Blog Journal 4

 In my early experiences with social media tools like Pinterest and Instagram, I found them helpful in shaping my Personal Learning Network. I have interacted with other education majors, teachers sharing lesson plans, and professional organizations posting resources. Pinterest has given me classroom decor and activity inspiration, and Instagram has provided reels from teachers with creative teaching hacks. These platforms are beneficial because they connect me to a broader teaching community and provide free access to creative ideas. In my future career, I can use these tools to collaborate with other educators, share resources, and stay updated on education strategies and technology.

Growing up, I was on the digitally rich side of the digital divide because I went to The Bolles School, which provided us with laptops (surface pros). This prepared me well for college since I was already comfortable submitting work online, creating digital presentations, and navigating programs like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. My early experiences gave me confidence when moving into college-level expectations, but looking back, I think more emphasis could have been placed on teaching digital responsibility—like managing distractions, identifying misinformation, and understanding privacy. While Bolles gave me great access to technology, more structured guidance in these areas would have made the preparation even stronger.

For collaborative writing and social annotation, I would like to implement tools like Google Docs and Padlet in my future classroom. Google Docs allows multiple students to write, edit, and comment on the same document in real time, fostering teamwork and accountability. Padlet supports brainstorming and visual sharing, which makes group annotation more engaging. For example, in a reading lesson, I could assign students into small groups on Google Docs to annotate a short story by highlighting key passages and leaving margin comments about theme, character development, or vocabulary. I would prepare my  students by modeling how to take notes, showing them how to use respectful digital comments, and giving them sentence starters to guide their participation. This would help students build critical thinking and collaboration skills.