evidences

- I have completed my three short term professional development goals:

• My first short term professional development goal was to learn to create a digital narative video. I did this by completing my digital narative story. While creating this video I learned how to upload pictures from the interned (with proper citation), how to record voice overs, and how to insert text onto the picture. This is the project I came up with.
  

I feel that I can use this tool in my future classroom frequently. It is effective because it presents relevant information (because I can create what the information is about), it is efficient and quick, and it is also enhancement. The audio presents the information that I want while visual images pop up to make learning more stimulating. I think that this is a great tool. I am very glad that I have incorporated this into my professional development.

• My second short term professional development goal was to learn how to use blogging software. I wanted to find out what blogging websites were free and available to use, and I wanted to learn how to write basic blogging journal entries. I fulfilled this goal by creating three different blogging accounts, and what I learned is that no blogging website is the same. Here are the blogs I did and a summary of what I thought of them:

1. wordpress.com: I really liked this blogging website. It was easy to use, easy to navigate around, allowed me to upload pictures, bullet points, videos, etc. It kept things neat and tidy. i would definitely use this blogging service for my class.
2. thoughts.com: I really liked this website the 5 times that it allowed me to use it. But then, the website shut down. And for two days I was not allowed to blog in the website. I went ahead and copied and pasted what I had wrote in my other blogs in this blog just so I could have 7 posts-- but I had to do it later. I thought this brought up an interesting point: if you are going to have your students use a tool, make sure that you research the provider and know its dependable. I found that out the hard way.
3. createfreeblogs.com: I didn't like this blogging website. It did not let me upload pictures or videos, and while they would let me type in bullets in blogged without them, making my work unorganized. I would not recommend this website to anyone, and would definitely not use it in my class.

• My third short term professional development goal was to research different approaches to modeling digital age working and learning by taking notes from my professors and from Professor Leftwhich's video: "Educating the Digital Generation". I did this in my blogs, so please refer to the links above.

- In addition to to completing my short term goals I am also making progress on my long term goals:

• I have made progress in gaining confidence in developing wikis and blogs. Especially blogs, I was really proud of what I produced above.
• And I have gained knowledge on different tools and types of assistive technologies. I have been paying attention to Professor Leftwhich's suggestions, and have been using alot of new tools. A lot of which I have used and added to my E-portfolio.

Classroom Communication

When I begin teaching in the classroom I plan on using google groups to communicate with my students. This tool allows the teachers to post blogs, pictures, and podcasts online so that their students can access these resources on their own time. In addition, you can send group e-mails to everyone in your "google group" aka- all of your students, you can send and receive individual e-mails so that you can communicate efficiently with a student on a one-on one basis, students are able to post their work and view other student's works so that they can have an idea if they are doing an assignment correctly, students can work on assignments collaboratively using the googledocs application, and students can even communicate with other students from around the world-- which would be very beneficial to a social studies classroom. I believe that google groups is a great communication tool for communicating with my students. You could also create a group for parents, though I wouldn't because I belive that by the time a student reaches a highschool level I will not need to communicate with parents as often.