Summary of Learning

I chose to use the tool Mindmeister.  Mindmeister is a mind mapping software tool built with modern web technologies.  Mindmeister is a great way to collaborate with others, brainstrom and put your thoughts down. The reason I choose this is because I wanted to try something new and play around with it.  It was perfect for the Summary of Learning Project because I could make it how I wanted with images, videos and customize fonts and colors.  I also got to put all my learnings from this class in a presentation form that is engaging and something I can use in the future.

The biggest take-aways from this class was learning and playing with all the technology tools that are out there.  The few that I really focused on was word clouds, voice thread, blogger, twitter, piktochart and mindmeister. When I first started this class I did not know how to use any of these technologies and now I can use these in my future classroom and my social life as well.

I plan on using a lot of the technologies that we learned in this class for my futute classroom.  It will be a great way to get the students engaged and interested in what we are learning.  Now days this world seems to revolve around technology so our students need to be exposed to the different things out there.  I can't wait to share all the ideas I have gathered from this class!

Embeded is my Mindmeister that shows what I learned from this class this semester!  I hope you enjoy it because I know I did!

Week 4 PLN on TPACK

This week was all on TPACK in the classroom.  What is TPACK?  TPACK stands for tecnological, pedagogical, content knowledge.  Technology knowledge is the knowledge about standard technologies such as books, chalk, blackboard as well as more advanced technologies such as the interenet and digital video.  This involves the skills required to operate particular technologies.  You would need the knowledge of operating systems, computer hardware and the ability to use standard software such as word preocessors, spreadsheets, internet browers and email.  Pedagogical knowledge is deep knowledge of the process and practices or methods of teaching, learning and how it ecompasses overall educational purposes, values and aims.  This is a form of knowledge that is involved in all issues of student learning, classroom management, lesson plan development, implementation and student evaluation.  Content knowledge is the knowledge about the actual subject matt that is to be learned or taught.  Teachers must know and understand the subjects they teach.  Putting these all together it is the existence, components and capabilites of various techbologies that are used in teaching and learning settings, this are interactive tools.  In my future classroom I really want to be able to use technology in my classroom as much as I can.  I would like to use tablets, interactive disaplays, presentation tools and computer/laptops.  It will be a great way to get the students engaged and they will also learn so much since today it seems everything relies on technology.  Not only do I want my students to use technology I want to utilize it as well in teaching a lesson and activities.  This week was very interesting to me because I had no idea what TPACK stood for and how you could use it in the classroom.  I feel like it was a ton of information at once so I would like to explore more on it and get more ideas on how I can use it in my future classroom.