Blog Post 15

Icurio
Dr. Strange's YouTube Video with Anthony talked about iCurio and the benefits it has for students. Icurio is an online tool that allows students to safely search filtered material online. A few of the benefits of Icurio is that students can access the site by themselves, it can be used as a search engine, it allows students to store content that they find valuable, and it helps students stay organized. Students are able to create folders and sort information that they can access later. Icurio offers a great directory tool for history topics. The program can be used for any grade level. The texts, pictures and videos found on this site can be used by students for projects. Another great feature that Icurio offers is read aloud text,which can be very helpful to students with disabilities. Anthony has taught me a lot about Icurio that I did not know. For instance, I learned that Icurio has a program that reads text for the disabled. He also made me aware that students can save information that they find into folders and access it at a later time.

Discovery Ed
Discovery Ed offers texted visual articles to students. The visual articles can help activate background knowledge in students. The visual images from the video can help support the text that students read. Another good feature that Discovery Ed offers is that it can bring other experts into the classroom. Students get the chance to hear information from sources other than their teacher. A good point that this video made was that students remember more when they can see information. I agree with this statement because I am a visual learner. Things seem to make more sense to me when I get to see them. I learned that experts can be brought into the classroom through videos. Teachers no long have to waste time looking for guest speakers.

Use Tech Don’t Teach it
Conversation with Anthony Capps
Anthony tells us that technology is everywhere. All teachers should teach technology when they are designing projects and lessons for their classroom. He also believes that teachers should allow students to use tools such as I movies, Discovery Ed videos, and other useful tools. It is also important to choose one technology at a time. Students have a chance to master it before moving on to the next tool. The benefits that technology offers to students is that they get to express themselves and it is mostly free and mess free. There is no clean up after using it like with markers and it teach them lifelong skills.
The point of this video is to use technology to help get students excited about learning and allow them to share it. Teachers should allow room for mistakes and give students reflection time. They should never teach technology, just introduce it smartly, and should not expect perfection. They should also try using the tools first before their students use it so that they can try to relate to some of the problems that they may face. I plan to introduce technology to my students as often as possible. I plan on staying current with technology so that I can share it with my students.