July's World

Snapchat My Students!?      While I was scrolling down the articles regarding social media in the classroom, I stopped when I saw the heading Getting Started with Snapchat in Your Classroom . The reason that I stopped at this article is because I never really thought of using Snapchat with my students. While I realize that social media is important for teachers to have in order to communicate with their students and parents I always thought that Snapchat was not an appropriate tool to use in education. Snapchat is known for being for private conversations and posting/sending selfies.          In this article by John Walter written in 2017 starts by saying Snapchat is the most popular social media for teens which by today's standards wouldn't apply because TikTok has taken over the most popular social media platform. The article goes on to describe five ways and reasons to incorporate Snapchat in the classroom. Snapchat can work as one way communication to remind students of an

     To Tweet or Not to Tweet? That is the Question         I started my Twitter account @julya60608 back in 2009! Yikes! I created it because that's what everybody was doing at the time. I used it for about a day or two and realized it was not my cup of tea. There was so much that goes with Tweeting that I felt it took too much of my time and I did not feel like I wanted to put the time and effort to learn everything that goes with it. I thought of it more of a platform to argue with people as opposed to learn from so I would log in once in a while to argue about politics in the past year since we were all in quarantine. I just learned to retweet not too long ago so I'm still learning about hashtags and twitter chats. I consider myself very tech savvy but when it comes to Twitter usage I am an amateur.                                                                  Image Source: Personal Twitter         Professional Learning Network          With this technology class we had

  Web 2.0/Digital Tools         Web 2.0 tools  are free  digital  programs that can be used for creating and sharing student-generated projects. They are interactive, multi-purpose, easy-to-use  digital  platforms that encourage students to collaborate with each other or create and share individualized response products. These tools are meant to allow users to go beyond just receiving information. This article goes in depth regarding the use of Web 2.0 to engage learners and how useful they are for our students.                                                                                                 Image Source: blogspot         Kahoot!                                                                             Image Source: Optionsforlearning         Kahoot is a tool for using technology to administer quizzes, discussions or surveys. It is a game based classroom response system played by the whole class in real time. Multiple-choice questions are projected on the screen.

           Did you know that teenagers using Facebook probably means that they are more than likely to be low-income?! I did not know this either, but according to the Pew Research Center (2018)  teens who use Facebook as their main form of social media are more likely living in a household with an income less than $35,000/year. Generation X and millennials have used Facebook evenly regularly regardless of their income therefore I found teen usage and income connection very surprising. Teens in households with incomes over $75,000/year are more likely to use Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube as their main forms of social media.                                                             Image Source: Pew Research Center         This research went more in detail and found that female teens are more than likely to use Snapchat as their main form of social media whereas boys are more than likely to use YouTube as their form of social media. Social Media for teens also do not revolve aroun

 Who remembers sitting at their desk and remembering every single word their teacher was saying? The answer to this question is more than likely that NOBODY remembers much of what they learned in school while they were at their desks listening to their teacher. The reason for this is that we only learn twenty percent of what we hear. But chances are that you remember a specific thing from school if you were engaged in the lesson. I for once remember when I was in ESL class we were in groups and we had to each come up with a story using our words of the week and act out the story. The reason that I remember words from my ESL class and not much from reading class is because I was Actively Learning. Active Learning is a method of instruction that involves actively engaging students with the course material through discussions, problem solving, case studies, role plays and other methods.  An Example of Active Learning  In this blog active learning is shown by challenging students in grad

              In an era where we are always on our phones and we worried we were spending too much time online already,  the pandemic happened and our lives became for the most part 100 percent digital. There are always pros and cons to every new app and there are people who will love it and people who will hate it, it's part of the tech world. Creating a digital map really puts into perspective the applications we are constantly using and the reason why we use those apps. There used to be a time I was using every social media application for a small cafe I used to own. During this time I realized that many apps are really good for businesses as they cost virtually nothing to advertise. What it did cost me was time, so much time.As a small business owner we do everything ourselves including social media management. During this time I learned to use apps to generate income instead of using them for personal use. When I sold the business I realized I hardly use those apps for my pe

EdCamp by July Miranda     As educators we all attend various professional development events throughout the school year and even in the summer. As educators how many of said events can we also say are fun and educational? I am guessing that many will answer that not many of those PD conferences are that exciting and even educational because in most cases the PD conferences involve educators sittin down for most if not all of the event. PD conferences are there to teach and inspire educators but many times we are left in boredom and fatigue.  When we are in regular PD conferences if we are placed in groups, we must remain in those groups. Wouldn't it be better if we can have PD conferences in which we can walk around and "converse" and be able to walk away with no consequences if a conversation about a certain subject does not interest us? I personally enjoy and learn more from things that I have more interest in, for example if I'm in a PD that is referring to things

  Image Source: Personal Photo  As mentioned before I am a special education teacher from grades Pre-K through 12th grade in every subject. I have taught science, English, reading, math, history, etc. in order to be able to teach a variety of subjects in various grades I have had to used different technology methods in different ways. Since the way I used technology changes with each grade level and subject I take it even a step further because each one of my diverse students learns differently therefore, I have to use technology resource to the way they learn.      I have worked with students with severe developmental delays and they are able to use tablets for communication. I can take those same tablets and use them for Kindergartners to practice writing their letters and again take those same tablets to high school students and help them develop a google slide presentation.        By giving all these various examples I believe that best technology that I am using is the TPACK which