Blog Journal 3

• I know that being a teacher is a lot more work and responsibility than most people realize. There are some ELA technology standards that I am more comfortable with than others. I am prepared to teach Vocabulary: Use of Context Clues. This is a skill that I learned a long time ago back in elementary school. I remember it so well because it is so important for us new readers to be able to make an educated guess about what a word meant without having to stop reading and look it up or ask for help. I also feel very comfortable with Using Multiple Sources. In high school I learned a lot about the importance of knowing how to use someone else work as a supplement to your own and not claiming their work to be your own idea. A good way to have students be able to use a source such as an article but not plagiarize is have them read the article, then put it away and summarize it in their own words! I also learned a lot about how to check the validity of a website or a source. You don't want to write a whole research paper, and then find out that the information you used was incorrect. Lastly, I am very confident in my ability to Write to Explain or Inform. I know how to go step my step through things so that people who have no idea what I am talking about can follow along and learn something easily. Some things that I need to learn more about are more ways to Use Technology in the classroom. I know a lot of things about computers and technologies that teachers use, but even just in the last 3 weeks in this course I have learned about so many different ways to teach. The thing about technology is  that it is ever changing and something that you have to stay on top of constantly. Another thing I need to learn more about is how to Evaluate the Speakers Point of View. In order to be able to analyze the point that the author is trying to get across with their work, you need to understand who they are and how they are portraying themselves. Lastly, I need to learn more about the Use of Digital Media. I know that having videos, pictures and other visual displays helps people learn, but I struggle with finding a video that pertains 100% to what I am talking about so I am not wasting my students time. 
• I would love to try creating a flipped classroom for my students, this way they will be using videos and online sources to learn the lesson, and come in to class the next day to do homework and ask any questions they have. In order for this to be successful my students would need to master the digital citizenship guideline of being able to demonstrate the technology skills necessary to use and participate on the Web. If the internet and computers is foreign to one of my students I can't expect them to be able to go online at night and teach themselves. I would like to implement this into a 5th grade class because it is important for them to at least be able to know how to use the internet and technology for middle school. Because they are so young, I would make sure the lessons are short and easy to understand. It would be more about getting used to computers than learning the online lessons.
• While making the newsletter assignment, I learned some of the reasons why we would use some of the design elements such as "shading". When I saw that one of the sections needed to be shaded I was unsure exactly what it meant. By Googling it I learned not only that it helps emphasize and important part of text, but also how to do it! I liked how I was able to pretend that I was a teacher and was able to practice exactly what I will be doing one day. Next time, I will know all of the skills and design tricks already so I don't have to Google them and so I can streamline the process of making newsletters. I plan on being an elementary school teacher, so giving parents information about what their kids will be doing in school is a key to crucial communication. A monthly newsletter is the perfect way to communicate with even busy parents!
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