applications – Never Grow Up

Virtual Reality in the Classroom

Virtual Reality is an up-and-coming technology these days. You can by VR technologies and use that at home, in your workplace, but can you use them in school? There are multiple ways VR came be integrated into school, and more importantly each grade. I think virtual reality could easily be used in courses such as history, and science. You can go back in time with the usage of Virtual Reality, which is such a cool and interesting concept.

I found this really good article, https://elearningindustry.com/pros-cons-using-virtual-reality-in-the-classroom, which discusses the Pros and Cons to using Virtual Reality in schools. When I originally thought about this topic I personally could not produce any cons. I think VR would be extremely engaging for the students and make it a lot more fun for them to learn. They might actually be excited to come to class. The article points out how expensive VR really is. Bringing Virtual Reality into schools could cost thousands of dollars. Another strong negative is that it lessens human interaction. I think this is actually becoming a very prevalent problem in 2017. Kids and teenagers alike are very disconnected from the world because of the internet and all the new technologies and applications coming out each and every day. However, I do think VR would be very helpful in the classroom if it was used properly and for limited amount of time.

Through some research I found this video on YouTube about a school in Canada using VR in their classrooms. The teacher explains that VR makes instructing students easier and more interact. They want to participate and they want to be involved in the lesson. I never thought about how it could be used in math to depict measurements easier. Virtual Reality apparently helps to shorten the length of time is takes for students to learn things. One of the teachers claimed that he was able to teach his students a lesson in 2 class period rather than weeks, etc. Virtual Reality might be the next step to better 21st century learning.

What HASN’T Gen2108 taught me? That’s the real question..

I feel as though, as a class, we can all agree how much we have learned from taking this course. I have be introduced to ideas that never once crossed my mind. I will be honest, before taking this class, I truly question my ability to become a teacher. I never knew if I would be good at it. With the work that we do in the class, my opinion has completely changed. Each and every weekly activity we participate in, has truly helped me feel more confident as a future educator. Making presentation and lesson plans allowed me to prove to myself that I can do this! Focusing on presentations for the moment, I wanted

to mention how before this class I though PowerPoint’s were my only option. I have now learned that there are so many different directions I can go in regards to making a presentations. I can make a presentations with a voice over, I can use google slides, I can use Prezi(https://prezi.com/), Emaze(https://app.emaze.com/mypresentations), Popplet(http://popplet.com/), etc. I am positive that when I become a teacher, I will be using all of these different platforms. I learned that I can turn social media into a educational place. I love using twitter to connect with educators across the globe, and I think beyond this class I will continue to use my twitter as such.

Also, I really love our textbook because it allows us to connect with educators via their twitters or blogs. Most chapter use quotes from these individuals and then

leave their twitter handles at the end, so that we can easily follow them and connect with them. I like how our textbook uses real-life personalities rather than people that are less obtainable, meaning we would not be able to actually

par-take in discussions with them. I can easily find these people on twitter and messaged them or reply to one of their posts and 9 times out of 10 I will get an encouraging and friendly response.

Subsequently, I learned about websites like EDPuzzle, Edmodo, and Diigo. I really enjoy these websites and I think they work really well in the classroom setting. It is interesting to see us as college students using them, and then see that children much younger than us are engaged in these sites, and even adults older than us are using them as well. I find all of the sites a lot of fun to use and I know I will be using them in the future as well.

Why I love Twitter

To be frank, I never thought about Twitter as an educational application. I have always viewed the app as something for teenagers to use to vent or talk to friends, etc. In hindsight, I suppose that is exactly what we are doing! We are using our Twitters to connect, not only to our fellow classmates, but to educators and professional all over the world. At first, I was truly skeptical of how using twitter would help with this class, but I have learned much more than I expected through my twitter conversations and timeline. I learned about various different apps that can be used in the classroom. I have even given someone advice on an app to use in a special needs classroom. That is what I really like about twitter. You can give and take knowledge. Someone can share a post on something they have learned or used, and through that you can become aware of something new. You can also be the one teaching others. I think it is very unique how this Twitter was integrated into our Web Tools course because I would have never thought twitter would help me learn. I have found that Twitter is such a colorful places, full of diverse educators from around the globe.

I think the downside to Twitter, is also its upside; anyone can say (potentially) whatever they want. Twitter gets very political. As a future educators, I need to stay as professional as possible on the internet, but it is hard not to want to express my opinions that may differ from others. Looking back on the “tips slides” that we made in our google classroom, my tip was to keep your language appropriate and keep your website clean. Another tip was to stay out of controversy. One of my previous blog posts was about how a high school teacher was talking ill about her students on Facebook and how that backfired. You need to be very cautious and aware of what you post on your social media. Also, when other people post controversial things, it is important to stay classy and “clean” and not get involved. With Twitter, you just need to be very careful what you say.

One thing I learned from using Twitter in this way, is that there is such a gigantic community of educators to talk to. Everyone is conversing and sharing ideas. It is really refreshing and exciting to see such comradery on Twitter. When I follow people, they often end up reaching out to me and also they’re professionals, they are still very willing to help you or speak with you. I have gotten numerous direct messages from educators telling me that if I have any questions or concerns about my chosen field, that they would love to answer them. It is just so nice to see adults wanting to help other adults become better at what they do.

Lastly, I love participating in twitter chats with my classmates. Some of us share similar views, while other times we disagree. Everyone is extremely respectful and all speak in a very educated and appropriate way. I think using Twitter is a really good way of learning about my classmates. We all retweet and comment on different things, and through that we learn a lot about one another. Conversing with my classmates is by far the most interesting part of using Twitter because I get to learn about how they were raised and what they were taught in their classrooms. Also, I get to learn and shares ideas with them about what we want our future classrooms to be like.