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About Me


My name is Laura and I'm currently a student at the University of Montevallo. I am getting my EdS degree in Instructional Technology. I am a library media specialist at an elementary school. I have been an LMS for sixteen years, and I believe technology would be a good fit for the latter part of my career. When I'm not working,  I love to try new restaurants with my friends, read, and play with my dog. 

Popular posts from this blog

Click this! (ED 629 Blog #1)

      If you are online or have been online for the past five to seven years, you have read a clickbait article or link. You probably have even clicked on the link. "You'll never believe what happens next..." "10 Things You Didn't Know About..." These are examples of clickbait article titles that you might see on different social media platforms. Clickbait is used for a variety of reasons, but some are nefarious. Businesses or news platforms use clickbait so that people can click the link to bring traffic to their site. Other times, it can lead to a scam. Many people know they should be cautious when clicking these links, but do anyway for a variety of reasons.     The Veritasium video below makes the point that most people hate clickbait, yet it is everywhere. And on top of that, no one truly agrees on the definition of clickbait.
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Student mental health & social media

     Social media started off as a fun way to share happenings in someone's life or to network with your fellow college students. It was not something that was a necessity. Today, you might miss out on important updates from your friends and family, or what everyone is talking about at work or school. Everyone from tweens to the elderly has some form of social media. According to Pew (2022), 35% of US teenagers say they are constantly on either YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook.       I believe that social media use should be discussed, analyzed, and utilized in a digital citizenship curriculum for schools. Productive social media use can teach students about proper online communication, sharing opinions versus sharing facts, and wading through misinformation. However, we must also teach our students to step away from social media for their mental health. "Digital media done 'well' can become psychologically problematic for users. In fa...
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Keeping up with the Joneses: Staying current with EdTech Tools

      Being a person in tech in the educational field, you have to constantly be on top of every new device, app, or trend in technology.  Teachers have to integrate technology into their lessons, and sometimes it's already built into a curriculum. They need to keep up with any new or updated technology they could use in their classroom. "With 21st -century skills, teachers should be competent in using appropriate technologies and designing lessons to create a new learning culture (Chai et al., 2017)" (Elmali & Kiyici, 2022, p. 66). School leaders, such as administration, must keep up with technology in order to know what their teachers need professional development on. IT departments have to keep up with any new technology that might be used by a teacher or student to make sure that it's safe for the district as a whole. This can be a hard endeavor because something changes about technology daily.       For skill 7E: Enhance communi...
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