Ayesha

 Welcome back to my Tech blog! This week I spent some time playing around with data sets on Google Sheets. In class, we discussed different ways that we can visualize and interpret data. My professor introduced a data set of the 1000 top rated IMDB movies. Since I am a big movie fanatic myself and love exploring new titles, I decided to stick with this data set. He downloaded this data set from a public data source called Kaggle. Here, we searched for and located our interests. We then downloaded the data from the public source onto our computers. I then imported that data into Google Sheets, the spreadsheet program of my choice.  Now this is where the fun began. I was free to play around with my data as I pleased. I was able to organize my data my way; I deleted some meaningless data, reorganized columns, made sense of various fields, fixed missing data, sorted and filtered the data and so much more! One cool tool I learned in class was how to use a pivot table to summarize a...

 Check out this link to a Google Slides presentation of my Learning Technologies Portfolio! Hope you find it informative and helpful!! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j88ttbqgHHMZxyR-hH6goEDWnE25JY_7XtkTbOJKRfA/edit?usp=sharing 

 The following is a summary of areas of weakness/need for improvement prioritized in terms of what I would like to work on immediately, mid-term, and longer term.  The first category that I want to immediately work on is computational thinking, however our professor did already mention that he will be leading a session in this area for the whole class. The reason I want to work on this one first is because it is the category that I marked all of the criteria as "very weak/no idea." It is the one I have no prior knowledge on. The second section that I would like to immediately work on is emerging technologies of AR/VR. This is another content area which I have no knowledge of and would therefore like to learn what it is, and how I can utilize it in my educational instruction.  The next category that I would prefer to work on mid-term is collaboration/annotation/feedback. For this section, I mentioned that I have no idea how to use collaborative white board spaces such as M...

 Here is the last column of my technology self-assessment, which was titled very weak/no idea: Content and Media Creation Very Weak/No Idea Web pages: I cannot create web pages. I cannot add links to other pages. Charts/Diagrams: I can use digital tools (e.g., LucidMap, Google Draw and CmapTools) to create charts and diagrams. I can share digital diagrams on web pages/social networks. Dealing with Data/Data Visualization Very Weak/No Idea I am not familiar with tools that are useful for creating infographics and data visualization. Collaboration/Annotation/ Feedback Very Weak/No Idea I do not know how to collaborative white board spaces such as Mural and Padlet to collaborate with others. I do not know how to use collaborative annotation tools (such as Hypothes.is) to annotate and comment upon web pages and pdf files. Teaching: I cannot effectively teach and support others to use this document, collaboration, and annotation tools in a learning context. Computational Thinking Very W...

Continuing on from my previous post, here is my column that was titled, need some assistance: Content and Media Creation Need Some Assistance Web pages: I can share/add/embed media of various kinds (photos, video, audio) into web pages. Video and Audio: I can edit digital audio and video. I can convert digital video/audio from one format to another. Teaching: I can effectively help others to create and share digital content in a learning context. Connected Learning Need Some Assistance I use social networks (such as Facebook, Twitter) for my own professional developer as an educator. I need assistance with how to use social networks to support the learning of K-12 students. I need assistance with other educators via social networks to ask questions/improve my understanding about how K-12 students learn. Teaching: I need assistance in effectively help others to productively collaborate and use social networks in a learning context. Dealing with Data/Data Visualization Need Some Assistan...

 I do not believe that technology is my strong suit, however after conducting this technology self-assessment, I realized that I know more than I think I do. I also discovered that there are a lot of technology programs I have never heard of. And of course, there are some in between where if I received some initial guidance, I think I could figure it out.  Originally, I created multiple tables on a word document visually organizing each section of the technology self-assessment with columns labeled proficient, need some assistance, and very weak/no idea. For the sake of this blog, I will split them up.  Starting with strengths, or my proficient column: Content and Media Creation Proficient Photos: I can take digital photos. I can share digital photos in various ways. Video and Audio: I can record digital audio and video. I can upload video/audio to hosting sites (like YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, etc.) for easy sharing. Connected Learning Proficient Social Networks: I unde...

     I did not think I would enjoy reading "A Short History of Educational Technology" as much as I did. As I got more into it, I noticed myself becoming more curious. I was surprised to learn that the king of Egypt was not a fan of writing. He thought writing would cause forgetfulness and make people stop using their memory. I disagree with this because I believe writing actually helps me remember things better. For example, when I am attending a lecture for a class, I try to write some notes down. This helps me remember the subject at a later time. Scientifically, it is also a fact that this act of using the muscles in our hands to write something down does help us remember those things better. This is called motor memory. As a future science teacher, I support this fact.      I was also shocked to learn that The World Wide Web was only formally launched in 1991. I would have guessed that it was established quite a few years earlier. Additionally, google ...

  Please enjoy this picture of my adorable cats as a first post :)