Blog Journal #8

 Website Design Assignment 

  I found the website assignment to be quite fun! Part of my degree is about Media production and technology, so the website I built wasn't too challenging, but overall enjoyable. I learned quite a bit of skill from this assignment, such as how to formulate the website to be geared towards parents, how to make separate pages, and much more! One of the newest skills that I learned was how to embed a link to open a new page. It was tricky at first, but with some help from the Digital Studio on campus, I found out how to have my website transfer the user to another website that I wanted them to explore. I really liked how we had full creativity to make our own teacher page and what to include in that! Although with that, I didn't enjoy trying to create my own fake lesson plans on the website. I think it is helpful to know, but I felt a little overwhelmed trying to structure the website to a grade level that I don't know a lot about. I think I would use a teacher website in the future when I become a teacher so that parents and students have access to information outside of the classroom. It's really important to communicate with everyone so that no one falls behind.

My website if you want to check it out! My teacher Website

Diigo and the Future

At first, Diigo was really complex to understand, since the system was hard to navigate. Although, I have found that it is really useful to use! One of the new skills I have acquired is that I can highlight or comment on any PDF or website I pull up on my computer and share it with the system. I think this is really helpful if I want to organize notes for classes or if I want to have a paper trail of the sites or information that I use later. I also found that you can respond to people's posts or what they are reading, which is an interesting feature for group assignments or other tasks. I think that in the future if I design group projects and the students need to work on research together, I would require they use Diigo to keep track of what everyone is finding and why they think it is useful for the project. The same goes for any situation in which I am working with team members so it is like a second, easier form of communication. We can all double-check the information that we send each other or post on a group account. For myself, I know I want to go to graduate school, so I think I will use this feature when I am developing my thesis or dissertation! It will allow me to keep track of everything that I am highlighting in one area! 

Technology and Teachers

Since the boom of technology, teachers have had to become more aware of current trends to implement in their classrooms. Adding different types of programs, websites, or applications can help students develop professionally and be prepared for later in life. For instance, adding an assignment that relates to students building PowerPoints is super useful when they go to high school, college, or their future work environments because it is expected to know. This is why it is important that teachers stay up to date on current technological trends that will help students grow professionally as well as aid them in higher education. This website I found details a list of technology trends present in classrooms and what devices are being used. It keeps an updated list for teachers to stay informed (it's also super easy to read!). The website can be found here.