[EME2040-Fall 2019] Casey Higgins

   Data collection and surveys will be a great addition to my classroom. I aspire to be a special education teacher in the future and, while I am not sure which grade I will be teaching yet, I will be able to utilize this technology with students of all ages. A large portion of teaching students with special needs involves teaching them life skills so I could theoretically use this technology to teach my more advanced students how to take surveys. The survey aspect may not be as useful for teaching my younger students, but that is where data collection plays a roll. I will collect data on my students with Excel and organize it into tables to track the progress of my students of all ages.    In reviewing some of the blog posts of my fellow classmates, I have learned a great deal of information. Of the blogs that I reviewed, Alyssa DePury's post on Piktochart really drew my attention. In this post she speaks of a program that she used in the process of creating her fi...

    I think that Flipped Classrooms are great and are very beneficial to students that are enrolled in them. They provide students with more opportunities to learn both in and out of the classroom. Additionally, they are a great way to continue to hold discussions and share ideas when situations prevent actual class from being held. An example of this is when our teacher was at a conference for a week and, instead of cancelling class, we participated in a number of online activities that still taught us. I will be likely to recommend flipped classrooms to friends.    OER resources? More like OER you ready to learn?!?! hahaha. Get it? Because it sounds like "are"... and you're learning... funny stuff! Anyways, Open Education Resources are really useful. They provide educators with a plethora of free resources to be used in the educational instruction of their students. As many people know, teaching is not an extremely lucrative career in a financial sense so having t...

Diigo provides a place where students and classes can collaboratively share data with each other in one specific and easy to find location. It allows users to highlight and comment on sections of text that they deem important and want others to see. This is useful for when students are all learning about a specific topic and find information that they would like to share with their peers because it makes it easy to find. Diigo would be very useful in group projects that involve collaboratively gathering data for one specific topic that the group shares. Likewise, Diigo could be used for similar situations professionals when teams are working on assignments or projects together. Power Point can be used to create a number of games such as jeopardy and I would use that in the classroom to encourage my students to remember information to answer the questions and win points. To dig deeper, I would talk about each fact after the question was answered to give my students a deeper understand...

Link to Voice Thread presentation: https://voicethread.com/share/13207287/ For this Independent Learning Project I decided to focus on the "Design" aspect. After hearing such great things about the program Piktochart I decided to check it out. It took me no time at all to figure out how to use it. After arriving at the site, choosing what to create, and then selecting a layout and theme, I was off! It was not long until I had completely finished what I was creating; an announcement for the Halloween party that "my class" would be having this week. I found this site extremely easy to navigate and would definitely use it again and recommend it to others. https://create.piktochart.com/output/42036458-untitled-infographic

Using Twitter in this class has proved to be such a great learning experience for me in the sense of increasing my knowledge of tools that I will be able to utilize in the classroom. I have learned a great deal about using Twitter as a form of communication. It also allows me to follow accounts that keep me up to date on educational news. I have yet to have any issues with using Twitter for this class. In fact, I would not say that there are any cons to this yet other than when I occasionally forget Tweet twice a week. I loved the Web Design assignment! As is to be expected with any project, I had no intention of enjoying this project in the slightest. However, I had so much fun with it. I ended up spending so much more time on it than I expected to because I wanted to make it just right. I suppose this could be considered a con, but I really did not mind. I could definitely still add to it to make it better, but I am pleased with my end result. This will be so very important to k...

In my Introduction to Education class I am required to observe in a classroom. The classroom I have been assigned to is Ms. Cotton’s fourth grade class at FSUS. In the directory on the FSUS website, all teachers appear to have a website and, because I am observing Ms. Cotton, I decided to take a look at hers. On this site, she provided a brief paragraph about herself and, on two separate links, there were descriptive overviews of the two courses she was teaching (fourth grade social studies and language arts). I am not the biggest fan of using technology in the classroom such as Smart Boards when I believe a standard white board would be more than sufficient. However, I believe that there are many aspects of technology that would certainly improve the productivity of learning in the classroom. For example, I definitely intend on using technology to develop a website of my own to allow parents to have a deeper understanding of what will be/is being taught in my class. Additional...

To be completely honest, I was not the biggest fan of Diigo when we were first introduced to it in class. After starting to become more familiar with it, however, I really did start to appreciate it. Not only does Diigo allow us to bookmark the resources that we find useful, but it also gives us the option to highlight and mark the information that will be of the most use to us. I definitely thought Diigo added an extra unnecessary step to the process of doing research at the beginning, but now I see that it really just provides more organization. I will likely use Diigo for years to come. Blogging for me has been an overall pretty positive experience for me. While it is true that I sometimes do not wish to complete my blogging assignments, I always feel better about myself when I do. They provide me with a means of reflection in regard to what I am learning in this class and how I feel about it. Additionally, blogging has taught me a number of things. Most importantly, I now under...

I believe that I downloaded Twitter when I was a freshman and high school and, while I certainly have gone through many phases of using and then not, I still use it today. I strictly followed my friends and family when I first downloaded it, but as time went on, I discovered a new way to use it… To follow random comedy accounts! I find these extremely beneficial because they make me laugh like crazy and my primary use for Twitter is a positive form of entertainment so that works out well for me. Twitter will likely benefit me in the future if I am ever in a position that requires me to give statements or keep others up to date on my opinions. According to Google the definition of the digital divide is, “the gulf between those who have ready access to computers and the Internet, and those who do not”. This could pose a few issues in the classroom once I am a teacher. For starters, if I am to utilize more advanced technology in the classroom there is the possibility that not all of m...

https://voicethread.com/share/13067830/ For this Independent Learning Project I decided to focus on the Participation aspect. To do this, I went to Lynda.com tutorials and found a course through LinkedIn about Sustainability Strategies in the business world. There were multiple sections in this course and, at the end of each section, I would have to take a quiz. Likewise, I was required to take a final exam once I was finished with the course, on which I scored a 100%. I learned a great deal about how businesses incorporate many different strategies to accomplish a good rate of sustainability, found this project extremely interesting, and cannot wait to share this new knowledge with others.

To most directly answer the question, I would feel MOST qualified to teach the ELA technology standards that are taught in elementary school. However, I believe that I would not have much difficulty teaching the standards that need to be met at the middle school level. I would first need to familiarize myself with some of the programs that are to be taught in the course that I do not yet know how to use. As for the high school level standards, I would be at a complete loss with some of the content and be very helpful with other components. I might struggle with introducing mind mapping technology as I have no prior experience with that but would certainly be able to help with integrating digital media and identifying patterns of word change. First of all, I would like to state how impressed I am with this website. I did not realize that sites as helpful as this existed. Not only are does it offer assistance with curriculum and lesson plans, but it also offers students a seemingly e...

I, personally, have seen Microsoft Word utilized in a plethora of ways throughput my time in the education system. For myself, I use this program for just about every essay I write and most other assignments that I complete as well. In fact, I am using it right now! As for my teachers, I see them use Microsoft Word most often when presenting lectures to the class. They also use it to show the syllabus at the beginning of the year and again whenever there is a project rubric to explain. I feel as though it is likely the most important of all the Microsoft Office programs for students. I remember a situation in middle school by which my physical science teacher asked me to redo an assignment because of my lack of citations. It was never my intention for this to be an issue, I simply did not know how to properly do so. Luckily, I was able to revise my project and fix my mistakes. Nowadays I am very careful about giving the due credit to the sources I take my information from. Just lik...

I believe that an individual’s surrounding culture is what influences teachers and students to use technology in the classroom. The more advance available becomes, the more it is able to be of aid in the classroom. Additionally, being aware of the technology that is being used by others allows for the knowledge of how beneficial the use of new technology is to be learned. The International Society for Technology in Education provides a standard that is carried across the nation that deals with students and teachers all across the country being able to utilize technology in the classroom at an acceptable level. The Creative Communicator standard is the ISTE standard that is of the most meaning to me. I think it provides a wonderful option to allow students to express themselves through their technological resources. I, personally, think of myself as a creative individual and, as a result, especially appreciate this standard. As for a standard that is out of my current skill set, I l...

     My name is Casey Higgins and I am just starting my junior year at Florida State. I attended Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL during my sophomore year and The University of Mississippi when I was a freshman. I have lived in a number of different states across the country due to my father being in the Marine Corps while I was growing up and I still love to travel. I spent this past summer working at a summer camp in Suring, Wisconsin and, while here, I finally realized that what I truly want to do when I am older is work with children. Upon my arrival in Tallahassee, I immediately met with my advisor to inquire about what steps I need to take in order to pursue a degree in Special Education and am currently working towards that.      In regards to educational technology, I do not have much experience. In fact, I still have some difficulty with setting up projectors and other equipment of that nature. However, during my time spent at The University of...