Blog 5

     I've been using twitter for about six years now, but I generally do not interact with anyone. I mainly use twitter just for sports and music news. I also use twitter to keep up with current events by looking to see what is trending. Twitter may be helpful in my future career as a way to post my research findings and as a way to market myself. I hope to become a clinical psychologist in the future and twitter would be a way I could have a public platform and interact with my colleagues in the field or share helpful information that I or someone else finds. Furthermore, as an educator Twitter can be used as a gauge to see how active my students are on social media.

    The digital divide affects students success on a multitude of levels. First, students who do not have reliable access to the internet may struggle to complete classwork because of a lack of resources. Furthermore, some of the causes of the digital divide are a lack of resources and a lack of wealth. As a teacher I must be able to accommodate my students and teach with the knowledge that every students doesn't have access to the same resources. Also, I must do my best to provide every student with the adequate amount of resources that each of them need. For example, if a student doesn't have access to the Power Point I'm teaching I can print it out for them so that they have the same resources.

    Software tools are a great way to connect, relay information, and track student progress. Two software tools that I'd like to implement in my classroom are Socrative and Kahoot. Kahoot is a software tool that I am already familiar with, having previously used it myself, that I believe would be a fun and interactive way for my students to review information and help them study. Kahoot is a website that is based on games and questions. Furthermore, Socrative is a software tools that lets educators create educational games or exercises for their students that can be accessed over the internet. I believe using Socrative would be a great way to gauge my students learning retention from exercises I created. 

    I believe that badges are a great way for some students to receive an award or recognition for whatever task they've done. Personally I have never earned a badge, and I do not think that I would use them as an educator for my students. Furthermore, I emphasized earlier that badges aren't for every student because I do not want some students to feel left out if they did not earn a badge. It is important as educators to congratulate and reward students for their hard work and achievement but do it in a manner that isn't boisterous.