Module 5 Reflection

    In this module, I first had the opportunity to explore the topic of social media and social sites in education. I have not done much research about the possible benefits of this topic because I teach such a young grade (first grade) and I just couldn't see how using social media would benefit my students. After reviewing all of the articles and resources I still need to do some more thinking on how I could use it with my students, but I see the benefit of using it for connecting with my students' families. My school (and region) already uses the ParentSquare app for all school and regional communication, but it gets really hard to wade through all the general regional and school posts to find just posts from my class because they all go on one main feed. I can see how having an X account just for my class, could help have more efficient communication all in one place. Also, social sites have made it so easy for me to connect with my classmates in this master's program. We've been able to communicate, collaborate on documents and presentations, and it has been a really smooth process. 

    This module also took me deeper into the topic of computational thinking. I spend a lot of time trying to teach my students critical thinking skills (analyzing, evaluating, interpreting, and synthesizing) but now I see that integrating both critical and computational thinking will benefit my students more. They will be able to develop a deeper level of problem solving and more flexibility in their thinking (which is hard for young students!).  I enjoyed the resources found on studio.code.org and found a few coding activities that I think my students would enjoy (Happy Maps and Move It, Move It). My school also use to do the Hour of Code, but we've stopped the last few years. It would be fun to bring it back so all of our students can start building these skills in a fun way.