Coding with Turtle Blocks

 

Educational Technology Self Assessment

Strengths (Rated on scale of 6-10)

Content and Media Creation

Skill	Description
Photos	I can take photos from a phone, computer, or even an old digital camera and convert files into an accessible form to be shared as virtual or hard copies.  Score: 8/10
Video and Audio	I have experience with video/audio collection and editing. I can convert mp3 and mp4 files into an appropriate format depending on the context as well as upload them to various platforms. A program that I have particular experience with is Movavi which allows you to combine and edit video/images/audio into one file (Great for creating presentation videos!).  Score: 8/10
Teaching	I love to help students relate content to the real world. Nowadays, this means utilizing technologies that students are familiar with and excited about such as Instagram and Snapchat or shining lights and “cool” machinery. I have yet to help students create and share this type of content in an education setting, but I feel that I will be able to do this naturally.  Score: 6/10

Connected Learning

Skill	Description
Social Networks	I am very familiar with the current forms of social media. I understand its perks but also understand its great dangers. Utilizing this technology I imagine will be fairly tricky and will require caution. However, I believe that I can guide students to appropriately use social media to benefit themselves in a professional context. For example, I would hope to have certain assignments where students have to network with a professional in a field of interest. This may not only assist with the course, but will also help to have them establish a network for the professional world post-school. I would have more difficulty involving social media into younger grades. Score: 9/10
Teaching	Outside of professional development, I believe that I can get students excited about the subject area by following certain educational/informative feeds and accounts that they would be able to share with their peers. Incorporating this into class material could be an occasional alternative or supplement to the usual form of research which involves reading a bunch of articles!  Score: 7/10

Dealing with Data

Skill	Description
Internet Research	I have extensive experience performing research using peer-reviewed journals through web-based sources such as PubMed and Google Scholar. There is so much information out there (although not all of it is free, unfortunately.) and students may need some support with getting used to utilizing key words/phrases.  Score: 8/10

Collaborate/Annotation/Feedback

Skill	Description
Tools	I have used Google Apps and Microsoft Office independently and collaboratively many times before. Provided that students have Google accounts, remote collaboration should be relatively simple. I have less experience with Mural and other white board/annotation apps but I would imagine these are intuitive applications that I could adjust to quickly.  Score: 8/10
Teaching	I believe that one of the most critical components of collaborative work involves the creation of effective groups. This comes down to understanding and trusting your students. Even if there are individuals that struggle to utilize technology, we have to trust that our students will help each other. It should not always be the teacher that does the teaching...  Score: 8/10

Computational Thinking

Skill

Description

Concepts

I can effectively analyze and adjust data (better in some programs over others). I have heard of abstraction and decomposition as terms but don't fully understand their meanings. However, I understand the process of dissecting and making sense of data. Algorithms and programming can be effective ways to accelerate and improve data analysis. I have programmed using Python and Excel but would love to learn how to use more user friendly resources. This is something that I did not much have access to while in high school. Therefore, I am interested in how much exposure students get to programming in the current school system. This hardly makes it as a strength for me as I believe that I can greatly improve my programming skills. I hope to become confident enough with it to the point that I can call myself a “coder”.  Score: 6/10

Motivation/Engagement

Skill

Description

Motivating the students (as well as ourselves)

Contrary to many beliefs, I actually think that the evolution of technology in education has not accelerated quickly enough. When I was in school, there was hardly any connection to programs, technology and concepts that I dealt with outside of the classroom. Today, there are so many advances that can be used as educational tools or as curriculum-related topics. We have to change our delivery methods and contents yearly in order to keep students involved and engaged. If we get too comfortable with old methods, students will lose interest and we will lose interest. I recently had a discussion with a college professor of Physics at a Community College in Virginia (I know that is random but he is an inspiration! He found ways to get his students excited to come to class. Check him out! - Dr. David Wright https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7t5RYLKqxg ). He told me the following, “If I'm not having fun teaching, then my students won't have fun learning.”  Score: 9/10

Emerging Technologies – AR/VR

Skill

Description

AR/VR Use

There are many AR applications that can be found in app stores that we should take advantage of. I know less about educational tools but know that the technology can elicit excitement in certain topics. Imagine how effective it would be to teach astronomy in AR or VR! I would want to invest in the Oculus or HTC Vive to simulate various topics in the curriculum. These would not be the primary method of educating but could be a great way to diversify the learning experience. I still have a lot to learn in terms of how to develop my own forms of AR/VR.  Score: 5/10

Weaknesses (Rated on scale of 0-5)

Content and Media Creation

Skill	Description
Web Pages	Although I can easily interact with existing web pages (add links, share info, manage multimedia files), I struggle to create attractive web pages from scratch. In addition, I tend to have difficulty creating web pages that are pleasantly designed and formatted for simplicity.  Score: 3/10
Charts/Diagrams	I do have the ability to use various forms of software to create charts and diagrams. I have experience with creating graphs through Excel and through Python programming. However, I am listing this skill as a weakness as I hope to develop this skill so that I can utilize programming to substantially improve my ability to generate strong, attractive graphs and diagrams. I do find myself to be fairly artistic, but I struggle to create visuals that are easy to follow. Frequently, I will get too excited and create visuals that are too busy.  Score: 5/10

Dealing with Data

Skill	Description
Data and Data Visualization	See my above comment about developing and utilizing programming skills more effectively. I am unaware of simple software that may be readily available to students in high school. In college, we had access to complex software that could analyze large data-sets and provide feedback. We could utilize Excel, but I would like to believe that there are more intuitive resources available. I wanted to make this a strength, considering I have had experience collecting and extracting data, as well as presenting the data in meaningful ways. However, there is so much more to learn.  Score: 5/10
Teaching	I imagine teaching complex data visualization to be challenging. However, working with data and trying to make sense of data is where most of the learning takes place. Therefore, I believe I can be successful with this by allowing students to work through their data patiently and making sure that the data collection is in an area that interests them.  Score: 4/10

Computational Thinking

Skill	Description
Teaching	Since I want to develop my own skills in programming. I do not feel confident in my ability to teach programming to students in complex ways. I can show them how to use programming as a glorified calculator as well as to navigate through excel data. However, I am not familiar of effective teaching strategies in this realm.  Score: 3/10