Ben Kelly - EME 2040 Blog

 

Hi and welcome back to my blog! Last week in EME 2040, we took a mid-term survey based on the quality of the class, that asked us to reflect on how well the class has gone. Personally, I've enjoyed the class a little, but it definitely could be improved. Let's start with the good. Omer has been an incredible instructor, and has made the class very enjoyable. I've also began to enjoy keeping this blog, as its been a good way to track my progress in this class. Now to the not so good. The participation portfolio has taken me wayyy too much time compared to other assignments, and I forgot the PLN existed. Other than those, this class has been pretty good. Open educational resources (OER) are free and openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, and many other purposes. These resources can include lesson plans, videos, quizzes, and more. OER provides a cost-effective and flexible alternative to traditional educational resources, as they can be

 Hi and welcome back to my blog! Recently in EME 2040, we've been focusing on website design and design principles. So, as our major assignment, we got to create a website adhering to the CRAP design principles (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity). To implement these design principles, I made sure that all fonts were easily readable against their backgrounds, that all fonts were used the same in the same places (an example being all titles having the same font), and I made sure all texts were an appropriate size and shape. Personally, I enjoyed the assignment because I know as a pre-service teacher I will have to make websites in the future and this helped develop my skills in that area. Here is my website:  https://mrkellysocialstudies.weebly.com/  We also have been using Diigo more as a class. Personally, I am not a big fan of Diigo, but I can see how it would be useful for others. The main use for it in a professional environment in my eyes would be sharing helpful l

 Hi and welcome back to my blog! This week we learn about teach webpages for school websites. I found a website for a high school AP US history and AP Economics class by a teacher named Mrs. Holowicki. This website was rather clunky, as information was just kind of thrown at you on a sidebar, and the colors didn't go well together. On the website, you can see assignments, unit summaries, class rules and procedures, and a myriad of other things that seem a bit thrown together. There is also a message board and an email link for parents and students to contact Mrs. Holowicki. https://www.brightonk12.com/domain/550  As a pre-service teacher, something I often consider is how to adapt technology to my future classroom. One productivity tool I would utilize is Google Drive. Google Drive is a great resource for organizing and sharing resources and can be used to share information effectively. One feature I really enjoy is the file feature, where I can make files within google drive and s

 Hi and welcome back to my blog! This week in EME 2040, we started to learn about Diigo. Diigo is a tool that allows users to bookmark and save websites, and make commentary on them to remind themselves of why they bookmarked the website. I don't particularly love Diigo, because it feels like using the google bookmark tool, but with extra steps. Personally, I prefer to use the google bookmark tool and make folders so I know where I placed everything. Diigo is helpful with sharing with classmates however, and I may use that tool in the future for that purpose. So far I've enjoyed my experience blogging. At first I did not expect to enjoy it, because I've always kind of thought of blogs as kind of childish, but I'm starting to see the value in it. These assignments, for the most part, have been pretty enjoyable, and I kind of look forward to writing my blog post every week. I do wish, however, that I had a little more room to make the blog my own (I dont really know how t

 Hi and welcome back for my blog! My early experiences with twitter have been really good to start! I've been able to follow and interact with some classmates, including some not in our section, as well as other FSU accounts. I've been able to find really interesting people to follow on twitter, and I'm learning new things from them. One interesting thing that happened to me on twitter was learning about the notification settings. I received a notification from Tallahassee PD (someone I don't follow) and it kind of freaked me out a little but now I have turned off that setting so I'm all good! This week we also learned about the digital divide. The digital divide is the issue of students not having the technological access to information and education, especially in comparison to their peers. This usually is due to poverty or location of where they live. The digital divide makes it harder for students to succeed because they have less access to information and learn