Week 3

This week provided a lot of important information regarding technology in the classroom. Many things I have actually seen being used in a classroom before so reading about them in the text provided more knowledge of why they are so important.

One thing that surprised me was how popular tablets are becoming in school systems. Some school systems are even letting the kids use these instead of computers or laptops. The school that I work out doesn’t have any systems like this.  The schools that I have seen are still concentrating on teaching students how to type on a keyboard but you have to wonder if using your “home keys” are becoming a thing of the past. With tablets students are now able to use pens, just like if they were writing on paper. I have also seen technologies that take that writing and turn it into whatever font style you like. These technologies can only get better in the future, so should we be spending more time allow students to learn how to write on tablets rather than showing them how to type at fast speeds on a keyboard?

The next thing up for discussion is handouts teachers send home to their students. I believe that in order to have a successful newsletter or brochure, you must first make it visually appealing to catch the readers attention. The reader in this case would be the parents. If you're sending home a newsletter, including pictures of some of the students in the class, parents are more likely to look at them. The pictures of students catch their attention. It is also important to make it easy to read. You don’t want to use crazy fonts, make the writing too small, or chose colors that might be  hard to look at.  Brochures would need to include the same ideas. It is important to be direct when providing information, but also use pictures, images, and colors to provide something to catch the reader’s attention. If there are too many words on anything you send home to parents I believe they are less likely to read it. They don’t want to hear all of the extra stuff. They want you to be precise and to the point. I think it’s also important that there isn’t just one chunk paragraph. Separate things into bullets and short paragraphs that make it easier to read. This way they can skim it and still understand the things that are going on.

In order for a document to be visually appealing for parents it needs to have a nice balance. You don’t want too much going on with lots of crazy colors and pictures everywhere, but at the same time you don’t want to send home a blank white sheet of paper with black font on it in paragraph form.

The following newsletter is a mockup of something I might create for a class since I am not currently teaching.