D.J. Hill's Journey Through ETEC

The key question that I ask this week as I wonder through ETEC 490 is:  What individual instructional digital tools can an AP history teacher use to help students learn content in a way that assesses them similar to the ways the AP test will?  As I explored the sources available to us by Professor Javier, I was feeling as though I asked too specific of a question. I could not find an instructional tool that specifically met what I was looking for. However, then I read the article Professor gave us titled, "6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2019". Every tool was super-cool and innovative, and made me want to try exploring them further. Yet, it was the last tool that triggered my creative juices, because I believe I have found an innovative tool that I can use regularly in my AP history classes. The tool is called Webjets, and I can't wait to explore it further because I believe it will be an excellent tool to help students organize their learning towards their unit essential ...

Reflection on Hardware Management  1) I learned a tremendous amount about updating devices, especially why we should update our devices. The safety of our devices and our private data is at stake if we do not update regularly, as well as the efficiency and reliability of our devices and the software on our devices. In my discovery of this information, I found myself actually fearing falling behind on updates on my devices, when previously I was quite indifferent about keeping up-to-date with updates. In experiencing this fear, I realized about myself that fear is the only thing that is actually going to get me to stay up to date on these things! I also learned that home-users are the slowest people to update, which means that others also experience indifference when their computers tell them to update. Those people should look at my presentation, and perhaps they will be frightened into following a regular updating schedule. 2) First of all, my partner, William Terry, hel...

What were  your key takeaways from the readings and or activities? I learned a lot from exploring the Infrastructure Guide over the last few days. Generally, I learned how much goes into implementing new technology into a school or into a specific class. Because of this, it is important to have a vision and share that vision with all individuals expected to be using new technology. Yet, this is easier said than done. As the Guide explains, teachers have different competency levels with technology as do students. There are also variables to consider including access to technology, the number of outlets in a classroom, and available bandwidth. The quote from the reading that particularly rang true to me from my experience was, "Although districts can distribute devices and links to learning resources, administrators and teachers who do not understand how these tools support their work may not use them"(Page 11). I know that I personally do not use 95% of tech the district t...