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This blog is a reflection of my experience this term as a student in Dominican University’s “Integrating Technology into Programming, Services and Instruction” course. For the last eight weeks I have been learning about different technologies and how they can be integrated into our classrooms. Personally, I have learned a lot about new tools I had never heard of, and how some of my classmates use them in their schools. One of the best tools that I got to master is Screencastify, which allows you to record videos of your actions on screen as well as voice recorder. It is an awesome piece of software that makes it very easy to create demonstration/training videos. In another one of my assignments, I learned about a web tool 2.0 called Verse that is used for the creation of interactive videos by turning static content into dynamic digital experiences. These are just two of the many tools I was exposed to and that I now have the intention of further exploring in my school a...

So this week I will cover a topic that I find very interesting. Social media in my opinion has become an extremely powerful force that influences our lives every day. That is especially true when we talk about how it impacts the younger users. I read a very interesting article called “ A Teenager’s view on social media ” where the author, 19-year-old college student Andrew Watts, summarizes for us how people in his age bracket and younger, view the different social media outlets. I no longer belong to that group of users, so hearing from someone who does made me better understand what they think about each one of these sites. Honestly, my favorite quote on his very interesting article is when he describes the way they see Facebook as “something we all got in middle school because it was cool but now is seen as an awkward family dinner party we can't really leave”. And that is so true because I am a Facebook user and I do not see too many posts from young people in my f...

Alright – so this week I had to do some data mining of myself on the internet. What that means is that I go online to do some research by inputting my name into a search engine which finds different locations on the world wide web that could be related to me. In that process it identifies plenty of web services that focus on gathering personal information about the subject, from arrest records, phone numbers, addresses, demographic data, census data, or a wide variety of other information. I used one of the most popular search engines in the world which is google.com . I started my search by simply plugging in my name and immediately saw my picture on top as one of the suggested images. Further down I could find links to my twitter, instagram, and facebook accounts. Usually when I have done similar searches for someone else, I have to add at least the city they live in to help narrow down my search. Otherwise it becomes very hard to find the person you are looking for. B...

Our future generations will never know what it means living in a world where they cannot share their ideas instantly with a big audience. Technology has enabled us to do just that, as social media and other platforms make it easier for us to share our thoughts with others with a few clicks, swipes, and touching of the screen. As educators, we should take full advantage of this gift that technology offers us to share ideas on educational trends, inspirational posts, and many other resources.   That is where professional learning networks (PLN) come into play.   According to Marc-André Lalande, “a Personal Learning Network is a way of describing the group of people that you connect with to learn their ideas, their questions, their reflections, and their references”.   So even though technology is not required for a PLN to be created, it makes it so much easier and effective.   By using technology tools, like Twitter, you can target specific subjects that are of i...

Welcome back to my blog. In continuation with our trend of technology related blogs, this week we will talk about web tools 2.0. These are online tools that allow educators, students and parents to teach/learn curriculum content, create/edit videos and pictures, and so many other cool things. This week I had the chance to learn about a tool called Verse. I have to admit that I was super excited to find this software and I am looking forward to use it.  Verse in a web tool 2.0 that allows users to create immersive interactive videos. As I was reviewing the tool I couldn’t stop thinking about how great of a tool this is and I personally think it is the next big thing for marketing purposes. These interactive videos are a huge way to keep the audience engaged and I can think of many ways to use it in the classroom. Instead of having a static picture or video, you are able to integrate clickable hotspots and decision points for your audience to personalize their viewing e...

Studying human evolution is so fascinating.   Especially in today’s world where technology is evolving so fast that a new tool or software that comes out today becomes obsolete in a year or less.   McCrindle is an Australian advisory firm that focuses on researching generational trends.   They have a very interesting infographic that offers a snapshot of key traits and stats specific to each generation (builders, baby boomers, GenX, GenY, GenZ, GenAlpha).   It is incredible to think that a tool such as the iPad, which is so common and widely used, came out only 9 years ago.  Image source:  McCrindle.com Similar to McCrindle, but more associated to education, Project Tomorrow Speak Up is an organization that researches the effects of technolody in education. In 2019 and in collaboration with Blackboard, they came up with a report on the role of mobile and social communications from the perspective of parents and educators.   One o...

We have all been in situations at any grade level where the instructor simply stands in front of the class, bombards us with plenty of information and expects us to take notes and learn what we can from it. This can be labeled as a passive learning environment. The opposite of that, and quite honestly what I think should be everyone’s approach, is active learning. Active learning is an approach that strives to keep learners engaged with the course materials through the use of student-centered techniques designed to them self-motivated. There are many teaching strategies that stimulate learners by putting them at the center of the process, such as role playing, field trips, game-based learning platforms, group projects, brainstorming, among others. This week I learned about how a teacher used a technology tool to test what kids had learned about the American Revolution (view post)  instead of using your traditional quizzes and exams. In Ms. Malhiot’s classroom, students us...

Welcome back! This week we are covering a fun topic.  Technology is evolving at a very fast pace nowadays.   Especially when I think of cellphone technology, it is widely known that we now carry more computing power in our cellphones than NASA had when they started sending men to space.   There are many applications available that let us order pizza, complete our taxes, listen to the newest Sam Smith album, etc. This week on my blog I want to talk about a concept introduced by David White to describe how we interact with technology, where uses the terms “visitors and residents”. Visitor means that you use the technology to access something specific but there is not a social component.   Resident is when the technology has a social component, where you connect with others.   So to determine whether my engagement with an app on my cellphone is considered “visitor” or “resident” I would ask myself whether or not I interact with other people and if there is an...

This week I have prepared a presentation using Adobe Spark where I talk about TedTalks.  At the end of the presentation you will have a general understanding of what is TedTalks, how it started, and some of the advantages of implementing it into the classroom.  Additional Resources: https://www.ted.com/talk https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAuUUnT6oDeKwE6v1NGQxug https://ed.ted.com/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4264800/ https://time.com/34784/why-ted-matters/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/06/19/heres-why-ted-and-tedx-are-so-incredibly-appealing-infographic/#117a19423b0e

Welcome back to this week’s edition of my fabulous blog. 👌 It is no surprise that technology plays a huge role in our daily lives. However, how does it affect children’s ability to learn and stay engaged in school?   New technology tools or software comes out every day promising to change the way we learn forever. This is seldom true, but as educators, we need to be able to wheat through all the different tools coming out daily in order to identify the ones that will truly blend seamlessly with our instruction methods, lessons, but more importantly, improve the chances of our children achieving the learning goals. This is where Triple-E comes into play. Triple E is a framework that measures how technology in a lesson is actually helping students reach their learning goals. Many other frameworks out there also attempt to aid educators in analyzing whether or not new technology tools will actually help in the classroom but Triple-E is the only one that focuses on learning ...

Hello my name is Lucia. This blog post is my introduction! Image courtesy of me Hi there! I am so glad you made it to my blog. I hope you enjoy the many topics I will touch on during the next few weeks. However, before telling you what I think about these various topics, it is a good idea for you to learn about me. Better understanding my past and my present will help you understand my perspective. My Motivation: I am a family oriented person. My family is the main reason for everything that I do… my biggest motivation. My husband of 13 years and our three wonderful kids help me stay connected with myself, grounded, and they offer me a refuge like nothing else. Professional Experience: I have had two big career changes in my lifetime. While living in the Dominican Republic, I was 1 year away from getting a Law degree, as I wanted to become a lawyer.  Then came the opportunity to move to the United States with my husband and I did a complete 360 and ob...