R531 Class - Adventures in the Virtual World

6.A. Engage in continual learning to deepen content and pedagogical knowledge in technology integration and current and emerging technologies necessary to effectively implement the Standards•S and Standards•T

Most of you may not know this, but I have joined two college classes at Indiana University Southeast in order to renew my Kentucky Teaching Certification. These are my first graduate classes in the United States!!

One of the classes is about teaching Reading - E545 - a very familiar topic to me. By the title, you probably concluded - rightly so - that this post is not going to be about that class. It is going to be about the one that is somewhat out of my comfort zone (and more in my zone of proximal development - yep, just used a term from the other class, that is how comfortable I am with that one.).

Coded R531, the technology class focuses on the use of computer in education. As the Brazilican (somewhat struggling) learner, I just had to post about it (plus it is an assignment to create a blog post, so here you go).

I do not consider myself digitally-challenged, however, I did feel so last night, as I was reading through the materials. Right off the bat, I learned about Symbaloo, that is sorta, kinda like Pinterest, except that you "pin" websites, rather than pictures. It reminded me of my smartphone screen, with all the apps. I really like how you can sort by topic, and have the hyperlink right there, for future use or reference. In a classroom setting, the teacher could share what the website calls a "webmix", which pretty much is a personalized list of websites, relevant to a topic.

And did I mention my teacher had two videos that she used for her introduction and presentation of the course? She mentioned a website that videos like that could be made on, and - as you probably guessed - I had never heard of.

There were some familiar websites that were discussed also - Youtube, Pinterest, Twitter. But I had never interacted on them with a professional purpose. I learned to create my own playlist on Youtube, and found several articles at Pinterest. In a classroom setting, a teacher could use a playlist as a homework assignment for students who need to catch up on their work - and some of those videos could be produced by the website mentioned above.

I feel that I will learn so much in this class! And just in case you are wondering what the first paragraph is about - that is an ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) standard for teachers. The one above is about lifelong learning through the use of technology. So let the lifelong learning adventures in the Virtual World begin...