread I feel would be most effective in reaching out to students, parents, and possibly the community. To be honest a website like VoiceThread is something that I have had little to no experience with so learning how to operate this technology would be challenging but I could see the benefits of using a site like this especially if I taught an online course. One way I would try to use this site is by posting on my teacher page that I notice many schools have as a way for other parents or members of the community to get a glimpse of an example of how I plan to teach concepts to their children. Or I could also see this website being helpful in explaining in a more engaging manner the syllabus or expectations of the class or the rubric/expectations of an assignment. Thinking really outside the box I could also see how this website could be helpful in creating a lesson for students to follow on a day that I am not in class for whatever a reason that would be simple enough for a substitute to follow. This would force me to be more creative and learn how to use media recording devices but I think I would be able to figure it out over time.

3. Authentic Tasks for Students: Here are a list of a few tools that you can use with students to write virtually. Why is this important? What are the benefits? The risks? Write about your favorite discoveries.

Virtual writing is essential because technology is the median that students of today use to do everything including writing. I would still argue for the importance of actually still writing with a paper and pencil but I can also make an argument that this is slowly becoming obsolete. Personally I hope that the art of writing on paper does not go away but at the same time I feel that what I value in writing is the ideas of what someone is writing irregardless of whether it is typed or written. I also feel that giving students opportunities to write virtually makes writing more enjoyable for them as it can be done in a number of ways as seen through the various websites. The risks of having students writing digitally are that they are on a computer and being on a computer comes with the normal risks associated with using technology such as going on dangerous sites. Also becoming too reliant on digital writing as a teacher could be a risk because not every school has the capabilities to have all students engage in digital writing at school and/or at home. Also virtual writing could frustrate students if they find the websites/apps too difficult to navigate as there often times are learning curves for each website and app.

Taking a look at the various web tools available some of my favorite discoveries were the meme creator, PowToon, and Storybird. It is surprising that with as many memes that I have seen I have never searched for a good meme creating website and through skimming through these websites I can say that I found one that even has templates available of the most popular memes. I have always thought that having my students make their own memes would be a very positive writing experience that will help them make writing fun and relate-able to their interests as memes are very popular. PowToon caught my attention not so much as an activity for my students though I am sure that could be possible; rather I thought using this website could allow me to create interesting cartoon like presentations using characters to help explain difficult topics. This could not only be very funny but memorable for my students. Storybird was by far my favorite because it serves a multitude of purposes in my eyes. The only downside to me was that StoryBird seems to be geared towards younger students although my middle school students could benefit from this program that gives students inspiration to write various lengths of writing and poetry by using art to spark their imagination.

4. What Lies Ahead? Check out what is going on in the teacher-tech world. Review Jane Hart’s Slideshare Top Tech Tools for Educators 2015 and see what teachers are using around the world. Write about what you notice about the tools that educators are using around the world. Here is the link: http://www.slideshare.net/janehart/top-100-tools-for-learning-2015-52992784

Interestingly enough I recognized a lot of the most used tech tools that educators used in 2015. At the same time it does not surprise me that many of the tools are recognizable to me because I am still a highly active student and use many of these or have seen teachers mention or use many of these tools. It is refreshing to see many tech tools like the Microsoft office tools, google maps, youtube, social media sites, and even the dreaded Wikipedia being used by other educators as I too plan to use all of these and more. My learning has been reinforced as I noticed many of the sites that I just covered in the previous questions such as Wordle, Kahoot, and others. Looking at many of the tech tools that I was not familiar with I noticed that they a majority of them just allow one to manipulate information, data, and common teaching practices to make them more modern. Not only more modern but many of these websites add a convince to the instruction process by taking out a lot of the busy work or by actually giving one the means to do something like manipulate and use media.

5. Review this digital tool version of Bloom’s Taxonomy below. Based on what you have done today and what you understand about Bloom’s Taxonomy, explain what teachers need to consider as they integrate technology?

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide for tech tool usage by teachers the first thing that teachers need to do is to become familar with the available digital tools. Yet knowing that the tools exist simply is not enough. Teachers need to then research the various tools and think about how they can apply to their interests, standards, and classroom. After teachers do their homework they need to actually use technology in the classroom and not be scared to do so because the only way to truly know if something works for one teacher in the classroom is to try it. Through experimentation teachers will begin to know what works well for them and their students and what does not work so well. I think I may have tweaked Bloom’s Taxonomy a little bit but ultimately what I get from this question is to make sure and do my part in researching the available options out their and then experiment and create lessons that use the various tech tools to enhance my lessons. Technology can be intimidating especially for those who grew up without it but it is something that teachers need to try as I feel the benefits of using technology outweigh the negatives. We are teaching a different kind of student now a days and thus need to adapt the tools we use to reach these students.

6. Based on your exploration what will you try next?

I can honestly say that my exploration of these various tech tools was enjoyable for me. In my graduate studies I have explored various tech tools a couple of times and each time I feel like I build my repertoire of tools and become just a bit more confident with using technology in the classroom. I still do not plan to teach for about another year or two so I do not think that much will change in how much I plan to use these tools over that time period but when I finally do get to that point I know that I will do my best to recall all the various groups of tools such as pre-writing, publishing, and inforgraphics and then research the groups in detail seeing what is realistic to use in my classroom. I use the word realistic because I did notice how many of the websites cost money to use and I will have to weigh the options of just how important using some of these tools are because money tends to always be tight for me. In addition to exploring further in the future I will be on the look out for new and creative tools along the way that catch my interest. Plus I have heard many teachers praise the many ideas that they get from using Pintrest so I may look into that to explore other tech tools that could be of use. Most importantly I plan to not be scared of using tech tools but I felt that way even before this blog posting. This did serve as a refresher and reminder as to the importance and practicality of using tech tools in the class.

Thank you for reading!