Alice's Genius Hour Blog

  Hello again. First, I wanted to start off with a video clip of one of my classes on Zoom. This is a math class where I use the screen share and annotate features I mentioned in my last post. As you can see, these features are very useful for class, in particular something like a math class where you often have to draw diagrams. This video was made using Zoom’s built-in recording function, which is very handy. It creates a video that you can either save in cloud storage for a paid account (which I’ll go into later) or on your device. On another note, this is the first time I’ve ever uploaded anything onto YouTube. While I’ve had a YouTube account for many years, I’ve only ever used it to consume content, not create content. It was interesting to upload a video and see what YouTube is like from the other side, so to speak. Now, I want to talk about some downsides of Zoom. A major positive of Zoom is that it is free to use. However, the features for a free account are limited and ha...

Let me tell you a little bit about my journey with Zoom. I was first introduced to Zoom when my workplace started using it during the pandemic. Prior to that, I had not heard of Zoom, but then suddenly it felt like it was everywhere around me. At my other workplace, they also started using Zoom. Even my mom’s church was using Zoom to host meetings. I started using Zoom to video chat with my friends. It went very quickly from something I had never heard of to something I was using every day. At first, when I started using Zoom to teach, I was hesitant about how to do it. My experiences with using technology while teaching were limited to Google Docs. I had never used features like screen share or a virtual whiteboard when teaching. At first, I was slightly daunted by these new features I was suddenly exposed to. However, I quickly picked them up and found them very useful. For example, this is a screenshot of the Zoom whiteboard where I had given a lesson on poetic devices: Xu, A. © 202...

Hello, I'm Alice. Welcome to my Genius Hour blog! Valle, R. (2017, January 24.) Providing a Bigger Purpose with a Genius Hour Project [Online Image]. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/3xslts3. Now, to be honest, I struggled with coming up with an idea for Genius Hour. I have quite a number of passions, but none of them felt right for Genius Hour. For example, I love reading, but I wasn't sure how I could make a driving question out of that. Lombrozo, T. (2015, December 14.) Confusion [Online Image]. Retrieved from https://n.pr/2DCsDiT. How did I eventually come up with my question, you ask. Well, I thought about how I'm in a teacher program, I'm passionate about teaching, this is a technology course and technology is important and only getting more important in teaching. Then I thought: how can I connect technology and teaching in a way that is personally relevant to me and hopefully helpful to others? India Today Web Desk. (2018, October 8.) Technology, technology uses, ca...