Starting off with this module, I have to say, THANK YOU Professor Rubal for the link to the Free Resources to Help with Remote Learning in 2021!! I knew there were many free resources during these trying times, but I love how it is all documented in this link with a small description of each service. For anyone that missed the link, click here. Some of my favorites include Adobe, Canva, Google's G Suite, and Kahoot! In the same section, we were introduced to "Critical Evaluation of Information." I found it really useful because there are so many different formats provided - Elementary School Level, Virtual Tours, Podcast, etc. Next, moving on to the learning theories. The two learning theories websites would have been super useful for me during my undergrad. I majored in Child Development in my undergrad, so I had to deal with learning theories all the time in my papers.
As I watched the video on "Evaluating and Analyzing Web Resources," I found it very helpful. I never thought about how advertisements could be a distraction because I use ad blockers and rarely see ads. But, this is a really important thing to keep in mind because students get distracted or click on random things easily, and I don't want them to get hacked or spammed by clicking something bad. Also, when I was looking for an informational page on my topic, there was actually not a lot.... which makes me want to switch to another topic for fear of not being able to find appropriate sites for kids.
I love online discussion forums! It seems like so many questions that I have are always answered online. I never wanted to go down the rabbit hole of Reddit but finally caved into making an account at the end of January this year so I could post questions of my own. I also have also used other discussion forums like Quora and yahoo. The first time I heard the term "netiquette" was in one of my undergrad classes where the professor utilized the discussion forums for every assignment. It makes sense to have online etiquette and it is something that I would definitely want to teach my students about.
Wow! I did not even know there were so many different classifications of the web! Out of the list of web 2.0 examples, my favorite is the Voicethread. It is the perfect platform for recording presentations. I could see this working really well with shy students that do not want to present in front of the class but to record beforehand and at least get some credit. Other than that, the frog dissection video was pretty awesome. I remember dissecting a pig in my freshmen year of high school and it was pretty gross. With the simulation online, it could prepare younger students for when they actually have to dissect something. This also could work as a pre-class activity for students to warm up before the real deal.
Can't wait to learn how to make infographs next week!
