C4T #4

For this assignment, I was assigned Diane Krause.

Diane Krause is an Instructional Technology Specialist and Coach. She provides professional development, assistance, and support for the Wissahickon School District's faculty.

Post 1
The first blog post that I commented on was Daily Digital Discoveries 06/25/2013. The first thing that Diane Krause discusses is "The World’s Largest Repository of Free Online Learning Tutorials » The Rapid eLearning Blog." This is where she has listed every blog that contains a video tutorial on how to create something related to online learning. The second thing she talks about is "How To Address Negative Student Behavior in 1:1 Classrooms | Edudemic." In this section of the post she discussed students behaviors in 1 to 1 classrooms. She says that technology is revolutionizing the classroom but we do not always think about the negative effects it can have.

In the comment I posted, I wrote about how I love that she put all the blogs with tutorials in one place. It makes it easy to find. I wrote that I think it will be very helpful to me when I begin teaching. I said that most blogs talk about how they have integrated technology into their classrooms but none have tutorials. Sometimes looking for these types of blogs can be difficult too. I am glad that she has put it all in one place.

I also wrote that with technology and teaching with technology comes new obstacles. All it takes is one student who is not interested in the lesson to mess things up. I said that her post showed me to always think like a kid/student so that I can try to prevent things from getting off track. One of the things that frighten me is cyber bullying. Technology now makes it so that bullying behind a screen is very easy.

Post 2
In this post, "Daily Digital Discoveries 7/10/2013," Diane Krause discusses a website that has been built that offers more that 32,000 tutorials on different academic subjects that are taught by thousands of teachers. This site is called Sophia. It helps teachers enrich their classrooms and empowers students to learn their own way.

In the comment I posted I write about how I think this is an awesome discovery. I think this is great for those students who need some extra help or for students who just need to be taught a different way. I said that not everyone thinks like you do. You can explain something to a group of people and 1 of those people just will not understand. They need someone else with a different mindset to explain it to them. I think Sophia allows them to see things a different way. At first I wrote that the only problem I have with it is that you need to sign in. I am not too sure how it works, but right now my only question is how do you get the younger kids to see the videos if the need to sign in? But after exploring the site a little and the sign up page, I wrote that I now notice that you do not need an e-mail address to sign up. You can sign up with a text message confirmation or with a username using a teacher's or parent's account.