Hello and welcome back to another week here on "Let's Chat with Lucy"!! Grab your iced coffee and let's get this show on a role!!

Side note: Happy early Fourth of July!! If you're going out of town for it, safe travels!! 'Merica!!!

Now, back to what we need to talk about! Teacher pages! From my observations, these are either not as popular as they used to be or schools in Tallahassee don't use them frequently. In the schools that I did find though, it was pretty popular to have the class newsletter attached along with some announcements and possibly the curriculum for the year. The particular teacher page that I am using as my example though is very detailed and contains links to all the homework and particular subject areas for her class. It has a whole theme and is very detailed for all her parents, which I really enjoy.

Here is the link to the class I used and a picture of the math page:
https://sites.google.com/a/viking.portage.k12.oh.us/p-bane/activities-calander

Now, to my experience with blogging... I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. Overall, I think I really enjoy it, but in this context I am not the biggest fan. I like having an outlet to write on because I have always considered myself better in writing than in verbal communication of my feelings. I also really like being able to interact with others and bringing my own style in my posts. I do not really like having this be an assignment, but would rather it be for recreation. Overall, I think I really enjoy the platform and would consider continuing it for another outlet choice. It has taught me how to express certain things along with provide my own insight while being aesthetically pleasing through hyperlinks and inserts.

Honestly, on the last assignment, I just learned how to make an evaluation sheet. I had never had to make one or think about things that would go on one, so to have that opportunity was actually really neat and I enjoyed it. I knew all the tools of adding a box and text, but have never applied them to this particular assessment. I see myself having to make them in my future teaching career so I am glad I got to practice with this one. I see myself possibly being able to make it a little more professional and thorough in the future, but I think that will come with having an actual assignment to attach it to. 

Here is my example: 

Hope you enjoyed this week's post, and don't forget to "chat with Lucy" next week!!! Again, Happy Fourth of July!! Talk soon!

Check out my comments on Gabi and Amanda's posts!!

Good afternoon and welcome back!! As per usual, grab your iced coffee and let's get started!!

This week we're going to talk about academic softwares for students. When thinking about what I would want my own students to use, I had to think back to my high school days and what my teachers had me use. I went to a high school where everyone actually had their own ipad so we actually used a lot of different softwares. Two specifically that I would want to use with my future classroom are Khan Academy and Google drive. The first software of Khan Academy is a tool that offers a lot of extra videos and practices that I used specifically for math. Math was the one subject I struggled with and the tools that Khan Academy offers really helped me get the extra practice that I wasn't getting in class. The other software of Google drive is one that I still use up in college. It allows me to store so many different things from pictures to documents to powerpoint. I can also allow other people to collaborate on those documents which is super helpful in school with group projects. I have experienced a ton of useful softwares in my years, but of them all I think these two are my top favorites.

Now when it comes to my Twitter experience, I am not sure how beneficial it has been truthfully. The one thing I will say is that I have come across and shared some really interesting articles, but I have not interacted with too many people. Either way, I think it is a great place to find articles and see other educator's opinions on different techniques and software. I think it would be beneficial in a classroom setting, but I think my students would have to be invested in finding people to follow and interact with.

Have a great week and feel free to tune in next week to "Chat with Lucy"!!! :)

Check out my comments on Gabi and Amanda's blogs!!

Week 5!! Woohoo!!
Quick little shoutout to my dad on this Father's Day weekend!! Also, Happy Father's Day to all your dads! Or moms if they had to play both roles!!!

Let's hop right on in! As always, grab your coffee- still haven't had mine today so this is perfect timing- and let's start talking about education!

ELA standards are something that is not totally foreign to me as English has always been my favorite subject in school and as I am studying to become a teacher myself. I believe I would feel most comfortable at this present moment with the standard for First Graders that specifies oral communication and learning. This summer I am actually working as a preschool teacher and my favorite thing has been to stretch my kid's language by asking them questions, making them explain things to me, or making them use their "big girl or boy" words. Oral tests have always been a good learning method for me and I think other kids benefit from it as well, so it is something I would feel confident in at the present moment.

Now onto the CPALMS toolkit! I found this whole website super cool and beneficial! Definitely something I want to continue to go back to as I get deeper into my own teaching career. Specifically, I enjoyed the Health Education section that was available. It actually gives an activity to teach the students about health in a way that they would enjoy. The activity for First Grade was ranking school lunches and I think a lot of students would love to do that. Eduction goes beyond math, science, and English; you have to teach life skills and knowledge and health would be at the top for me so I found this tool super insightful and helpful.

Working on the newsletter was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. I really enjoyed utilizing the column tool as I have written a lot of papers in my school years and those never include columns. Being able to use this feature was super neat and simple but gave a touch to the newsletter and allowed me to include more information that didn't look like one giant piece of paper with words on it. It spread things out and helped with the entire flow. Next time I think I think my newsletter as a whole could be a little more eye catching. Using the column tool along with clipart makes a parent actually want to read the letter rather than just throwing it out. The assignment as a whole really gave me a piece of what my future career is going to comprise of. I totally forgot that teachers pass those out weekly, monthly, or quarterly. I remember my mom loving an update on what was going on in my class, and I plan on using newsletters for the parents of my future students as well!!

It's been a great week folks, but this is where my post ends! Hope you enjoyed your coffee and this light read! Catch you next week ladies and gents!!

Feel free to take a look as my newsletter before you leave!

I commented on Bailey's and Gabi's posts!!

Hello and welcome back!! Week 4 already?!?! Well, as per usual, grab your iced coffee and let's do this thing!

This week we discussed open education, open content, and open source. To start, we will discuss open education. https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-education expands on the idea that open education is the belief, and practice, of resources pertaining to education being readily available (whether that be easy access or free access) for teachers and educators of all sorts. The hope is that the ways in which teachers teach their students would be more expansive and provide more options if there were to be more options available at their fingertips.

The second concept of open content refers to the more copyright area of the open education resources mentioned above. According to https://opencontent.org/definition/ open content would be resources that teachers do not have to worry about copyright issues because the information would come from a public domain or would allow teachers to use the 5Rs (retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute) in order to use the information being provided. Open content would allow teachers to find this open education and then not worry about having to change it completely so that they are not stealing someone else's work.

Lastly, open source refers to actual software that is available for use and redistribution without worry. This would probably be the least available at this point in time because no one wants to make their softwares available for everyone to use freely. Surprisingly, there are many softwares that many teachers pay out of pocket subscriptions for just to that they can use them in the classroom. If teachers wouldn't have to worry about paying for these softwares then maybe the classroom would be a little more advanced. Open sources would allow for that.

Open education resources are crucial for students at all stages of education. Students need to know that there are websites and sources out there for them to help expand their knowledge without breaking the bank with tutors and other sources along those lines. While that may be necessary, open education resources need to be an option as well because they can provide outlooks and options that a teacher or tutor may not ever think of. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/07/02/16-oer-sites-every-educator-should-know.aspx does a great job of providing 16 open education resources!!! Take a look!!

Thanks for tuning in, I think I kept this shorter than last week's!!! Forgive me if I didn't, still a bit of a talker!! Anyways have a great week ladies and gents and, as always, let's chat next week!!!

CHECK OUT MY COMMENTS ON:
https://kinsleysouthworth.blogspot.com/2019/06/blog-3.html#comment-form
and
https://kriveme2040.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-senior-year-of-high-school-i-took.html?showComment=1560140990647#c3339103156770259497

Hello and welcome back!! Week 3, let's go!! As always, grab your cup of (iced) coffee and get ready to Chat With Lucy!!

Let's start off by talking about the famous application of MS Word. My goodness, I cannot even remember a time that I haven't been using Word for school. I clearly remember a President assignment on Theodore Rosevelt in the third grade that made me use Word- I got an A if you were wondering. So I have been using it since I was in elementary school for simple projects where I had to write a paragraph to a 20 page conspiracy theory paper in APA format during my senior year of high school. I would consider myself a low-key pro at Word after the thousands (okay maybe just hundreds) of assignments I have made on Word. I have written papers, resumes, brochures, posters, magazine covers, and so much more. It really is the perfect application that I would not know what to do without, especially for school!!
I have also seen my teachers use it for just about everything under the sun. They've made class newsletters, permission slips, directions, tests, quizzes, announcements, and so much more. I could confidently say that the majority of my teachers would have been lost without Word. It has the power to create charts, insert pictures, write words, and so much more. It can be so simple yet so complex at the same time!

Now onto a more daunting topic of conversation... copyright and fair use of materials. I am not going to lie, I was not too concerned with this topic when I in elementary school and probably even middle school. It did not become a big deal until I got to high school and learned the ramifications that can come from intentionally- or even unintentionally!!!- plagiarize someone else. Copyright specifically though played a huge role when I was a Junior and Senior in high school and was taking multimedia classes. I had to put together a lot of videos that needed background music and, man, it was hard to find songs and noises that wouldn't get copyrighted once I uploaded the assignment. It was difficult when I had a specific song in mind for a video and then realized that I couldn't even include it.
When it comes to dealing with all of this in the future as I begin to teach though, I want to make sure I am following every guideline possible because it is so easy to unintentionally use something that I am not allowed to. I do not think the situations will be as numerous as they are in my time as a student, but I have no doubt that they will be present and that will be where it may even be easier to not know and copyright something than when I have been hyperaware as aa student myself. I would also make sure my students are well educated on what they can and cannot incorporate and then why. I want them to be fully educated before they start than get flagged after the fact and have to learn then.

Now when it comes to the technology implementation issues, I want to start with academic honesty. That is something that we have all heard our entire careers as students. In order to fix this I would want to make all of my students sign a contract at the beginning of the year stating what this looks like and the consequences of not following it. I would then like to actually implement theses consequences as situations arise because I feel as if a lot of the issues we have are because teachers want to be nice and just have a discussion about this and not actually hold it to as high of a standard as they originally said they would. The second issue I want to address is privacy. I would fix this issue by allowing my students to use pseudonyms. I think there would be a lot of more growth within students if they had a way to feel more comfortable on assignments that allowed them to be more authentic. Fear of judgement gets in the way of fully expressing themselves so no effort is put into half of their assignments. The third issue would be cyberbullying. While I am positive that there is no solution to this, I would want to help the cause by calling my students out. If I see it happening, I want to publicly address it. I think when this topic is considered "private" then students get away with it more frequently because no one really knew that it happened and they think no one will ever know since it was so privately dealt with. People always hate being called out on their wrongdoings, so why would this be any different? Make them see how unpopular they become once they realize how uncool this actually is and the cyberbullying may actually decrease.

Thanks for "Chatting With Lucy"!! If you made it to the end, congrats!! I'll try and keep next week's post shorter, but I'm a talker if you couldn't tell!! Have a great week ladies and gents!!!