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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...