6: thoughts of a future educator

The teacher site that I decided to look at is a Kindergarten site from Astoria Park Elementary.  I actually work in this classroom a few times a week, so I thought it would be interesting to see what I can view as a "stranger" on this website.  There are tabs for info about the teacher, links that are helpful to students, announcements, assignments and a calendar.  Most of the information is either not filled in, or is unaccessible by me since I'm not logged in as a parent or student that's part of the class.  This is actually quite a comforting thought to me, because I think it would be a little strange if anybody could view what the class is up to, even if it's just talking about what they're doing/where they're going.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the calendar is not filled out.  However, you can also see that there's a place to sign in, which means it might require a login to be visible.

I definitely intend to use technology in the future in my classroom, especially some of the ones that Chapter 7 discussed.  It talked a lot about word processors, which can be used for things ranging from note taking to creating calendars and newsletters.  That's what I used to create my newsletter for the assignment - possibilities are nearly endless when using technology like that.  Also, we discussed applications that help us be efficient as educators, such as the 30/30 app, which can be found here: http://3030.binaryhammer.com.  I think it's a great idea, and I love routines, so turning my work day into a bunch of mini routines just makes sense to me.

Lastly, the Web Evaluation assignment - I had mixed feelings about this assignment.  On one hand, I think that it was kind of tedious, just because judging the credibility of a website has become second nature to so many of us.  Between all of the click bait on Facebook and having to write upper level papers with credible sources, I think we've learned how to differentiate between the two.  However, on the other hand, I also found this assignment kind of useful.  Because we're so adapted to judging sites, we forget that our future students don't have as much experience in judging credibility and may need assistance.  Being able to put it into words now is going to help us out a lot in the future, when we're trying to explain how to find credible sites to our students.  Overall, I found the assignment to be useful.