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= ADWOA KEAMBIROIRO'S ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO =



Introduction
My name is Adwoa "Nisha" Keambiroiro from ISTC 301.103 and the following is my electronic portfolio. I am a junior at Towson University and major in English Literature with a Secondary Education track. Before I began this class I found technology discouraging and a difficult task. Now that I have taken this class I feel more comfortable with the technologies I will possibly be using in the classroom. I feel that technology is useful to teachers and students. However, there is a healthy medium that we as teachers must be aware of and not abuse. The following is an example of each of the software programs that I have learned about in ISTC 301 and the ways in which educators can utilize them in the classroom.

What Instructional Technology Means To Me
I believe that we live in an evolving world which has evolved into being surrounded by technology. As a future teacher this is something that I cannot get away from. Although I am a digital immigrant, I must accept and adapt to this ever changing world. My students will know everything there is to know about technology and because of this they will think differently and look at things differently. I as a teacher must be willing to understand and compromise with my students so that they are willing to learn. Does this mean that I believe that every classroom should have computers at every desk and a smart board in every room? No. It means that I should be willing to incorporate technology into my lesson plans and know when it is useful and when it is not necessary. When I began this class I had no idea of how I could incorporate technology into an English high school lesson, but I have seen many programs and online sites that will be useful to me. I will definitely use software programs like, webspiration.com (for outlining), a blogging site (for journaling), and podcast, and movie maker (for students creativity and interpretation of readings). I do not believe that technology is the most fundamental part of education, but I am open and willing to use it in my classroom. By using technology my students can be more open minded to learning and it will help students that may be struggling. Technology in the classroom is especially important to students with special needs, because with the advancements in Universal Designs for Learning, students are able to learn on the same level, in the same classroom and not be held back because of boundaries. Even students without special needs can learn how they want to learn because technology in the classroom has opened many doorways for every student, and no one student learns the same. Technology is useful in the classroom, but there should be a healthy medium between technology and curriculum.


 * // Wordle //**

Wordle.net is a great resource for students and teachers. It creates endless, creative, and beautiful collages for students, teachers, and parents to view. Simply type in key words then submit and words, colors, and images appear right before your eyes. Wordle is a good software program for students who are visual learners because they see the words on the screen and it can help them to connect the information mentally. An example for a classroom activity for English: Ask the students to describe in three words their opinion about a book they have just read for class and enter it into Wordle. Next the teacher submits the words and students can see their opinions in words and colors on the screen. This activity uses Wordle as a class assessment because the teacher can view student's opinions about the book and see if they read. Wordle can be sent to others to view, so a teacher can send students works to parents or other classrooms. Below you can view an example of a Wordle that I have created. media type="custom" key="7735073"

//**Diigo**//

Diigo is a great way for educators to share resources, such as online education programs and websites. Teachers can make an account which they can choose to share with certain people or everyone. Diggo is similar to a blog, however, it is a unique communication tool. One example of how teachers can use this in the classroom with students is with a possible research project. Students would look at the teachers library and view different links that teachers have provided for the project. Also, if students find other useful websites for the research project they can add that onto their library so that their classmates and teachers can view. Diigo is a useful tool where students have the option to research at their own pace. The information is there for them to use and view different sites. For an example of how the library works and students and teachers can use each others resources view my Diigo account. The class was to create a list of educational websites and share with each other and Professor Smith. Classmates can click on my link and even upload it to their own page. This is a great way for students and teachers to stay connected and have ample amounts of resources by pooling resources. [|Diigo]

//**Blogging**//

Blogging is a useful tool for a future English teacher. I will use blogging in my classroom for my student's journaling. Each day at the beginning of class I will choose a topic and have my students go into their blog account and journal for ten minutes. This is a great assessment tool to see the progression of my students writing. Also, this a great activity to begin class because it gets the student's creative juices running. I can also use blogging for short home assignments. For example, if I wish for students to briefly summarize a chapter in a book or an in class essay, I can look on their blog to read their report. Blogging is good for students because they can relate to the staying connected aspect and typing which comes naturally to them. For students who have a problem with writing, blogging can be a tool for me to use with them or assignments where students must write for an extended period of time. For ISTC 301 we used blogspot.com for written assignments. Students were asked a question for the week and we were to answer the questions by posting a blog to our blog page. Check out my blog page titled "Nisha's Land:"

[|Nisha's Land]


 * Creating Concept Maps using tools like //Inspiration/Webspiration//**

Concept maps are a good tool for organizing, teachers can use concept maps for lesson planning. Students can use concept maps for outlining or brainstorming. I will be using Webspiration.com for by final lesson plan in ISTC. The lesson plan I have created integrates technology and outlining. Students will use Webspiration to outline an example of a research paper. They will use the diagram outline. On it they will put the main idea, and three sub ideas, by using the diagram outline on Webspiration they can visualize the process of outlining. Before the use of technology to create outlines students would have difficulty with formatting the outline, software programs like Inspiration and Webspiration are helpful tools that don't enable but support a student in understanding the process of outlining. Unfortunately, I am unable to attach the assignment "What is Educational Technology?" because I no longer have an account with Inspiration and my concept map was lost. The assignment was to create a concept map that explains educational technology. Below is an example of a concept map using Webspiration.

media type="custom" key="7762697"

//**Wikispaces**//

I am currently using Wikispaces to create my electronic portfolio. I have used Wikispaces to do multiple projects in my ISTC 301 class. This is a program that gives you the ability to communicate with multiple people to create forms such as the one that I am creating now. With Wikispaces you can use formatting similar to word processor, you can add links for others to connect to, as well as widgets for people to view projects that you have created with other programs. As a group people can stay connected through discussion board. You can view when a person from a group has edited the page. Others can also go into the Wikipage you have created and make comments through discussion. The only people who can edit or view your page are people that you allow. In the classroom I would assign Wikispaces for students to use to create a project, such as a report about a book. They can write a summary about the book, discuss the author, download links and files pertinent to their report. As an assigned group students can communicate with one another through the discussion board and edit the page as often as they would like. For the teacher I would be able to monitor the student's performance and see who is participating through the history. I can also have other students look at the different group's projects and make conscious, and useful critiques. Attached are two in class assignments that two of my groups had to create.

Learning Theory Project Wiki Internet Safety and Ethics Project

//**Podcasting**//

Podcasting is a software program used for recording. Students can use Podcasting for recording thoughts, ideas, or experiments held in class. For students with dyslexia for example, they can use the Podcasting program to make a report that they might find difficult to do with pen and paper. It can also be a more exciting tool than old fashion book reporting. Students can be given a short story or poem and use Podcasting to reinvent and summarize the main idea, through song, simple summarization, or a mock of the poem itself. I used the program Audacity to explain the appropriate role of technology in education. After the recording, you are able to save the file as an mp3 and label the name of the Album and track, just like a CD or MP3 recording. Podcasting is fun for students to use and a useful and easy evaluation tool for a teacher. Attached is my Podcast using Audacity. media type="file" key="01.mp3" width="240" height="20"

//**Movie Maker**//

Creating movies is always exciting for young people because it's your imagination come to life. The program that I used in the making of the short film assigned in class was Windows Movie Maker, which is a fairly easy program to use. We were to make a film that showed what UDL means. Students could use images from online or from their own personal cameras. We could also record music or narrate ourselves. The class could also use special tools such as video effect to fade in and out and blur as well as video transitions for horizontal lines, and circles. Students could also create their own opening and closing credits. I will use movie maker in my classroom for students to express themselves in a creative way. For example students can recreate a scene from a Shakespeare play to show that they understood the meaning of the play. Instead of writing a generic book report students can use movie maker as a resource to show how they interpreted the play. Below is my film "What is UDL?" that I created for ISTC 301. I used YouTube in order to embed it onto my portfolio, my movie file was too large to attach. media type="youtube" key="cU7zldq3ASE?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

//**Google docs**//

Google docs is a program that is useful to teachers. You can do many things using Google docs, such as spreadsheets, Power Point, word documents and not only can you access Google documents from anywhere but you can share with others. Teachers can use Google docs to create assessments for students, send questionnaires, permission slips, or monthly updates to parents. Similar to Wikispaces my group was able to create a Power Point on Google docs which any one of us could access through our Google docs. Google documents can be emailed and shared or not shared depending. This is an easy way to assess students progress, by creating a form in Google docs and asking three to four questions about the lesson given the day before. Students submit the mini assessment to the teacher, which the teacher can look over to get a better understanding of the lesson and the student's progress. Teachers can also assign students to work in groups to create a presentation using Power Point which they can collaborate on and edit through Google docs. Following are examples of a Power Point and a questionnaire using Google docs.

[|Preparing for your semester] [|googledocppt]

//**Web 2.0 Tools**//

The class was told to create a lesson plan that incorporates a Web 2.0 tool into the lesson. A Web 2.0 tool is anything that is tag-able, embeddable, and shareable. My lesson plan taught students how to interpret different forms of poetry and I used YouTube.com and Blogspot.com as my Web 2.0 tools. In the classroom I will use Web 2.0 tools (blogging/youtube) because it is important for students to share with one another their works in class. Web 2.0 tools are useful for students and teachers because it keeps us all connected and the students are able to connect with something they understand a lot about. They are creative ways of using technology to teach and draw the digital native in to the lesson. Below is my Web 2.0 lesson plan and a link for the many examples of Web 2.0 tools. [|Go2Web20]