Blog Journal #5

In the past, I used Twitter a good amount in high school. I never posted anything but I followed friends and celebrities to keep up with them all. I also followed some news accounts and funny, humor accounts. I think Twitter is beneficial to keep up with things going on in news outlets and even like sports teams. At my high school, they had many different Twitter accounts for individual sports so if you could not make it to a game, you had the ability to stay updated on the game through Twitter.

The digital divide is how you can describe the gap between people who have access and understanding of technology, vs people who do not. In general, us being in college here at FSU, we have access to a good amount of technology, at least, so we oftentimes might forget that some people are years and years behind the technology that we are accustomed to.  I definitely take all the access to technology for granted. In my future career, I think Twitter could be a great outlet for a teacher web page where parents can follow and that is how I post updates for class. I could even make it fun and post pictures of their kids or activities we do, just to keep everyone involved!

We have accessibility to applications such as Canvas, Blackboard, Google classroom, and so much more just being at a university. In my classroom in the future, I would like to implement Google Classroom. The reason I would like to implement this application is because you then have easy access to Google Docs, Slides, Drive, and more. In elementary and high school, Google Classroom was a very easy place to go to navigate, and easy to learn the other applications that go along with it. Another software tool I would use would be Canvas, just because I like the way each class is set up and it is very easy to navigate assignments, tests, quizzes, discussion, and more. To me, Canvas is a more in depth and complex version of Google Classroom, so if I was teaching elementary school I would use Classroom and if I was teaching high school I would use Canvas. I think Classroom gives elementary school students a lot of different outlets, such a Slides, to make projects and express their creativity. 

Badges are digital achievements or gold stars on things you have succeeded at. I think badges are a great way to motivate students to keep doing their best, especially in online work. It is similar to students getting a gold star sticker on a test they did well on or a note in their Friday Folder congratulating them on their good work in class. In school, we did a typing class that was all online and I would get badges when I met certain achievements, but I had never heard the term badge until this course. I do not share them because I was not aware of them, but in the future, when I am teaching, I think this would be a great way to motivate my students to keep achieving great things!