EdTech 543 Final Reflection

This course was the first course that I have taken as part of my graduate studies. I decided to complete this graduate program as I wanted to further my career and be able to find new ways to implement technology into my teaching. I feel it has been very beneficial and opened my eyes to many ways that social media can be used for both my professional development as well as in my classroom.

Throughout the many assignments when we were given the leeway to choose our own direction on a project I was very intentional in choosing a topic that I felt could directly relate to my practice. In terms of professional development, there were many times I did this that I felt opened my eyes and have set me up with resources to use in the future. One resource that I have discovered through this process was Twitter. In setting up a Tweetdeck I am able to follow pertinent hashtags to the courses and course levels that I teach. I am very interested to see the activity on these hashtags at the time that the courses are taking place as a means of hopefully sharing necessary resources as they would be needed. I also will try to be active in Twitter chats for the same reasons during the school year. I also love the idea of being able to choose webinars that I could find beneficial and the possible future they have as a new way of professional development.

I also made sure to choose topics I would find helpful in finding resources that I could implement in my classroom. In the couple of times that we used curation I truly took it as a time to compile resources that I can pull from in teaching this year. A couple of areas I would like to do this would be through PBL and social media implementation. Due to working with my PLN who had similar interests in creating a social networked mini unit, the subject matter that we used could directly tie into my teaching and be activities that I use in my instruction.

I feel I have stayed on top of my blogging in this class. I have completed every blog and have done each on time. I have also put the time in while blogging to reflect on each topic thoroughly. Therefore, for my blogging, I would give myself a 75/75.

Social Media Policy for My Classroom

In beginning to cultivate a Social Media Policy for my classroom, I searched to see whether my school or district had a policy outlining social media use. I couldn’t find a Social Media Policy, but did find an Acceptable Use Policy which relates to “the Internet and related technology and equipment.” After not finding a specific Social Media Policy for my district or school I decided to develop one for my classroom. Here you will see what I developed:

Before using this as a policy for my classroom I would begin by getting together with at least the Freshmen Academy math teachers that I teach with and attempt to get our policies to be succinct. We collaborate quite a bit within the Freshmen Academy at the high school I teach at and use the same materials to teach and assess. Therefore, we would need to be on the same page with the policy. After we believe we have a policy that we would like to move forward with I would send the policy we came up with to our direct supervisor, our assistant principal, to get his opinions and approval. After this had been outlined I would send home a copy to my students’ parents to get signed so that they know our plan for social media use for the year and my policies in responsible use. I would then also discuss the plans and policy with my students to be able to address their thoughts and concerns.

References:

Anderson, S. (2012, May 7). How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School. Retrieved July 17, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/how-to-create-social-media-guidelines-school

Dunn, J. (2014, September 21). An editable social media policy for schools that works. Retrieved July 17, 2017, from http://dailygenius.com/editable-social-media-policy-for-schools/

Laws, Policies for Using Social Media in the Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2017, from http://www.teachhub.com/laws-policies-using-social-media-classroom

socialmediaguidelines / Student Guidelines. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2017, from http://socialmediaguidelines.pbworks.com/w/page/17050885/Student%20Guidelines

Social Media in a Math Classroom

This is my link to my curation "Social Media in a Math Classroom"

I created a curation of resources for using social media in a math classroom. I found this assignment to be quite difficult. I believe this was because there didn’t seem to be much social media use in the classroom and not much specifically in a math classroom. I also believe that this is somewhat of a hot topic as I did also find some posts where people felt very strongly against the use of social media in the classroom. 

I really liked the ideas that I did find about social media use in a math classroom. What I found for math seemed to fall under two categories. Social media was either used for writing up explanations or thoughts or problems or for presenting a project that had been completed. For explaining thoughts on a problem I saw examples that used both blogging and Twitter. I feel that when a blogging platform is used it allows students to write out a more lengthy explanation. Since Twitter limits its posts to one hundred forty characters or less these need to be shorter explanations. I like this a lot because I can understand that students do not enjoy to read or write in math. This would allow them to do so in smaller pieces.

I am very intrigued with the idea of students presenting projects on social media. This would allow the item to be public or public at least to the members of the class. This way they are also truly presenting their products. It also would allow for students to give feedback to their peers which I feel isn't always done when students complete projects. I as the teacher could also provide feedback as comments as well.

An aspect I saw on all of these may be obvious since it is the social aspect. These platforms all allowed for students to communicate with their teachers, peers, or others outside of their classroom. This way these students could create valuable PLNs at a young age. The students and the teacher could also comment or provide feedback on students' projects presented on a social media platform continuing the social aspect. 

I felt a bit apprehensive about social media use in my classroom in the beginning because of the limited resources I found, but after finding some valuable resources I can definitely see the merit!

My PLE Diagram Reflection

When tasked with making a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Diagram and reading that I had to represent at least ten different online communities in the image I felt a bit stressed. Prior to this course I don’t know that I would have been able to say I was truly a part of this many communities. Now looking at my PLE Diagram I can see that I have eighteen different communities represented or fourteen if you combine the different Google resources, and Facebook and Facebook messenger. I chose to combine the Collecting-Reflecting-Connecting-Publishing Model and the Four C’s Model as I felt they more perfectly showed my involvement and thought of my PLE when combined together.

This assignment made me think back to when we were assigned the second week of this class to find an image to represent out idea of PLEs. My image was that of a Spirograph which has many connected, intertwined lines representing the various tools and resources in a PLE. The Spirograph image contained many circular lines as does my new image, but the new image explicitly shows online communities I am involved in as the beginning image did not. My new PLE image also shows arrows around the circle giving it direction. As represented I believe my PLE image shows how I see my PLE to be cyclical and a process and I see it beginning with collect and flowing around. The Spirograph in the beginning was quite an elementary image and my understanding has definitely deepened. My involvement has also deepened quite a bit in the communities in and the tools and resources that I use.

Above you can see six of my peers PLE images. I love how they are all so creative and different. One similarity I see is that if you look you can see that many of us have some of the same communities represented. This would be to be expected as we are all taking part in the same social networking class and have built many of the same connections together. A few communities that I see in many, if not all, of the images are Facebook, Google Apps, and Twitter. One difference I see between the images is whether the communities represented seem to be clustered together or spread out. As one can see in my image, the communities are sorted within each word. I have communities that specifically go with collect, communicate, create, and share. If you look at Kim’s her communities seem to be grouped at the bases, but it is unknown whether home plate is “supposed” to be sharing or collecting, but I think this may be the idea. Josh’s image does not have the communities grouped, but instead has the characteristics at the corners of the image and has arrows drawn between the communities to show the connections. I almost think I like this representation is a bit better this way since as I tried to sort my communities I felt many of them did not belong with just one word. Some I put under more than one word and others I could have, but just decided not to show more than once. 

Live Virtual Professional Development

I really enjoyed doing both the webinars and the Twitter chats. I can definitely see after doing these how professional development could move more towards the direction of being online. It allows for teachers to choose what they find interesting and what will benefit them and their students the most. I could also see a lot of differences between the two after completing them. The Twitter chats really were what you took from them. I found myself starting out mostly just responding to the questions and watching my tweet deck move so quickly with all the responses. As I got closer to doing my four I found myself adding a couple responses to questions, following others who were posting things I found interesting, liking others tweets, retweeting others tweets, and responding or having conversations about things others said. I found that through the twitter chats it could be a reflective experience which teachers need. This way they could think through their experiences of teaching and share triumphs and how to handle things. I also found it a great place to find resources and get connected with other teachers who share things you are interested in. As I will share below there were many things I heard about through the Twitter chats that I am interested in looking into and hopefully beginning to implement into my classroom next year.

The webinars I found to be less interactive, but I also felt they could be more immediately useful. All of the ones I participated in did have some form of chat, but I found a lot of the chat to be people introducing themselves, saying that they liked something the presenter said, and then saying thank you at the end. There were some questions in between as well. I feel these were close to typical professional development, but what I would like about these is that the teacher could choose which webinar could most benefit their teaching. I found it very helpful that the speaker could show step by step how to use certain tools or explain in depth different resources. I found the webinars to be much more specific topics where the twitter chats were broader.

Below I will give a brief summary of each twitter chat and webinar and give a few things I took away from each. Then at the bottom I have included a Google slides presentation that shows my involvement in each.

Twitter Live Chats

#satchat - 7:30am June 17^th
My first Twitter chat was #satchat which is a twitter chat that occurs every Saturday morning early at 7:30am. The moderator for this chat was Scott Rocco (@scottrrocco). The goal of #satchat is for school leaders and administrators, but educators contributed as well. This specific chat focused on “Leading in the Google Era.” It was very interesting to me to hear about some of the Google resources and how they are being used in different schools and districts. This summer I will be becoming Google certified so I found it very relevant. I also felt encouraged to use Google classroom this year. As well as, many teachers mentioned using Google forms and having students collaborate to create Google slides which could be useful as well.

#plearnchat 7:00 pm June 19^th
The second Twitter chat that I attended was #plearnchat. This chat was put on by Barbara Bray (@bbray27) and Jackie Gerstein (@jackiegerstein) on “The Design Thinking Process and Universal Design for Learning.” They would be presenting on the topic at ISTE 2017. This chat was a bit slower. One common theme among the questions was turning our classrooms into makerspaces and what we would need or need to do to make this happen. An important concept with this was remembering that the classroom needs to be student-centered. A few ways that were discussed to help make this happen is to have students come up with classroom norms, having students get involved in sharing what worked and didn’t work, and unconventional seating. Changing the seating in my classroom is one thing I definitely want to try. Someone said that if someone were to walk in your room there shouldn’t be any indication where the front of the classroom is. Teaching in a small high school classroom there isn’t a ton of space to add much flexible seating, but I hope to change the seats into groups at least and maybe get a few flexible seat options.

#edtechchat 8:00 pm June 19^th
The third Twitter chat that I attended was #edtechchat. This one was moderated by Thomas Murray (@thomascmurray) on “Learning Transformed: How Can Technology Support the Transformation?” Much of this chat focused on changing the learning experience including how technology can help to do this. An important concept I took from this one was allowing students to have a voice. One way this could be done was by allowing students to create their learning spaces through their seating. Another important thing I took from this was that we personalize our teaching for our students and that really professional development for teachers should be personalized in the same way. If professional development were to move more towards the Internet I could definitely see this as being more possible. A few games for technology in education that I am interested in looking into after this chat are classdojo, dragonbox, mincraftedu, and softschools.

#tlap 9:00 pm July 3^rd
The fourth Twitter chat was #tlap which stands for Teach Like a Pirate. This one confused me a bit as teaching like a pirate isn’t quite what I am interested in, but it instead draws creative educators to share and improve their teaching. This chat was moderated by Ramsey Musallam (@ramusallam). He gave the following Ted Talk which on its own is very inspiring:

In his Ted talk one of the things he stresses is “embracing the mess” which was also the topic of one of his questions. Since it is hard for me to feel like I am giving up control, this is one thing I definitely was interested to hear some feedback on. Many stressed that it is important to set expectations and routines from the beginning. During this chat someone posted about always being willing to offer extra credit when students ask for it which caused us to have a mini conversation during the chat. This is something I don’t tend to do. This teacher argued that if students are willing to use their spare time to learn more about what we are learning in class it is better than any lesson. That felt quite compelling to me and I definitely may be open to giving more in the future. Some different resources I would like to look more into after this chat are fipgrid, #games4ed, @recapthat, @seesaw, and breakoutedu.

Webinars

Creating a Culture of Dignity in Your Community: Transforming Difficult Conversations into Meaningful Connections with Your Students on June 14^th 2:00-3:00 pm

http://home.edweb.net/webinar/creating-culture-dignity-community/

This was the first webinar that I have ever attended and I feel it set a precedence for me of what I expected the others to be like. It was put on by edweb.net and the speaker was Rosalind Wiseman. I found it to be quite engaging. The chat on the sidebar had a lot of people talking and the speaker seemed to be involved in the conversation as she answered questions that were asked on the chat as they were asked. She also built in polls for us to answer as she was speaking. This was probably the best put on webinar that I attended. The webinar seemed to be centered on social media and how to talk to students about social media. She explained that we don’t get to decide what is meaningful to a student so that it is important to recognize the things that are important to them. We also cannot be fear-based and afraid to talk about social media with students. A good take away for me was when she talked about if I student comes and wants to talk about something and says, “Please don’t tell anyone else.” She stated it is important to say something along the lines of “I can’t promise that I won’t, but if I do need to go to another adult we can talk together about the way to do that and what would be the most comfortable for you.” I found this to be a great way to comfort the student but also not lose their trust.

Ethics and Communication Challenges Facing School Leaders on June 15^th 3:00-4:00 pm

http://home.edweb.net/webinar/ethics-leadership-todays-communications-challenges/

This webinar was put on by edweb.net but the speaker was Julie Thannum an Assistant Superintendent for Board and Community Relations in Carroll ISD, Southlake, Texas. This was my second webinar and after the first one I had mental expectations of what a webinar would be like and this one didn’t quite match up. The sidebar chat for this webinar didn’t have quite as much involvement. Also, the speaker didn’t really involve the audience by answering any questions in the sidebar or including any polls. She also planned on answering questions at the end, but spoke through the entire hour so she did not have any time. The audience it also seemed to be more tailored for was school administration which I hadn’t realized before I took part. Since it was on ethics one take away that I had was that the speaker said to understand the laws and Ethical Code of Conduct that we are to follow whether that be from the state or district. Another important piece that she did direct at administrators is the importance of being consistent. She stated that if someone does something wrong she finds it to be a compliment when the educator already knows what the consequence will be. I feel this is something that is important as a teacher as well for students to understand and expect the consequences before they arrive.

Hacking Project Based Learning on June 15^th 4:00-4:30 pm

http://all4ed.org/webinar-event/jun-15-17/

This was my third webinar I attended put on by all4ed.org and the panel consisted of Ross Cooper, Erin Murphy, and Tom Murray. For this one the sidebar chat on YouTube didn’t really seem to be used. There was some activity on Twitter using the hashtags #FutureReady and #HackingPBL. You could also submit questions prior to the webinar to be answered by the panel. I really enjoyed this webinar and found it quite useful. Project based learning (PBL) is something that I really want to try to integrate in my classroom, but have been apprehensive to really try. One thing that was talked about was to find something that works for you, it doesn’t have to be something that is a grand idea or where students are going save the world. It was said that if we do that both us and students will get burned out. They also discussed that there is still a place for direct instruction in PBL. The direct instruction should come not in the beginning, but later just as students need the information and it should be broken up with experimenting. Another piece that they discussed was how to assign grades for the PBL. They created a progress assessment tool which they say is described in their book, Hacking Project Based Learning, which I am interested in getting and reading. I was encouraged to hear them explain that many teachers are already doing pieces of PBL, but just need to continue moving in that direction a step at a time. I am definitely encouraged by this webinar to do just that!

Motivating and Engaging Students: Stride and the Role of Games in the Classroom on June 20^th 3:30-4:30 pm

My fourth webinar I attended I actually came across because it was emailed to me at my teacher email. It had a chat window, but the chat only went to the moderator. Our school will be going 1:1 in two years and I was intrigued by the titled of the role of games in the classroom. Our school currently has a subscription for USATestPrep but with the changing standards my colleagues and I have been less impressed over the last couple years. The webinar was essentially a sales pitch for their program called “Stride.” It was explained as only being useful for through 8^th grade. Although I teach high school I teach the lowest level math so I figured the program could still possibly be useful. It seemed like a great program with a lot of resources. It uses adaptive technology meaning that it identifies where skill gaps are that need to be filled in and meets the students at the level they are at. A neat feature is the inclusion of a reward through coins. Students earn coins based on how they do and can trade these in to play games as a brain break or the teacher can input in rewards such as candy or pencils that they would give for a certain amount of coins. Another aspect that was interesting is that the student does not know what level they are performing at, but the teacher does on their dashboard. The teacher dashboard looked very good for progress monitoring. It was not meant to be the lessons for the students, but instead a supplemental material which is exactly what we are looking for. After the webinar I was contacted by someone from the company who explained that this Stride program may not be the best for our needs, but he did send me a demo for one that is similar and would be better. Seemed by watching the webinar I made a good connection. 

Creating a Positive Digital Footprint

We live in an age where we are constantly online and have access to the Internet in our pocket. Due to this it is important to think about the digital footprint we are leaving behind and what those who see it whether it be family, friends, colleagues, or bystanders may think of it. Here is my list of ten things that I believe are important for leaving a positive digital footprint!

References:

Adams, S. (2013, March 14). 6 Steps To Managing Your Online Reputation. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/03/14/6-steps-to-managing-your-online-reputation/#688a671c7767

Boyle, J. (2014, March 8). 11 Tips For Students To Manage Their Digital Footprints. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/digital-citizenship-the-future-of-learning/11-tips-for-students-tomanage-their-digital-footprints/

Digital Media in the Classroom. (n.d.). 10 Things Your Students Should Know About Their Digital Footprints. Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/10-things-your-students-should-know-about-their-digital-footprints

Purewal, S.J. (2015, April 8). How to manage your online reputation for free. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-manage-your-online-reputation-for-free/

Zwilling, M. (2015, August 7). 6 Keys to a Positive Online Presence and Reputation. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249053

My Digital Footprint

The concept of a digital footprint is nothing new to me, maybe the name, but not what it actually is. My father works in IT and therefore is quite tech-savy. This being said, I can remember having a computer that was deemed mine at the young age of five. My dad being the technical, but also extremely responsible, man he is wanted us to understand the responsibility of using the Internet, especially social media sites, at a very young age. I can remember him sitting me down and explaining that we needed to understand that anything we put out on social media or the Internet was out there forever and there is no getting it back even if it were to be deleted. 

The strong level of responsibility that was instilled in me at a young age continued as I chose the career that I did as a teacher. As a teacher we truly do live in a fishbowl that is under a microscope. Not only now do I have to look at the things I post from my perspective, but also I have to think about how the community of students, parents, administrators, or colleagues could also construe the things I post online.

I would say that I am the kind of person that does like to Google people and see what I can find. Therefore, I find it very interesting to Google myself and see what kind of a digital footprint I do leave behind. I would start by saying that my name is unique. What I mean by this is that when I Google “Kristin Castello” many things that pop up on the first page are me. Of the first few things that pop up one can see my Facebook page, my school website, my Twitter, and my wedding website. I have always kept my Facebook very private so the only things that could be seen there are any profile pictures or cover photos I have updated. The same can be found by my personal twitter since the only people that can see my tweets are my followers. The most information that could be seen about me is probably my wedding website, but it was also created with the understanding that it could be seen by the public. I feel that to this point in my life I have left a positive digital footprint and I will continue to do so. I also hope to leave more of one through the use of social media for networking that I am beginning to discover through this class! 

Twitter for Professional Development

The hashtags I have chosen to follow are #alg1chat #geomchat #hsmath #PBL #edtools and #topteaching. I teach high school mathematics specifically algebra 1 and geometry. Primarily I chose these to find math resources that I could use towards teaching. Also, our Freshman Academy administrator is pushing for us to work on revamping our lesson plans to be less traditional so I’m hoping to find some good Project Based Learning resources and ways to improve my teaching.

I really like the resources I could find under the subject specific hashtags #alg1chat and #geomchat. I feel like I get in a rut of using the same resources and these should help me to branch out and really include new examples and different types of problems. My first resource that I found under #alg1chat I found the following image:
https://twitter.com/KarenCampe/status/861214077993013248

This image is an example of always/sometimes/never problems. These types of questions really show an understanding of the concept because the student has to really think through the concept and when it can occur. I am always looking for ways to differentiate instruction in our Algebra 1 H class and I really feel as though these specific problems and ones like these could be very beneficial. The second resource I found was for a website called georigami. It uses origami to teach various geometry topics. It also gives videos and worksheets for each of the topics. My third resource I found was a under #topteaching. It is a blog post entitled “Changing Role of Substitute Teachers.” The author talks about how there is a shortage of substitutes in her district and that many substitutes may not be certified or even if they are it may not be in your subject. This is something I find as well. Our school will be issuing Chromebooks to all students in two years. With this roll out these devices these technology resources could definitely change the way things could be taught when I have to be out.

I am extremely excited about the use of Twitter as a form of professional development. I feel like my world has been completely opened to an extremely good resource. I am really excited to see how the subject specific hashtags are used during the school year. Most high school math teachers are going to follow the same progression through a course. I feel that when stumped on how to make a lesson better resources that would be tweeted out would work well for the lessons that would be taught at the time. Also, as stated above, our administrator is really pushing for more engaging lessons and the integration of PBL. I feel that many great resources for this could be easily found on Twitter.

Links for my found resources:
#alg1chat

https://twitter.com/KarenCampe/status/861214077993013248/photo/1

#geomchat

http://www.georigami.com/

#topteaching

http://spartansocialstudies.blogspot.com/2017/05/changing-role-of-substitute-teachers.html

Creative Expression of CoPs, Conectivism, and PLNs

This image above is a compilation of images as I was making my dinner. As I thought through the making of my meal I thought that each aspect is analogous to the concepts we have researched in this module: Communities of Practice, Connectivism, and Professional Learning Networks. All of these concepts really do come together as a meal comes together from the beginning to the end.

What I believe to be the most basic level are the Communities of Practice (CoPs). Communities of practice are a group of people, with a common interest, who meet regularly in some fashion that may not necessarily be in person, who engage in a form of learning together (Wenger, 2013). In my dinner image I see the CoPs to be the individual elements such as the chicken, spinach, pasta, asparagus, etc. I see these to be the individual elements of the big picture. Individually, these pieces are cooked and primed with the end goal to be to come together for something bigger.

The piece that I see to tie all of the pieces together is the learning theory of Connectivism. Learning occurs when connections are made and not primarily through an individual. (“Connectivism”, n.d.) In my analogy of my meal, the pieces I see to be Connectivism are what I will refer to as the tools. These are the knives, the stove, the pots and pans, and the bowls. These are the pieces that bring the meal together. Without them, I would still have chicken, asparagus, spinach, and pasta, but through the tools they are transformed and brought together.

Finally, we have a meal. At this point all of the pieces (CoPs) have been brought together and connected and transformed and each of these pieces belongs to something much bigger. I see the final product, the completed meal to be an example of a Professional Learning Network (PLN). The PLN combines the groups of connected people to form an intentional bond (Gutierrez, 2016). I feel my example of the meal represents a Professional Learning Network well. At the end I have provided an image of a potluck (Woods, 2012). I feel an example of a potluck shows the many different PLNs as they come together. My meal shows one PLN, but in reality there are millions of PLNs in the world all which are also connected together as well as in a potluck there are multiple meals that come together to form the feast.

References

Connectivism. (n.d.). Retrieved June 10, 2017 from Education 2020 Wiki: https://education-2020.wikispaces.com/Connectivism

Gutierrez, K. (2016) What are Personal Learning Networks?. Retrieved from http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/personal-learning-networks

Wenger, E.  (2013). What Are Communities of Practice?. Retrieved from http://www.ncddr.org/cop/whatiscop.html

Woods, D. (Photographer). (2012, April 21). Potluck! [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/76634755@N04/7167995448/in/photolist-bVpRjq-2fVwB-5aVQpY-72RzKG-jDQtQc-5iJBNa-5mnoi6-68M1vf-a4Uq7Q-7DaQrL-bVPgpU-3NeJfA-4rxpzk-4rxpBV-funeNU-bVPkzE-hndzo-5mnmPv-bVPJGU-bVP9By-72abMW-bVPu7m-775rQR-bVPLXU-5iNUXC-bVPzus-4rBrCE-5mrEMh-4rBuHW-9Gb3ry-edWm9-4rBp4j-4rDnSW-bVPdXh-8zp7jC-bVPNGW-6MbXB-6Qcmn3-4rBuG9-4rxpDK-bVP5jq-5pdHSy-68Gekt-4rDnNb-jdgsV-oPVxpK-kUJAj-3diAD-5K1iW5-5mrBEb

                

Social Networking Experiences and Expectations

I found joining the social networks for this course to be very simple. As a millennial I use social networks daily so setting up a profile and making posts felt a fairly easy thing to do as an assignment for my class! I was not familiar with Diigo, and still cannot figure out how to pronounce it, but I feel that sharing websites that we as teachers find to be our favorite can be a very beneficial form of collaboration.

I can honestly say that I have not used social media at all for my own professional development. I am excited to learn some ways to do so though as I know that there are copious amounts of resources that can be implemented if I were to do some research. For example, I know that many teachers have blogs where they post their resources as well as many teachers post their lessons and notes online. These could be great things for me to do, but just finishing up my second year of teaching I haven’t reached out as much as I would like to enhance my lessons.

I have not used social media much at all as an instructional strategy in my learning environment. I teach freshmen in high school and know that they are very involved in their social media accounts. I feel it could be a very beneficial tool, but I also know that it has to be moderated and in some areas could be a bit taboo. The only thing I have used that could possibly be construed as social media is the use of Remind. Remind allows me to send out messages to my students that sign up that show up like text messages on their phones. They can respond to these text messages as well.

I don’t have too many expectations for this course. This is my first grad school class that I have taken so I feel l will develop many of my expectations of what grad school will be like from this course. Since that course has a title of social networking I expect that we will often use social networking accounts to interact. I also expect that we will learn ways to implement social networks into our teaching.