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Blog Journal 8: A Farewell to Diigo

     The week before spring break was the last time we used Diigo's software in my educational technology course. While it is sad to say goodbye, I know that I can always go back and use it as a resource and I learned so many great things through our in-class activities involving the software. One of the best moments we had while using Diigo this semester was when we were trying to create a discussion thread. Initially, it seemed quite unorganized and not set up in a way to easily interact with on another's comments, however, one of my classmates found that you could use Diigo's highlighting feature on the thread itself so we could easily respond to each other's individual comments! It was a learning moment for the entire class which was pretty great. I think in the future I would encourage my students to use Diigo when writing research papers or any papers that require sources that are accessible online. Through Diigo, they can share their resources with peers writing on similar topics and they can check the credibility of each other's sources and discuss it together to develop their papers further.
     If I were to be teaching a lesson to a class and wanted to support my students' learning at the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy using a PowerPoint, there are a few things I would try to do. At the beginning of the lesson, I would start with a review question that asks about information we discussed in the last class that would be discussed in that day's class and built upon. I would then have students volunteer to answer the question and justify their answers. I would then introduce the new topic with an exercise. The exercise would involve students connecting a situation to yesterday's topic and then taking a new perspective on the new topic. For example, if I were teaching a creative writing class, I could have taught wide reading techniques the first day and close reading techniques the second day. Both topics relate but give the students different perspectives on the readings they are evaluating. At the end of the lesson I would have students share the conclusions they drew from their exercises and have a class discussion about everyone's interpretations. I would end the lesson with a brief assignment for the students to choose a poem to use both close and wide reading techniques on.
     Teachers are educating the next generation, this means that they are preparing the next generation for the adult world. They are expected to teach their students the skills and knowledge they will need in order to find a place in the work force and in the modern day and age, technology is everywhere. Every day there is a new technological advancement that is created to make the world run smoother and more efficiently. Teachers have to keep up with these new advancements and educate their students. A source that I found back when I started my Twitter account for this class is Education Week. Most of the news I hear about technology and education comes from this Twitter account. Education Week has articles on its website, but I find that following their Twitter kept me more informed since I use Twitter for everyday things.


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