Blog Journal 8

I have learned a lot of new skills while working with Diigo. In the previous class, we learned how to bookmark websites with Diigo that we deem useful in some way or another for oneself or fellow colleagues or groups. We also learned how to annotate a website using tools like highlighting and sticky notes. Most recently, we learned a new feature of Diigo called “Topics” which is when someone can start a topic, almost like a discussion question, and post it to a group where people can then provide their feedback on the topic. Using Diigo can be helpful in so many ways when it comes to collaborating with team members and even students! With an account, you can create specific public groups which then allows others to join. This can be a great way to start class discussions and also a great way to interact with fellow teachers and receive their input on certain topics. Another cool thing about Diigo is that not everything has to be public. You can make anything private, which can come in handy for personal efforts such as annotating websites for a research project or any material you would need to reference back to.

In regards to Bloom’s Taxonomy, one can use PowerPoint to support student learning at each level. The first level is remembering; one might use PowerPoint in this case to show/give information to students like key words or phrases to help them recall information. The second level is understanding, which is making sense of what one has learned and a teacher may use PowerPoint here in a way that relates the information back to student’s lives in ways they will understand like maybe through use of graphs to explain certain concepts. The third level is applying to make use of the knowledge in new ways. One could use PowerPoint for imagery in this case and relate learned information to similar concepts. The fourth and fifth levels are analyzing and evaluating which I think fall hand-in-hand. So using information given throughout the PowerPoint in forms of text, videos, images, graphs, etc… one can combine the learned information and discuss how it all relates to each other, which leads into the last level (sixth), creating. This can be done by putting an amount of information together in an innovative way by creating games or tutorials with PowerPoint to portray and share the knowledge altogether in one learning environment.

Technology is constantly changing and new information is always being presented within and for technology. Technology in the classroom is a major focus area in the aspect that the use of technology for education purposes within a classroom is developing into more common use. Teachers are expected to change with technology in regards to their techniques and the way they teach a lesson. Teachers should be informed and updated on how new technology works and the best ways to implement it within their classrooms. A website one could use to stay informed with emerging technology trends is Mass Technology Leadership Council. This organization is based out of Massachusetts and their mission is to “accelerate growth, innovation, and the development of an inclusive tech ecosystem” in particularly Massachusetts, but it is still a great website to check out when it comes to technology and education.