Blog Post #8

New Skills from Diigo

When using Diigo, I have mostly benefited from the Chrome extension! It makes marking up, highlighting, and annotating any article on the web easier than ever. Before, I would have to save the article as a PDF and then print it to be able to physically mark it up. But with the power of technology and Diigo, it has made it so much easier for me to do so. I don't know how I feel about the sharing and posting aspect of Diigo, sometimes it is a little difficult to find specific articles. When there are so many people in a group on Diigo, you have to scroll around until you discover what you were looking for. It's not my favorite aspect of the application.

Powerpoint Learning

For the understand and remember sections of Bloom's Taxonomy, I would simply use a Powerpoint slideshow with text and images to recall basic facts and explain concepts to my students. Because those two are at the bottom of the pyramid, they are simple to implement into my everyday teaching. For the analyze and apply sections, I would make the students play around with Powerpoint so that they are able to use information and draw connections after they've already seen my Powerpoints. And the final two segments, create and evaluate, I would have my students create their own Powerpoint and then present their slideshows so that they would learn about producing original work and how to justify their creation. After fully creating a Powerpoint, students will know how they can utilize the technology, and especially after presenting their information, it solidifies that they truly understand the concept, according to Bloom's Taxonomy.

Teacher Professional Development

Teachers need to be constantly involved in professional development. With the ease of technology, we have access to so much knowledge. Professional development is just a part of a teacher's job if they want to excel at what they do. It helps them constantly improve their practices and have a trial and error period for different techniques that have worked for other people in their career field. Because teachers are tasked with being the driving force of technology, they need to be educated on the topics that they are teaching. If a teacher is not trying to improve, they are doing their students a disservice.

I've said this before in our class' Diigo group, but I thoroughly enjoy Edutopia, the website. It compiles all of the resources needed for a teacher's professional development, including articles, podcasts, videos, and so much more. I would recommend to anyone in the education field. https://www.edutopia.org/teacher-development