Summary of attendance

This webinar was informative and convincing on how important it is that we make sure students are being taught about digital literacy correctly. They talked a lot about how digital technology is used to help connect and transfer information from one domain to another domain. This teaching is about making different connections and explaining everything in detail as possible by providing evidence. They also expressed their concern with how all the information on the internet isn't telling the truth or a credible site. This puts the students at a disadvantage so as teachers we need to broaden and deeper their understanding on which sites are credible and useful. I will use this information as a student by connecting the information I'm learning more to real life scenarios and while using technology. As a future teacher I will use this information on helping students understand which sites and information that is online are credible and how to relate information to another. As a future teacher teaching this topic the main goal is to be transparent and be there for help/support. 

I attended the PD session "Finding Gold in Google Chrome," led by Anne Beck, at 10:00 on 18 November. Ms. Beck showed us various ways to use Google Chrome to increase productivity and collaboration in the classroom. She explained that you can move your history and bookmarks from device to device by logging into the Chrome browser. She showed us how to add Google Cloud printers, which I found very helpful. We then learned the difference between apps and extensions. While apps are basically just fancy bookmarks, extensions actually change what Chrome can do. Most are free and save a lot of time with everyday tasks, like sending links by email. One of my favorites Ms. Beck showed us is "draft back," which allows you to replay the entire editing history of a Google Doc. There are even extensions, or "add-ons" that exist within Google Drive to help you edit your documents. In the future, my colleagues and students are likely to use Google products, especially when it comes to collaboration. Competency with these products and their robust capabilities will help me collaborate, teach my students new skills, and teach my students good digital citizenship.

This webinar was hosted by the Global Education Conference, and focused on international video exchanges between students of different countries, including Russia, Australia, England, and India. The presentation went through ways to facilitate successful intercultural exchanges between students/classrooms, whether that be through streaming video/audio or prerecorded messages. Suggested methods of international exchange included:
- Preparing for the exchange
- Establishing a respectful environment
- Fostering interpersonal connection between students
These steps are provided in this order specifically to prepare students for a respectful and productive exchange and to facilitate an education-rich cultural communication that broadens their exposure to the world. It is vital in the 21st century that students not simply experience instances of cultural literacy, but practice it as well. Doing so means engaging in many moments of cultural exchange with a preparedness that facilitates their ability to gather as much from the experience as possible. 
It was exciting to hear about how these exchanges affected the students. Some students claimed that the experience made other cultures seem more "real" to them. This is extremely important, as the way that we speak about and make decisions concerning other cultures are most often based on how we view them based on our experiences. But it wasn't just the students whose views had changed; the teachers involved with these exchanges learned form the experience as well. The opportunities lent a hand in allowing teachers to evaluate and better understand the content they were teaching by placing the course material into a cultural context. The presentation outlines what is expected of a globally competent teacher:
- Create an environment that values diversity
- Integrate world exploration with content learning
-  facilitate conversations and partnerships that are international/intercultural
- Seek out and apply an understanding of different perspectives
- Constantly investigate the world and become an explorer

These expectation can easily be applied to what we expect from our students in the future of their academic, cultural, professional, and personal lives. In this enriching experience, we can facilitate personal and professional development in ourselves and our students.

Melanie Adams discussed professional dress and resume building as well as how to answer questions in an interview. She handed out a job opening and then gave us an example resume and cover letter that reflected what an employer would want to see from a potential employee. She answered personal questions about what to include on your resume and what holds priority to include to keep your resume at one page. I really enjoyed her explanation of what to and not to wear as a teacher, which I feel will help me with my upcoming practicum and student teaching. In the future I plan to contact her regarding my resume as well as to practice for any upcoming interviews. 

In this workshop with Anne Beck, I learned so much about Chrome! Anne showed us a lot of different extensions and apps that we can use with chrome. It helps me now as a student because she showed us extensions that cut our tabs into two screens and then "glue" them back together. She showed us extensions through Google drive and forms. It'll help me as a teacher because she showed us extensions that we can use to see the process that our students used to write different assignments. She also showed us an app that allows us to have a corkboard and have students put their ideas on it. The main thing that I learned is that there are extensions and apps through chrome that helps make everything easier, especially as a teacher.

I attended an online workshop during the Global Education Conference. The workshop that I attended was over Virtual Field Trips in the classroom. The presenter highlighted many projects by students all over the world and the impacts it had in the classroom. I learned that by doing these virtual tours, cultural borders can be crossed without leaving the classroom. Two classes, one in South America, and one in Ohio, did virtual field trips to each others cities, then made videos about what they learned and sent it to the other class. 

As teachers, it's important to be prepared for both application for job positions and to anticipate expectations for how teachers present themselves. In regards to your resume, it's vital that you rank the most important information from top to bottom, and avoid repetition when describing your qualifications for the job. On top of that, your resume should fill up the page, but not exceed a single page. Your resume is evidence supporting why you should get a job. In terms of your cover letter, you need to provide evidence that you understand the community in which the position is located. You don't want to avoid answering a question or claim you don't know, because interviewers can detect when your confidence waivers. Lastly, you should do your homework on the school; it makes a solid impression when you know the challenges and successes of the school, especially if you aim to improve those challenges. 

In terms of what you wear, the younger/less experienced you are, the nicer you should dress. It's important for your visual aesthetic to exude confidence and authority. If it doesn't, you're more likely to experience a lack of respect from peers, students, and parents in the district. If you're going to treat teaching like a profession, you should dress to fit the part. 

I joined the online conference for Global Education at 9:00am on 11/16/2017. This was the keynote presentation titled "Learning without limits." The speaker was Jennifer Williams and the other moderator was Steve Hargadon. This conference talked a lot about professional development. Everyone decided that ideal professional development is empowering, engaging, energizing, personalized, self-selected, bite-sized, and transformative. I learned that quality professional development should be sustained, intensive, collaborative, job-embedded, data-driven, and classroom-focused. I knew that there were different types of professional development, but this conference taught me about specific ones that I had not heard of before and some that I had. The informal types discussed were twitter chats, edcamps, blogging, mentoring, courses, and OERs. The formal types discussed were district PD, conferences, and advanced degrees. I liked how Jennifer talked about the importance of both types. I am excited to attend many professional developments in my career. Gaining new knowledge is something very important to me as a future teacher. The conference also talked about Participate. I was not super familiar with this, but after this conference I am much more familiar. I learned that it is a resource with manny possibilities of use such as chats, collaborations, courses, portals, etc. 

In this seminar we talked about the power of video conferences. There were three presenters and they all discussed their personal experiences with using video conferencing in their classrooms. They argued that using videoconferencing created a new kind of collaboration they opens the minds of learners to perspectives they would never usually encounter. For example, one of the presenters contacted a teenager in Hong Kong that was protesting for democracy in the city. The students in his classroom got to ask him questions about his perspective on the subject. This was a really great idea for a new kind of collaboration. 

I attended one of the webinars from the Global Education Conference. In this particular webinar they talked about how important it is to include global collaboration within our classrooms. I liked that they included ISTE Standards for their presentation because we are also talking about those in class. 
The professors that led the presentation showed many different examples for how students can communicate globally and how teachers can implement these activities in the classroom. There were activities similar to a "Flat Stanley." There were other activities where students could write a story in their first language and publish them in English as well. 
They even gave a few opportunities for some of the viewers to respond to questions in the chat part of Blackboard. 
One viewer got to get on and tell us about doing a global read aloud in her 3rd grade classroom. She would Skype other classrooms and they would read books together. They were easily able to find a connection with the curriculum/book even though the two classrooms were in different countries. It was really neat to hear about, and I would definitely like to try it in my classroom someday!

This webinar had to do with the way that we teach history (not just in the US, but everywhere), based on the narrative our own country happens to take regarding that bit of history. The moderator shared her personal experiences as a Korean growing up in Japan and then moving, during high school, to the US. Her unique perspective led her to think of the very different ways we may present  the same event depending on our national view of it, for example, the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan. The moderator used several textbook examples from various Asian countries and the US to illustrate the differences in narrative. The point in the end is that we will skew students' perspectives on the realities of the past if we do not lead them in exploring the narratives and counter-narratives which are always present, even if perhaps we did not learn about them ourselves in school. I think that this session would be relevant to any teacher dealing with the varied cultural identities present across the globe, whether they may be a social studies teacher or an English teacher looking to incorporate world literature. 

As teachers, we need to educate the youth on how to be an active and accepting member of a democracy. We need to teach students that diversity is a great thing. Even more, it should not be ignored, but teach our students how to be an ally. 1) you have to know what identity is 2) we must know our motive 3) we need to know strategies on how you can become an ally. As teachers, it is extremely important to be an ally for our students and teach how to be an ally to peers.