Ashley Rogers on Technology in Education

Week 5 Blog Post: Understanding Formative Assessments As a student growing up, I without a doubt participated in formative assessments from my teachers, but was not aware that's what they were called.  I probably didn't always realize I was even participating in one, or how it was being used. As an adult and as a prospective teacher, my first thought to understanding formative assessments and their benefit, is what a TIME saver!  By kicking off a lesson with a formative assessment, a teacher can really get a good grasp on what students already understand and where they may need a more thorough lesson to start off.  These assessments are a great way to allow a class to move more quickly through material, rather than spending an entire class period going over material the students already know. As I've mentioned before, I currently work in corporate America in a full time job within the consumer product goods industry.  But on the side, I am also an independent ...

Blog Post Week 4: Twitter as a PLN - How do I feel? I've successfully used Twitter for 4 weeks now.  As someone who is relatively comfortable with social media sources, I do find it odd that I've always considered Twitter to be somewhat daunting.  It always felt like, "one more thing" and I already spent more time than I would like to admit on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. After using it for a few weeks, I've learned a few things.  For one, it's not difficult.  For a tool that might seem daunting, it's relatively easy to pick up, especially when you've used other social media platforms before as well.  If there is something I can't figure out, everything about Twitter is on Google, so it can be learned quickly. As a PLN, it really is a central hub for quick learning.  Everything is right at your fingertips.  You can read article after article of topics that interest you, and you can quickly find yourself going down a (positive) rabbit h...

Blog Post Week 4: The Flipped Classroom The concept of the flipped classroom is an interesting one.  I believe there can be many pros to a flipped classroom, but I do feel that with the flipped classroom, there needs to be balance. I remember participating in flipped classrooms as a student growing up, and as an introvert myself, sometimes feeling a big a bit overwhelmed when the teacher would propose this idea and put us into groups.  I'm a visual learner, and I'm not too shy about asking questions.  However, when it comes to participating in group discussions with my peers, I would sometimes feel a bit of anxiety about being in a group, especially if I was paired up with a group that was hesitant to participate in discussion.  I would lead the group if I had to, but I hated feeling like I was in charge of leading my own learning.  It can often feel like a lot of pressure as a student.  I remember the teacher coming around, telling our group, "ok grou...

Week 3 Blog Post: Google Classroom and the Benefit to Teachers and Students The readings for week 3 included an overview of Google Classroom, and how this tool can benefit teachers.  As I do not currently work in education, this feature is entirely new to me despite it having debuted in 2014.  According to the article, within a year of it being released, about 10 million teachers and students had embraced the tool.  This is an astronomical acceptance rate.  It clearly is doing what it was meant to do, making activities streamlined so teachers have more time to teach, and students have an all in one access point to get information and access files. I can see how this tool could also be user friendly in the business world as well.  It could serve as an easily accessible one stop shop for businesses to relay information and share documents with their employees.  This probably would not work for businesses on a large scale, but could be extremely helpful f...

Week 2 Blog Post: Accommodation Tools in Technology I'm absolutely fascinated by the tools and simple extensions that are used to make accommodations for special needs. My mother recently retired from working 42 years for the Department of Veterans Affairs as a computer programmer, and it was always interesting to hear about the accommodations that were made for members of her own team.  She worked with a diverse group of individuals, and some needed special assistance in order for them to perform their jobs.  For instance, she worked with one individual who was blind, so he was given a braille keyboard and printer.  She also worked with an individual who was born with one arm, and also used a special keyboard.  He was one of the fastest keyboarders on her team. This technology existed years ago, and it's astonishing to see how much more we've advanced, and how quickly we have advanced.  The fact that there is an add-on that allows the computer to read to...

Week 1 Blog Post: Using Social Media to Build Your Own PLN In this week's reading, we learned about different ways to use social media to build our PLN.  Personally, I have not used much social media besides LinkedIn for building my network and connecting with others, but I am excited to explore different ways in which I can use other accounts like Twitter to connect with other teachers, share resources, and ideate.  Using technology in the classroom is important to act as a digital citizen, an empowered learner, and computational thinker.