EME2040 Blog

Adaptive technologies can support many diverse learners. The main point of adaptive technologies are to translate information into a medium that makes it accessible to someone. This could mean a voice to text machine for a student who has a hearing impairment. Another example of an adaptive technology would be descriptions of photos/graphics for students with visual impairments. One of the main challenges of using adaptive technologies is funding. As a teacher you might have a student who needs a certain piece of technology but you do not have the funding to provide that technology to them. http://edtechteacher.org/tools/  is a great site for staying up to date on technology used in the classroom. They provide some free tools to teachers, create professional development, and organize conferences for educators.

Facebook: there are tons of facebook groups for educators. They could be based geographically, by grade level, but subject matter, etc. These groups are a great way for teachers to connect and share information. Pinterest: Pinterest can be a great PLN tool for teachers as well because it has so many how to guides. There are guides for classroom setup, microsoft office tools, organization skills, lesson planning, etc. Teachers can see what other people have posted and post their own tools.

I have learned a lot using twitter. I have learned about networking with peers on certain topics. One of the benefits of using twitter is that it is an easy way to access information from essentially unlimited resources. I haven't had any issues with twitter but I have been using twitter for a long time. I learned how to use visual elements in an effective way. I really liked being able to take something that was in my head and see it come together on the screen in front of me. That part was very rewarding. However I didn't like having to rearrange stuff on each individual page. After a while this got tedious. http://alexmcleod223.weebly.com/ one skill I learned using diigo was to be able to give someone the main idea very quickly. This is going to be very beneficial in my career when I am sending files and articles to coworkers.