Blog Journal 10

          Because I don't intend to be a teacher, I think that my usage of excel and data collection may be a bit different than some of my classmates. In library science, I can see data collection and organization such as this being useful for cataloging resources, both physical and digital. It wouldn't be difficult to use excel to track what resources are being used, by who, and when. This would be useful both to ensure the safety of resources and to observe patron behavior. An understanding of which resources individuals use and when can help allocate resources in a more helpful fashion. I can see Excel also being useful in allocating spaces. For instance, if I end up working somewhere like Strozier, with numerous rooms, spreadsheets would be useful to manage claims of certain rooms at certain times. In fact, Strozier's website already uses a spreadsheet to help students quickly and easily see which study spaces are checked out, and when they will be available in the future.
          One of my other courses this semester has to do with big data, and how analytic techniques are being developed frequently that were nonexistent or unreliable even just a decade ago. The large amount of functions that Excel offers undoubtedly have utility in data analysis that I have no concept of how to use. I'd like to become more familiar with the software, and the myriad applications that come with it.

Blog Journal 9

A Flipped Classroom inverts the typical structure of a classroom by having students work on understanding concepts outside of the classroom, while working with their instructor in the classroom to understand and complete homework. I actually learned Algebra 2 in an inverted classroom, and I enjoyed being able to have my instructor on hand to help me through aspects of our homework that would have otherwise stumped me.
Open Educational Resources allow educators everywhere to access educational resources that could help them or their students.
https://www.oercommons.org/courses/88-open-essays-a-reader-for-students-of-composition-rhetoric
These resources allow educators to collaborate on educational techniques and share what has been able to work for them.
I've never before paid much attention to the nuances of powerpoint, and I've never used either the button function or the slide master feature. Slide master is incredibly conducive to reducing redundancy, and I truly wish I knew about it earlier in my educational career. The ability to standardize slide designs is generally useful, but became even more useful when I had to create a game in this class. It's infinitely easier to standardize your buttons than to add a button or two to every single slide.

Blog Journal 8

     I learned how to use Diigo's annotation software. This is a useful feature because it allows me to keep track of my own thoughts on electronic sources, in circumstances where on a physical resource I would want to write in the margins. The fact that you can share pages with annotations is also helpful. It enables you to share websites,which I could already do, but it lets you share your own commentary on a resource. You can also direct attention to specific components of a source which, along with the other features, makes sharing information with peers that much easier.
     The variety of ways of presenting information with PowerPoint allow you to create a wide array of presentations according to any number of design and education guidelines. PowerPoint is excellent for analysis because it allows for information to be broken down and grouped together in relevant categories on different slides, which can then be brought back together further into the presentation. In a given presentation, I'd tackle applying, understanding, and remembering all at once towards the end by reviewing information from previous slides, addressing their relation to one another, and trying to apply them to relevant circumstances in the real world.
     eLearning Industry is a website that focuses on upcoming trends in technology as viewed from the perspective of an educator. This includes analyses of why certain technologies are beneficial for students, articles on education itself, and a myriad events related to the intersection of education and technology. It goes even further by providing a hub for people advertising and searching for jobs pertaining to education and technology. It is a versatile resource for educators, and anyone looking to constructively integrate technology into their workplaces or lives.

Blog Journal 3

          I feel particularly qualified to help students "cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis". That standard is one that I have to deal with myself in my major, Literature, in just about every assignment that I complete. One standard that I am less accustomed to is creating narratives to develop real or imagined experiences. Most of my writing experience is based on analysis rather than narrative, so I am not as familiar with that standard as I would like to be if I were to teach it.
          The resource Investigating Essential and Nonessential Elements breaks down sentence syntax and strips away everything except the fundamentals of understanding syntax. Because it is such a baseline approach, it would be useful in working with individuals who haven't had an opportunity to learn about English grammar. That said, many people who have some experience with grammar could benefit from a review, so this tool is applicable to a wide audience. I don't expect to be teaching English, but if I was, this tool would be extremely valuable.
          The Newsletter Design assignment taught me, above all else, that I don't know as much about Word as I thought. I primarily use word processing for traditional essays and papers, so many of the features in the newsletter were new to me. The graphic design aspects of mine are rough, as I don't have much of an eye for that sort of thing. I also did not spend as much time on the newsletter as I should've, which stemmed from my overconfidence in my Word skills.

I use Word as a student a great deal because, as an English major, I have to write a lot and often. I've worked my way through a whole lot of pages, but despite that I feel like I've barely used many of Word's features. All I need typically is Times New Roman, some spacing tweaks, and some miscellaneous formatting. There is still much to the program that I need to learn.

Academic honesty is pertinent to my work on what feels like a daily basis. A lot of my coursework involves analyzing academic journals or including their findings in my own research papers. Unsurprisingly, citing sources and ensuring that you only use accessible information are both reiterated constantly over in Williams. I've had professors who claimed that they would fail you for plagiarism, but I've never had the nerve or misfortune to test them.

I don't plan to teach, but academic dishonesty is relevant to being a librarian as well. Librarians work with, and help others use academic online databases frequently. A crucial aspect of using the knowledge curated in said databases is attributing borrowed information in the appropriate fashion. If I were at a college library for instance, I'd want to establish sessions to both teach students how to get the most out of online databases and how to appropriately cite and utilize information in order to avoid academic dishonesty. A lack of funding in an academic library setting would negatively impact the amount of databases that students and faculty would be able to access. Universities spend a large amount money maintaining access to online databases for academic journals and other materials, and losing them in a budget cut would be tough to handle. I suppose I'd have to do my best to guide students to tangible research materials relevant to their studies. This would narrow the collection of information they could use significantly, and would be a blow to a library's efficacy.

Technology in the classroom can both facilitate learning and help engage students in the material. Technology can also gauge competency and understanding of material in ways that traditional methods may not, which will help students master material in a way that they would prefer, while simultaneously allowing teachers to cater to their students’ needs. Involving technology in assessments makes it easier for teachers to grade and respond to material, while also creating avenues for involved and specific feedback for the students. Technological application allows for teachers to accomplish more in less time, while allowing students to receive a personalized experience.

An aspect of the ISTE standards that appeals to me specifically is 7c: Using assessment data to guide progress and build self-direction. In the Marching Chiefs I work with incoming freshmen, teaching them marching fundamentals to prepare them for evaluations that will determine their admittance to the ensemble. Receiving and processing feedback is a critical part of my job and my responsibility to my students. One of the hardest parts of working with a group for something like that is that not everyone progresses at the same pace. It can be difficult to apply feedback when the needs of students vary so widely. Because of that, the potential for technology to facilitate specific feedback is extremely appealing to me.

Point 6c is one that I have no real experience with. I’ve never had to assign individuals a task that requires them to formulate a design plan. I don’t know much about how to formulate such a challenge, and as a result, this point is far outside my comfort zone. Hopefully I’ll be able to add design plan formulation to my skill set soon enough.

I don’t know that I feel like a digital native, but I have been around technology in an academic setting for the better part of my life. While I do sometimes laugh at people older than me struggling to adapt to technology, I am absolutely sure that before too long, I’ll be in the same boat. Some new technology is bound to come along and be just as alien to me as smartphones and fitbits are to my parents. Fundamentally, technology is going to continue fulfilling the same purpose: facilitation. Students in the future may have different tools in their classroom environments than I did and do, but they will still be using them to facilitate learning. The digital natives of the future may have entirely different technology than I grew up with, but as long as the core benefits of technology remain intact, students of the future will benefit from technology in learning environments just as I have.

I'm a fourth year Literature major, who has just started working on a minor in Information Technology. From here, I hope to attend graduate school for a Masters of Science in Information, specifically focusing on Library Science. From there, I intend on working either as a librarian or as an archivist.

The list of technology I've had experience with in an educational setting includes smartboards, various aspects of Microsoft Office, Kahoot, Quizlet, plenty of online databases for research, and the massively useful left handed desks. Some of these technologies have proven useful for my fulfillment of my coursework, such as Word and Powerpoint. Kahoot and Quizlet are excellent resources for reviewing material, and databases help me find that material in the first place. Left handed desks facilitate my note taking in all of my classes, and I'd love to shake the hand of whoever invented them.

By the end of this class, I'd like to be more conscious of the ways that technology manifests itself in academic environments. This course will also probably broaden my perception of what technology really is, in a classroom setting. Familiarizing myself with how technology can be utilized to facilitate learning and communication has relevance to what I hope to study, as I will be working extensively with informational databases and with others that may need guidance in using available technology as efficiently as possible,