Building My Professional Learning Network: Exploring Trends in Learning Technology

 In this unit, I integrated Google Classroom and Canva for Education to support a 5th-grade informational writing lesson. Overall, the technology integration did meet my lesson objectives. Students were able to research a topic, organize their ideas, and present their learning in a creative way. Google Classroom helped keep everything organized, while Canva allowed students to express their understanding visually. Because of this, students were more engaged and showed a deeper understanding of the content. The instructional elements of this lesson reflect what I have learned throughout the course, especially the importance of student-centered learning and active engagement. Instead of only reading and writing, students interacted with content, created projects, and shared their ideas. This connects to constructivist learning theory, where students build knowledge through experiences (Schunk, 2020). I also focused on clear objectives, guided practice, and meaningful assessment, whic...

  I looked at Flipgrid, a video-based discussion site that a classmate shared with me for this blog post. Students can use Flipgrid to record short video responses to prompts, talk to each other, and have meaningful conversations at their own pace. This technique is great for elementary and middle school classes because it gets all of the children involved, even those who are shy about speaking in front of the class. I used my evaluation system to rate Flipgrid on a number of different points. Flipgrid got a 4 on the TPACK alignment scale because it lets students show what they know through video comments, which is a good way to combine content, pedagogy, and technology. It also got a 4 on the SAMR scale, which means it reached the redefining level since it turns regular talks into engaging, multimedia events. Flipgrid got a 3 for critical thinking because it makes students think about and respond to prompts and other students' answers in a thoughtful way. The tool got the best sco...