Blog 4

    The Florida Computer Science standards are a part of the larger CPALMS standards, but exclusively focus on computer science. The specific standard I chose to look at was from the 3rd through 5th grade section - Standard SC.35.CS-CC.1.1 - which says that students should be able to identify technology tools for individual and collaborative data collection, writing, communication, and publishing activities. To me, this means that students should be able to start integrating technology into their learning processes, and use it as an aid rather than seeing it as an obstacle. For example, using excel to collect data for simple science experiments. I feel as though I would be ready to implement this specific standard, because in my opinion it would just take patience and time with each student - and ensuring that you don't get frustrated if some students don't understand right away.

    The CPALMS standards mentioned previously are an official collection of standards and resources that help teachers implement learning strategies in the classroom in the state of Florida (and hopefully help students learn as a result). I took a closer look at the English Language Arts section, which had different standards for each grade, and I specifically looked at the Reading standards - one in particular titled "Reading Informational Text". There were available benchmarks and access points, as well as 12 related resources. One example is an activity where students are asked about the author's purpose in writing an informational text, and another example is an activity where students are asked to write the main idea and details onto a graphic organizer. I think that using these in the classroom could greatly help students learn, and CPALMS encourages teachers to work together and use their resources to create better classrooms.

    Internet searching has a very different weight on an educator, because usually they are not searching the Internet for themselves, but for work or for a student. Teachers have to be proficient at this because if they are not, students could end up being taught false information. Personally, I enjoy starting off my searches in Google Scholar if its purely academic, because it is much more difficult to find false or non-reputable information there. I also enjoyed the information from class about doing a Google Advanced Search. It seems like an easy and efficient way to find information and filter out the things you don't want to see on the Internet.