Blog Journal 3

There are some ELA technology standards for second grade that I feel more prepared to teach than others. One of the standards that I feel as though I have knowledge in is using "information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot." I feel like I have been prepared well in this area of technology, and I think I work well with online poster creators and similar programs. I enjoy using these programs to be creative and make beautiful content, and I feel like I could teach my students how to use these programs efficiently for projects. One other standard I feel most prepared to teach is "determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple meaning words and phrases based on grade 2 reading and content, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies." I feel like I am prepared to teach this standard because I have a proficient vocabulary, and I also know how to use and look up words in online dictionaries and thesauruses. I think this standard would be a very easy standard to teach because of the ease of use of online dictionaries. On the other hand, at the moment, I need to develop my skills in one other area. This area is the standard which states "with guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers." This standard includes having a knowledge of usage of technology such as SmartBoards and pixlr. I never used SmartBoards or pixlr growing up, so I would have to do more learning on this standard so that I can be as prepared as possible to teach it. Overall, however, I feel confident with these standards, and I know that as I continue with my education classes, I will be able to learn how to approach these standards well.

 One of the resources in the CPALMS Educator Toolkit is the instructional resources, which includes lesson plans. These lesson plans are provided for every subject. Each lesson plan is developed uniquely for a specific purpose. For example, one of the lesson plans provided for the Science portion of a class talks all about the dangers of feeding wild animals, especially alligators. It then provides an overview of what the lesson should look like, and it provides a PowerPoint and some other instructional visual aids. Through these lesson plans, teachers have ease of access to state accepted lessons, and teachers don't have to worry about completely preparing lessons on their own. I would use this resource in my classroom because it is an incredible way to take stress off of my position. Rather than having to come up with fun and exciting new ways for my students to learn, I now have amazing lesson plans right at my fingertips! The PowerPoints and other interactive visual aids are already set up for me. All I truly need to do is download the lesson plan and teach it! For these reasons, the CPALMS Educator Toolkit is an amazing resource for teachers in Florida, and I know I will be utilizing it in the future, especially through the lesson plans.

 The Newsletter Design assignment was very fun to complete, and I learned a lot by completing this project. I learned many new skills through Microsoft Word as well. I first learned how to create columns in a Word document. I did not know how to do this action before, but I now know how to find the column button in the tool bar and create columns in order to make something look more professional and put together. I also learned how to create word art, which is what I did for my newsletter title, and I learned how to add in the date by just pushing a button. Overall, I really love how the newsletter turned out! I love the fall design and colors that I used. I also like the extra little details that I added to the text, such as clip art as visual aids and to make the letter more fun to look at. I put a lot of time and effort into this assignment. The only thing I would want to improve on for the next time is making the permission slip look more professional and adding even more visuals and perhaps a border. What I learned from this assignment can be used in my future career as a teacher. By understanding and truly drilling into my brain a lot of the functions on Microsoft Word, I will be able to make not only newsletters, but also lesson plans, quizzes, and tests. The skills that I learned will help me to create things for my class much more quickly than I would have been able to do before. I will also be able to add a plethora of pictures and visual aids to my presentations in class, which are very important in order to keep young second graders focused and interested!