Rafaela Hollada

Blended learning is when you mix the traditional teaching techniques with some technology. I personally like this type of learning because I feel that students get some much out of it. They stay on tasks more, they have more resources, more ways of doing classroom activities, etc. Being able to apply technology in our learning also prepares us for the real world since technology has been alive for many years now. Just by simply making students write on Word instead of on a piece of paper is already preparing them for most jobs. I think what I like most about blended learning is that there are endless styles to teach a lesson. So, if a student does not understand the material one way, there are several different styles they can try. I really liked the infograph above because it explains how much students enjoy having technology in their classroom. 75% said that technology helped them achieve their academic outcomes and 54% said that they are more involve in the course that in...

To be completely honest, I was very skeptical of what this class could teach me about integrating technology in a classroom. However, it did not only teach me that but it also taught me about digital citizenship, TPACK, AND SAMR things I have never heard before. I really enjoyed learning about all the different apps or websites that could be used in the classroom to make activities more interesting and fun to learn. Apps and websites that can help teachers expand students' mind and how we could apply these tools to a lesson plan. This class also taught me that Twitter can be an amazing resource for teachers. So what? (What does it all mean? Why is it important?) I always thought that using technology in a classroom was important. You can do activities, homework, take test, do research, connect with people around the world. For instance, Twitter, I thought this type of media was boring because every time I would check it, there was always things that did not interest me. I th...

Have you noticed that technology has gotten so good that sometimes you do not what to believe? For instance, photo-shopping, it is done so much now that when we see a celebrity on the cover of a magazine we know that most likely the picture has been photo-shopped. However, it is difficult for us to truly know whether they have been or not because there are celebrities that do not let the magazine do it. I had to look at three different things such as, an image, reviews, and quotes and I have to determine whether they were real or fake. **Image, Reviews, Quotes retrieved from:  http://searchresearch1.blogspot.com/2015/11/search-challenge-111115-fake-or-real.html 1. The Image: 2. The Reviews: Review 1:  Stayed here for two nights with my wife and golden retriever in a pet friendly room. All staff in the hotel are super friendly and helpful. Can't beat the location. Visiting our son at Dalhousie. We are traveling from Maine and have greatly enjoyed Halifax. If you are...

 In what ways is digital citizenship similar to and different from the traditional view of citizenship in the world beyond our devices? Digital citizenship is different from the traditional view of citizenship in the world because in the digital sense people have access to any part of the world, any culture they want to be part of. As for the traditional sense, we are part of just one place in the world. For example, if you are a citizen of this country then you are part of just the United States.       2.  How can we apply traditional citizenship ideas to our work in helping students develop digital             citizenship? Stranger danger is an idea that is used in traditional citizenship which can also help students develop digital citizenship. Just like you would not give your information to a stranger in person, you should also not do it online.       3.   What is the teacher's role in...

Throughout experimenting with TweetDeck and Feedly I have come to the realization that technology is used to further expand ideas more often than I thought. I have a Twitter account but I must be honest, I do not use it regularly because I have not felt a connection to it. I used to think that Twitter was only for expressing what came to peoples' mind and I thought, isn't that what Facebook is for? I was beyond wrong because there is so much more one can do with it. You can connect not just with your close friends but also with people from all around the world, people you do not even know. TwitterDeck is a great tool to find resources to use in your classroom and Feedly is a great tool to find who and what to follow in order to use them as sources. All you have to do is search a hashtag and endless amounts of resources that other people has posted pops up. Here are some examples of the hashtags I searched for on TwitterDeck. As you can see you can look for resources on how to...

TPACK stands for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. It is the interaction between these three concepts; Technology (the ability to use a computer, software, etc.), content (math, science, social studies, and so forth), and pedagogical (how to teach) that shows how technology can help in teaching. The good thing about TPACK is that its phases ensure that the use of technology is purposeful. TPACK's weakness is that it does not inform you what technology to use. It is just a way of informing you if adding the technology is useful. SAMR stands for Substitution that is when technology is used to substitute the teaching but does not have an impact of the lesson. For example, instead of writing on a piece of paper, the students each take a turn to write on the smart board. Augmentation, technology also substitute the way the lesson is taught, however, it does have an impact because it improves the way the lesson is taught. For instance, being able to use Word to improve the s...