Blog Post Assignment #7: 21st Century Learning Tools

Once we graduate, we are not going to be spoon-fed information on how our lessons should be taught, what we should use to accomplish them, and where to go to find helpful information to get the job done. Of course, every school will have guidelines, but how are we going to make our classes the ones that are most remembered while using those guidelines? I don't know about you guys, but I want my class to be the fun class that other students are envious of. But, I also want my class to be the one that accomplishes the highest reading goals and highest math scores, because my fun(more interesting) teaching methods engage my students in what they are learning, and they evolve good comprehension skills because of that. This cannot be accomplished if I don't find the proper resources to refer to. We will have to search for our own resources and find what works best for our individual teaching situations!
Here are a few resources that I found most helpful:

Pinterest: Although this site is not normally thought about as a resource for educational research and learning, it holds a lot of information on school projects, good apps for elementary children, reviews of these things from different blogs, communication between teachers, and many creative ideas for teachers to use in their classrooms. Besides, Pinterest is probably the one of the most visited websites for me everyday, so I'm already hooked!

EducationWorld: EducationWorld is a free online tool where teachers can share lesson plans, homework, advice for dealing with students and parents, and much more. It also lists app reviews, online learning games, and has a section for creating a classroom website! This would be a great resource if I decide to use a blog or website for my classroom to help my students and their parents keep up with assignments, news, etc.

Te@ch Thought: Te@ch Thought is an online blog where teachers communicate back and forth about their opinions on current events in education. There is a section for Common Core articles and information, a section for iPad, which includes articles about apps and other media, and a section called #hashtag, which explains the different hashtags used on Twitter in education. This would be a great resource for keeping up with technology and social media information.