Blog Journal 6

 The So I was looking through the Florida Standards on CPALMS and I found this one that really stands out: it says students should be able to use digital tools to create and communicate information effectively and solve problems, and it talks about like coding, digital safety, and applying tech in real world situations. Basically this standard is saying kids shouldn’t just know how to open Word or Google, they should know how to use technology to think and create stuff that actually matters and solve problems with it, not just click buttons. Do I feel prepared to implement this? I guess right now I feel like I understand the general idea but I’m not fully confident, I mean I know basic tools and like the sandbox event was cool, but having to teach kids how to use a bunch of different digital tools and keep it safe and meaningful like that seems like it’ll take more practice and honestly more real world teaching experience to be comfortable doing it in a classroom.

When I went into the CPALMS Educator Toolkit and clicked on the Grade 9-12 Digital Tools stuff I saw there’s lesson plans, student tutorials, and example projects tied to the standards that like go with the digital creation standard I picked. One that stuck out to me was this lesson plan for statistics for kids in high school that I saw was tech oriented and easy to break down which is basically perfect. It finds a nice way to balance things and because the resources are so expansive you can treat like a buffet. Overall not at all bad and something I would use, probably more than any other thing I've been introduced to so far.

Honestly I still have questions about how we’re supposed to balance teaching all this new tech stuff with like the regular content we already have to teach, because it feels like if I just spend all day on lessons about digital tools then I’m not actually teaching stats or geometry or algebra, you know? I’m curious how other teachers are planning to weave these standards seamlessly into their classrooms without it just being a tech day that happens once a week and getting behind on what appears to be a tight teaching schedule. So my discussion question would be: how can we make teaching tech standards like digital creation and problem solving part of everyday learning in every subject, instead of an extra thing on top of everything else we already have to do? Like is it supposed to be threaded through every lesson or is it okay to teach it as its own thing?

Blog Journal 5

 I have liked my blogging experience buy and large. I've never really had a diary or anything similar before so this has been a new experience but it's nothing to complain about. As for the pros this more informal style of communication allows me to better think through what's actually going through my head at a given moment instead of being caught up in professional jargon. When I think about cons not much comes to mind. I might say that I was a bit confused with designing the actual page itself but I've grown to appreciate how stylistically simple my blog page is specifically. 

My thoughts on using AI in education with more specifically this role of low level poetry is mixed. On one hand it is useful for creating a lesson plan and throwing ideas at a wall and creating a list that is comprehensive to think about everything. On the other hand I don't think it could reliably produce the actual poems themselves perfect as is because it is not tailored to what you need always. This makes it okay for things like lesson plans but not great when you're looking at the actual content of a lesson plan.

So that AI test was interesting for me. For the sake of the assignment I switched over to ChatGPT which I never use as I prefer Gemini and it tends to be more reliable. So I used GPT and it generated me something that I saw as good enough. But then the two kind of pushbacks I have is that it was very general with what it said to the point of not really being useful and the second thing is that it dropped the f bomb for no clear reason. I told it then to not swear and thankfully it fixed itself.

If I were to ever use AI in my classroom its use would be intentionally limited. When we look at in my example geometry AI can give you test questions but they will always be general and not tailor made and that will always be something you can't look past as an educator when you are trying to get kids to care. Also, if students see a teacher using AI they will think it's okay to use to and the way they use it is to put it bluntly mostly not okay. So if I had to use AI it would at most be used for lesson planning if I really needed to just throw ideas at a wall.

Blog Journal 4

 At that tech sandbox event last week I tried out a couple of things. While a lot of it was fun and good for certain age levels I would say one thing in particular caught my eye that being the big screen. I know it sounds simple but because it is interactive and easy to use and connected to the internet it makes it so versatile. With that I could make lessons or do group discussion games, or use it as a more detailed whiteboard and the sky is the limit. But other stuff like the 3d printing looked cool as well and could have some uses depending on whatever you are doing though I'm not too knowledgeable on it.

I've been using them and I must admit the PLN I first laid out isn't indicative of what it looks like now. Personally the one I've been connecting with more is LinkedIn. Which makes sense because I just got put on the most important business competition college consulting case so my life is currently more centered around that. But the one that I still do use as a PLN is Canvas and more specifically this class. Talking to my peers and their thoughts on subjects has been very beneficial and something that I have appreciated dearly. 

It depends on what you mean by digitally rich or poor. Starting out I didn't come from the best home and my public school did not have much starting out. The gifted program did but I never qualified. But then in middle school I switched schools to a public school and they had a huge renovation that kind of made it look like a color coded prison and started using laptops. And ever since then I have used technology and even more so after I got a bring home laptop after I had moved to Florida halfway through 7th grade and got close with applications like Word.

Blog Journal 3

When we talk about copyright and fair use, I honestly realized I had been way more casual about it than I probably should be. As a future teacher, I think I would try to be really intentional about modeling good habits, like actually crediting sources on slides, worksheets, and handouts instead of just pulling images or text from Google and calling it a day. For students, I’d want them creating their own projects (presentations, posters, videos, etc.) and also learning how to properly cite what they use, even if it feels small. While morally I might not believe in patents and copyrights, it's the world we live in and setting a good example for the students for them to follow that is better for anyone. On top of that, not copying other people will make the work I give more tailor made to my class and to put it bluntly just a whole lot better overall.

One issue with technology I am very concerned with is student privacy. I had recently read an article about this school in 2009 or 2010 that had used their camera in the school laptops to secretly take pictures of students in the privacy of their own homes after school hours automatically without any prior consent. Although far less serious, I want to make sure they have privacy both from each other and whatever sketchy site they might go on to try and do whatever. On my end, I’d avoid requiring students to create personal accounts using their full names whenever possible and would rely more on school-managed logins.

That newsletter assignment thing was a very good refresher. Usually I don't use text columns or format them so fluidly so it was an interesting change of pace. Still I'm happy with how it turned out and hopefully I got it right. One thing I will say though is I personally felt on some level my design was a bit basic and bland. I have trouble knowing what is easy to read and balancing that with nice to look at so in the future I'll work on being better and more creative with my designs while still being legible.

"Apple computer" by gabrielsaldana is licensed under CC BY 2.0.