Including critical theory into all facets of our learning is incredibly important. Especially when digital tools are not often considered as having that much of a social impact in the general field of education, it is so much more important to incorporate these ideas.

This is so true! It is really surprising to me how little my mom (who is an educator) knows about the digital tools I talk about. She knows the gist, but after telling her more information she was really interested and wished she knew about it sooner.

I think this is an incredibly powerful sentence and something that not a lot of educators think about when using digital tools. Although we have discussed the cost of tools in the term of privacy and data being sold, we have not gone into depth and discussed the cost of them in terms of oppression and social justice. The tools we use in classrooms can have a very real effect on the students, especially if they are not accessible.

I think this is incredibly important to recognize. Orienting our education towards justice provides a better learning environment for everyone, not just those who are oppressed. Justice oriented classrooms can provide so many opportunities and really allow students to engage with one another.

I appreciate that inclusive design goes beyond just accommodations. A lot of these systems are inter-connected and in order to make it more inclusive for all individuals, we must cross-examine what other aspects of our society are not inclusive. Understanding this intersectionality will make a more inclusive learning environment while also providing accomodations.

I think this is an incredibly powerful statement and is really true. Being more inclusive not just in general, but also in our classrooms, is an essential part of living up to the creed of the country. Inclusive design is such a necessary part of achieving this goal.

I love the use of the word self-differentiate here. I think it is really important to provide students with the opportunity to assess themselves. Although guided assessment and differentiation is important, it is essential that educators understand how their students are grasping the info.

I am learning about the UDL framework in another class of mine and think it is a super important topic for all educators to learn about. If we are not designing our lessons to all learners, we are not doing them any favors. UDL allows all students to get equitable learning opportunities.

I think this is a great analogy and not something I would have considered before reading it. The "one size fits all" model is often used in schools, and can be applied to something as little as bacon egg and cheese sandwiches. By assuming one size fits all, we are not properly meeting everyones needs.

I thought this was a really cool way of explaining Bloom's Taxonomy and also a really great connection to the other article we read for this week's homework! I did not think about how much learning theories can apply to technology substitution until seeing how this article explained Bloom's Taxonomy.

I had never heard of this before reading this. I think it is really great there is a guide for teachers to better evaluate whether or not they are substituting technology for teaching. I think it is great for teachers to be conscious about this and it does not necessarily mean they are a bad teacher.

I love this opening line. In my own experience, I sometimes felt like technology was used as a substitute for teaching rather than a tool that helped students gain knowledge, so this opening paragraph definitely resonated with me. I think it is really important to consider how we are using technology as future educators.

I think that this is a really interesting way of viewing cognitive learning. It almost reminds me of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, with create being an ultimate goal once you get past the others. I had never heard of this before this article so I found it really interesting to read about.

I thought this was a really helpful table for understanding each of the different theories. I love how it also included example tools as discussed in each theory paragraph. I felt like this was a really helpful way for me to learn the highlights of each theory.

As a Psych and Ed double major, I think the connection between Edtech and Learning Theories is so cool! Especially with so many digital tools at our fingertips, we can accommodate to so many different learners with different needs. Even though these theories are still theories, ideas from all of them come together in a real life teaching environment.

This was really interesting to read because I remember a conversation in class on ChatGPT biases. With every digital tool, there needs to be a push to recognize and move past biases. With the way AI develops, it could be very hard to get rid of these biases and using them in an educational setting may prove to be harmful.

I think AI based systems can be really effective tools, but based on what i have read so far I do not think it has been tested enough to be safe for teachers to use in their schools yet. I would be very interested to see what UX testing for this would entail.

This is super interesting (specifically in regards to ethical considerations) because I watched a news special last night where a woman received a scam call from someone with AI access who pretended to kidnap her daughter. She was clearly shaken up and said that the AI voice sounded so real, even down to the intonation. With this in consideration, how do we keep students information safe with these AI tools?

This was really interesting to read about and I think it is a great act to have in place. When I was posting my YouTube video for the recent project, it asked me if it was suitable for kids. I had wondered what this was referring to, and after reading this I am glad it is in place. I definitely had access to a lot unsafe material as a child and am glad there are efforts put in place to keep children safe.

This step is especially important because most people, including myself, skip over the terms of service. It can be lengthy and honestly feels like it is not worth the read. However, there is a lot of important information concealed in it, especially if there are privacy infringements. There are probably other examples besides Snapchat that I do not even know about because I skip the TOS.

This is especially interesting to me, as I don't realize how much my privacy is being invaded while I am online. Being online is a huge part of my daily life and is honestly a necessity for school. The fact that online courses could be recording my mouse and keystrokes is fascinating and also scary.

It was really interesting to see all the overlaps between this rubric and what we have been doing for our UX testing project. Especially in terms of accessibility, it was really interesting to see how important accessibility standards truly are.

I love the idea of including a rubric for digital tools. There are so many different ways of determining how accessible a tool is for people, and having a rubric would standardize it in a way. If there was something a lot of digital apps struggled with, going by this rubric could help eliminate that issue after the testing stage.

It was really interesting hearing an edtech tool be referred to as an "e-learning tool" here. It is great that digital tools like this are so universal that they can be referred to by many different names.

Feedback is so important when conducting UX testing. I was so surprised when I learned that feedback is often not incorporated until much later in the designing process for tools, and it is interesting to see this applied in terms of developing an online course.

I thought that outlining the five components of usability like this was very interesting. Comparing and contrasting this with the usability forms we have been working with for our UX testing project, it is really interesting to see how well they go together with what we are doing, even though it has not been stated in these same terms.

I think this is something that is really important to acknowledge. Oftentimes, I found myself frustrated that my teachers did not know how to navigate online tools during COVID-19. Prior to taking this course, I have never looked at my online learning experience from a teacher's perspective. The change was incredibly drastic, and while it did allow for so many new tools to be discovered it was also a very hard transition.

This is an important guideline. In the class activity we did, when I attempted to use the tool I chose I could not access it from the keyboard at all. It was very frustrating and I could not imagine how people with a disability that doesn't allow them to use a keypad/mouse would feel trying to navigate it. It frustrated me and made me realize we need to change a lot in terms of edtech tools.

I think this is a very powerful quote. There are so many amazing opportunities on the internet that, right now, a lot of people with disabilities are unable to access. The web right now is a very universal place but only for abled body people, which goes against the very fundamentals of what the internet is supposed to do.

I think it is really important that the author established there are different kinds of disabilities that can impact a user's technological ability and there is not a binary view of disability. A lot of disabilities are "invisible" so people don't think to include them, but they can still make it harder for people to use a website.

It shocks me that there needs to be convincing on a clients part to make a website accessible. If I was designing my own website, I would want it to be accessible to everyone. I just thought it was interesting that there even needs to be an argument for including accessibility.

There was definitely a lot of overwhelming information when I did the homework of participating in a Twitter chat last week. Although there were some really great ideas, I definitely felt uncomfortable participating in it at first. I think if I continued to participate, I would get more comfortable and gain new ideas.

I love hearing the stories of how other educators finding their voices through being in a PLN. This is a great anecdote for how a professional group can help you be inspired to share your beliefs about teaching.

It is really important to make sure that dominant ideas do not go unchecked. I really like that this article touches upon this idea and promotes PLNs as a way to challenge those dominant ideas.

This is a really interesting statement to me. Having teachers from many different facets of life share their ideas would make for such a great PLN. I can understand where some teachers are coming from though. I think if I was new to a PLN and didn't know if my ideas were worth sharing, I would be insecure/unlikely to share. It is great to see how many people do share in some of the PLNs I have explored.

I think this is a really great shift from the isolating period of COVID to using things such as social media in a positive way for professional learning. I know a lot of my teachers struggled during COVID to navigate tools like Zoom. I had never really thought about how they found that help until I started taking a course like this, where I now understand the value of digital tools in learning.

I agree, I think this is a super helpful feature! I had also never heard of Feedly before reading this and am excited to hopefully try it out at some point!

I had never heard of the SIFT model before, this was very cool and interesting to read about!

I thought this was a really cool introduction, it hooks you into the topic and makes you feel connected to the idea of digital tools and apps!

This is a really helpful definition of identity growth, and it is super important for educators!

I think it is really interesting to look at PLNs as if it is an ecosystem. A lot of digital tools/apps really are their own ecosystems and are intertwined with PLNs

I think this is a really clear way of introducing the subject of the article and making it easy for readers to comprehend what the rest of the piece will touch upon.