First Blog!

For my first cool tool review I chose Coggle. Coggle is mind mapping app that allows users to lay out and organize their ideas in an easy to read format. Much like the bubble technique when making an outline for a paper, Coggle can be used to organize information for a research paper. Teachers can also use it in career tech courses as a sort of check list. For example, a career tech class is going over careers in web development. The teacher can create a Coggle map that has branches that include the skills needed for a web developer. Coggle allows you to insert hyperlinks and other coding into the maps, so, for the web developer map, under skills needed there can be links to websites or Youtube videos that explain some of the skills needed such as proficiency in Javascript, CSS and other computer languages. I am actually using Coggle myself to organize a hobby of mine that has potential of turning into a business for me.  I think this tool would work well in a classroom and, bein

I was surprised by how little I knew about copyright laws. I honestly thought there were files considered "free to the public" and others that were copyrighted and therefore were a "look but don't touch" kind of thing. Now I know that even this blog and anything else created is, to a degree, copyrighted. My favorite video in this section was Understanding "Fair Use" in a Digital World.  The lesson gets students to starting thinking about how they should and shouldn't use content from an early age. When I was in middle school, the only copyright education I received was pertaining to plagiarism and patents. Now, with smart phones and other access to the internet in every classroom, we as educators have to instruct our students on the now much more complex topic of fair use and copyright.

Hello again, This week we discussed the importance of sharing. As educators we chose to become life-long learners. We cannot be stiff and immovable when it comes to change. We have to be open and searching for answers to new questions that come up. And when we find those answers we must share them with our peers. It is our responsibility as fellow educators to lend each other a helping hand. As technology grows throughout more and more areas of our lives we too have to evolve ourselves and our teaching methods to accommodate the changes. Most importantly, after changing, we have to share how we changed. Personal Learning Networks (PLN's) used to be the circle of educators you went to grad-school with and are keeping in touch via phone calls maybe twice a year. Now, with social media and the rapidization of information sharing, PLN's have grown to be global systems that can be used to elevate educational practices around the world. Unfortunately, this is like trying to drink