Search Engines, Evaluating Websites, and Internet Safety

Search Engines:

When having the students use any search engine for research it is important for the students to understand how to use the search engine in order to locate the desired information. Therefore one should not limit the students to one search engine and as a teacher, one should teach students how to evaluate the sources that come up when searching for the desired information. According to Roblyer (2016), one should “Teach students to search with keywords, rather than with a questions” (p. 184) and show the students how to narrow down their searches using the advanced search tools that are made available (p. 184). When both the utilization of multiple search engines and proper website evaluation are used, the students will be able to find the desired knowledge they need in order to complete any project to the fullest.

Website Evaluation Video:

Here is a quick video that I would show and discuss with students explaining how to evaluate websites using the five W’s.

Favorite Websites:

One of my favorite professional teaching websites is www.aptiq.org. I enjoy using this website because it has many resources that one can utilize in the classroom. For example, on can find virtual field trips on the site, videos, or even lesson plans on the site. This resource the site has available can help me greatly in the future to better teach my students any subject. Another professional teaching website that can be categorized as a favorite is https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/bookwizard/. This site allows the teacher to find books to utilize in their classroom, along with providing a resource that helps teach the book itself. This can be of great use in my future classroom because by utilizing this website I do not have to start from scratch when writing a lesson for books. According to Roblyer (2016) both of these sites are good to use for professional purposes because they use controlled fonts and type sizes, contrasting colors for the background which make the site easy to read, and navigation tools that allow for easy navigation throughout the sites (p. 198).

Online Safety & Security:

One internet safety topic that stands out to me is online predators. Roblyer (2016) says that “young people tend to believe everything they hear and read” (p.175). He goes on to say that a student talking to someone in an online chatroom may not every think that the person they are talking to might actually be older than he or she says they are (p. 175). With the anonymity that comes from communicating via online, it is so easy for someone to pretend to be someone they are not. This is why it is important to inform students how crucial it is that they never give out personal information to anyone online.  As a teacher, one must not only be sure to inform and remind students of this, but one must also monitor any online socializing that is happening in the class.

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (Seventh ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Educational Inc

Goldfinch, Ellen. (2014, October 8). Evaluating Websites With the 5 W's. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPI7FVon29k

Basic 'Three' Software and Education

Word Processing Software

     Roblyer (2016) discusses how using available word processing software can benefit teachers in the classroom today (p. 114). A few benefits Roblyer discuss is that word processing software "saves time" (p.114) and "enhances document appearance" (p. 114) and I can not agree more. By using word processing software, a teacher can type up a professional, yet creative, document, such as a weekly letter, thus enhancing the appearance. The time-saving aspect comes in later when a teacher can easily modify the weekly letter to meet the needs for that week, instead of making a new one. One of the issues that Roblyer (2016) gives for using word processing software in the classroom is "inadvertent errors" (p.117). Inadvertent errors are described as typos made by the software as it 'corrects' ones work. Therefore although word processing software can be seen as an advantage for teachers, one should still remember to double check their work before using it the classroom.

Spreadsheet Software

     Spreadsheet software, Roblyer (2016) claims can be used to “increase motivation to work with mathematics” (p.121). According to Roblyer, spreadsheets can help students see how the content works, which in turn can cause students to “express read delight”(p.121) with math itself (p.121). For a teacher making math a topic of interest to students can be hard. Therefore knowing that by integrating spreadsheets into a lesson one can make the lesson more interesting to one's students is a nice piece of information to have for future use. Roblyer (2016) also discusses some disadvantages with using spreadsheet software in the classroom. One of such disadvantages that he discusses lies within the “students’ tendency to fear mathematics” (p.123). He goes on to elaborate that due to this fear, a teacher should provide the proper time for the students to become familiar with this software, before further incorporating math (p.123).

Presentation Software

     According to Roblyer (2016), the benefits to using presentation software in the classroom include that it “helps organize thinking about a topic” (p.127) and “enhances the impact of spoken information” (p.127). To put Roblyer’s benefits into simple terms, when producing a presentation, the presenter needs to consider the order in which the information will be presented and also how the information should be displayed to further drive the point home (p.127). When it comes to presentation software, one issue Roblyer (2016) gives is that the “impact of presentation software on information presented” (p.217), which one can take as simply meaning the slides used for the presentation become the presentation itself instead of being a tool for presenting. In other words, when using presentation software in the class, one should not read word for word from the slides because if one was going to do that then there is really no point for one to even be presenting. Instead, one could just pass out a printed copy of the presentation and call it a day.

Classroom Use-Presentation Software

      As a teacher, I would strive to integrate presentation software into every lesson, especially in Social Studies. During a Social Studies lesson, I would utilize presentation software to create a visual so that my students can easily follow along where I am in the lesson. Also, if I decide to use a resource, such as a video, off of the web, inserting a web link into the presentation can make it easier to access the needed resource.

For information on how to insert a YouTube video into presentation software watch the video below.

Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Intergrating Educational Technology into Teaching (Seventh ed.). Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Education Inc.

Cathyinoz.(2011, June 7). Inserting a YouTube Video into Powerpoint 2007. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4plg-iglPQ8