Blog 2

Over the course of my schooling, I have used Microsoft Word quite a lot in many different classes. As an English Major, I have become very confident using MS Word to write essays and papers. In that sense, I am able to format headings and margins and fonts and those type of tools necessary for writing assignments fairly comfortable. I have played around with other tools on MS Word such as Word Art, inserting clipart, creating tables, and creating charts. I remember using a lot of those tools for assignments such as Science Fair and other projects requiring a lot of color and creativity. Sadly, I haven't needed to use those fun tools in a while because it would be kinda inappropriate to throw a clipart of a birthday cake in a 5 page critical analysis of William Faulkner. I have seen most of my teachers use MS Word for pretty much the same things that I do. 

I'm sure we all familiar with having to add a reference page or a work cited page in an assignment or paper. That is about the extent of fair use that I have really had to experience. I know for ENC 1101 during my freshman year, I had to create a website for a group assignment (I ended up having to do all of the work but whatever). We had to add hyperlinks to the sources of the pictures we added. I had to format it so that if you clicked on a picture, it would take you directly to the webpage or source. As a teacher, I think that the main issue I'm going to bump into is plagiarism because I plan on being an English or Creative Writing teacher in a high school. I will definitely rely on turnitin.com as a resource for checking to make sure there is no plagiarism in larger assignments. In the way of what my teaching materials will be, I'm sure that I will use my own PowerPoints or worksheets during lectures or work time.

At my high school we used iPads as a tech tool to do schoolwork and study and take notes. We also used them to communicate. We were not allowed to have our phones out in most of our classes, so we used our iPads to email each other. Every student was assigned a school email account that was associated with their student ID number. I still remember mine which I think it funny. Anyway, we were all members of a directory, aka if we typed in our friends name as the recipient of our email, their email would pop up. It was very easy to send mass email to your friends and I remember on several occasions that we would experience bullying because of that. If I work in an environment where I am faced with a similar issue, I want to be sure that it is clear to my students that it is unacceptable to cyberbully and I want to make sure that all my students feel comfortable enough to know that they can come to me with issues. Another issue that we faced with the iPads was decreased productivity. I remember getting distracted when we had potential entertainment right at our fingertips. One thing that I plan on implementing is a participation grade. When we have group discussions, I will offer a grade based on their involvement in the conversation. I think that this will motivate my students to pay attention during lecture so that they are able to participate during discussions and receive a good grade for that.