Reflecting on EDU 779 02

 Reflective Blog Post 

What are the 1 - 2 most important things you learned in this course? How will these things be part of your future work as a teacher or librarian?

    One important thing that I took away from this course, is how complex systems that we use every day are. Before this course, I never really understood what it took to create a functioning application or website. I truly did not realize the system that it needs for it to work. While I was watching the Twitter System Design, I was taking notes and found myself still struggling to understand what was happening in order to make it work for the billions of users that access it every day. Since taking this course and learning about the designs, I have taken a step back every time I use an application on my phone or on the computer and really thought about all everything that is going on just for me to login to an account. I have become more patient with applications as well and understand that while I am using it, it might have some latency and/or malfunctions. I will definitely want to have my students understand this before they become my age and not have a clue what is happening. I think it is important for them to learn at a young age what they are using and how it is working. Even my first graders can benefit from some type of course that teaches them why we are able to login to a system and use it. I am planning on implanting this in the next couple of weeks and coming up with a way that users that are this young can understand what is happening. 

Linkedin

What are 1 - 2 things you need to learn next to build upon what you learned in this course? How will you learn these things?

One thing that I want to learn next is how to actually code. I know for creating the application for this assignment we coded some to make sure that we were able to go to the next slide or make buttons active. However, I really want to understand coding. Since this course, I have already looked into other courses that focus on coding, and I have watched several videos on YouTube for coding for beginners. I think that this will be beneficial as a technology specialist because I can take what I have learned and create a club or a class that allows students to learn from me. Coding and programming are becoming so popular, that it will help these kids become ready for the working world. 

Medium 

What is Artificial Intelligence

 What is Artificial Intelligence?

Image Source: Mark Tech Post

Before this class, I never really thought about Artificial Intelligence or AI. I knew that people were talking about how AI could write papers, answer questions, and do mostly everything a human could do when it comes to using the internet. I have over heard conversations with others about using it in the classroom like creating lesson plans for specific students or creating comments on report cards. I have never thought about that before. I do think that advancing the technology usage with our students is great, however, these kids especially at a young age need to make connections and relationships with real humans before connecting them to an online human. I have only interacted with a few AI computer systems; one of them being snapchat. Randomly one day, everyone had a friend named MyAI. I had no idea what this was until I went onto Instagram and TikTok and the whole Snapchat population was talking about it. My AI on Snapchat takes pictures, send snaps, answers questions, and ask questions. These computer systems are programmed to answer questions based on patterns and data that was collected before they were used. Recently, my friend sent me a TikTok that was a video of a girl messaging a robot or an artificial intelligence system about her relationship with a boy because all of her friends were sick of her talking about it. Before today, I have had zero interest in learning about AI or using AI especially when it comes to teaching. Teachers tend to stick to what they are good at instead of exploring new ways of teaching. 

Image Source: The Insane App

While I was doing my research for this topic, I realized that most of my daily digital applications have some sort of artificial intelligence. My Alexa to start, I use her almost every day to ask questions, like the weather outside, to set timers, and what time it is. I even ask it to play music. Of course, this is some sort of system that is preprogrammed to complete these tasks. Also, while I am typing this blog when the blog gives me a recommendation on a word that I might be using, that is another form of AI. With my students, I don't think that I use AI really with them. Again, this is because I have not found much interest in using it myself. I do think that when my students sign in on their tablets using their QRCode, is advanced technology for them but not necessary AI. AI is all around us without even realizing it. As a teacher, I need to be better about researching and experimenting with different types of artificial intelligence to keep up with what the students are used to.

Image Source: WBCOM Designs

For this week, I wanted to explore different artificial intelligence tools that could be used in a primary grade level classroom. Below is a list of the resources that I have found to be useful, and I want to start using them with my students. 

Scribble Diffusion: This tool turns students designs or scribbles into an actual picture. This would be perfect for brain breaks and for students to become more confident in their drawings. I could also use this when I need to create a lesson that involves some kind of drawing which I am normally horrible at. 

ChatGPT: This tool helps humans brainstorms different ideas. This could be helpful for my students for spelling, writing, how to explain certain math problems etc. This AI can also have access to a microphone so students can speak their thoughts instead of typing them. It also gives students advice to situations they might be going through that they might not want to share just yet. 

Ideogram: Generates images using a description that is given by the user. This can be used for projects for students and be a resource for our students who might speak a second language.

Pictory: Helps turns scripts or writings into videos. Students can use this to turn their writing into visual work. This will help with the writing process by the students understanding the importance of adding details. The program allows voice recordings and editing. 

Antimatter: Makes activities using memes that is relevant to students lives. This AI makes activities based on what teachers are teaching. Teachers can then assign the activities to the students to see how they are doing. The system differentiates the work based on how the student is answering the questions. 

While I was doing my research, I came across many different websites that gave resources when looking at artificial intelligence in the classroom. There are a ton of systems that teachers and students can use to create a successful experience for everyone. I found AI tutors, quiz makers, project supporters, and so much more! 

Citations: 

DitchThatTxtbk. (2024, September 25). 40 AI tools for the classroom. Ditch That Textbook.

Perez, S. (2023, April 19). Snapchat’s AI chatbot is now free for all global users, says the AI will later ‘Snap’ you back. TechCrunch.

I Can Just Google Your Name

 I Can Just Google Your Name

When I first started to get on the internet, I remember everyone; my parents, teachers, and friends would say whatever you put out there on the internet, is there to stay. Everyone can see it. This was a scary thought when I first started to apply to colleges and later jobs because I have been using the internet for years. I never really knew what was on there about me. Now, when I did google my name, nothing was terrible it was more so pictures that I would be tagged in on Facebook or that I posted. It still made me extremely worried when I was applying for jobs because I wanted to make the best impression of myself before they made a decision about me. I knew that they were going to look me up. Now, I have students who want to know personal information about myself or my family that I am not comfortable with sharing and my first graders will say "don't worry, I''ll just google you." It makes me laugh every time just because that is something I would say too but I am twenty-eight and they are six. 

Image Source: Next Avenue 

Digital Tattoo

This week, we researched our own digital tattoo. Like a tattoo, a digital tattoo is technology permanent meaning what is on the internet cannot always go away. Yes, just like a tattoo there are many ways around getting it removed, however, you never know who got their hands on it before you were able to remove it. For this assignment, we were given many different websites to search our names. Since, I have googled my name in the past, I thought I knew everything that was out there on the internet, however, using the different sites I have found more. Below are three sites that used to look up the digital information that is linked to my name. 

Research

Google:

I wanted to start out with going back and googling my name to see what has stayed the same and what has changed. I started out with putting "Lindsey McDill" to get a more accurate search. There were 33,400 results. The first result was my school district, and my account linked to my computer. This is why that showed up. The second two were a LinkedIn account which I do not use and a white page. The other few results on the first page were a Facebook account that is not mine and another white page that was for someone else named Lindsey McDill because it had their age. I also looked up images for my name which has no pictures of me, which changed from the last time I looked up my name there was a picture that I posted a couple years ago to a Weebly account. I decided to log out of my account which I was noted to do before completing this assignment, but I wanted to compare the two. 

Image Source: Google Logged into Account 

Image Source: Google Images Logged into Account 

When I logged out of my account, I received the same results besides my school information. I am completely shocked by this as I assumed there would be a different result. After I googled, I went onto Safari instead of Microsoft Edge, and found that it has comparable results, and it does contain my picture that I thought was on Google (the first picture, the second is another Lindsey).  It also showed my father's book that he wrote that notes my name which also contains the town we live in, my grandfather's obituary and my Weebly account that I made in college.  These searches were a little different from each other. Below are the pictures that represent that. 

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill

Image Source: Safari Lindsey McDill 

As I was searching, I remembered that most of my accounts are named Lindsey Heather (my middle name), so it is harder for others to find me especially since I am a teacher. Again, I was shocked that you cannot find any of my social media accounts even if you go to the next couple of pages. All that representing me was White Pages for my dad and me. After researching, I released I did a very good job of hiding my social accounts and any information that could possibly be used in a negative way on Google/Microsoft Edge. 

Image Source: Microsoft Bing 

Instant Checkmate:

Image Source: Instant Checkmate

 

Instant Checkmate is a website that looks up people's public service records. At the start, it asks you to type in your first name, last name, where you are city, and state you are located in or where you were located. It also asks you to check whether you are looking up yourselves information or if you are looking up someone else. When I did this, they then ask you whether you are related to certain people and the range of age you are. This website was able to pull my age, two locations where I have lived, and most of my family members. It, however, did not pull up my sister's name which I am very curious about. I am surprised that it did not note that I have lived in Columbia, Missouri as I lived there for four years during college. I am thinking maybe if I change the state to Missouri, it might catch that. 

During my searching, I found other websites that also looks up people's public service record. I wanted to compare Instant Checkmate to Nuwber. Nuwber allows you to search using your name, address, phone number, and email. I searched using all three options. The only two that came to correct information was searching using my name and my address. The image below was what came up when I searched my name. It even found my middle name, which Instant Checkmate just had an H. It also showed my sister's name as a relative instead of my younger brother Kyle and Dad, Kent. 

Image Source: Nuwber

Image Source: Nuwber

Above is the image I was able to capture of the results when putting in my address. This one pulled up a lot of new information. It mentions all my families ages, date of birth, phone numbers, education, length of residency, marital status, and gender. This was the only website that gave this much information. I wish the full background report was free as I am sure there is a lot more information available

Social Media Pages: 

When I searched on Facebook for my name, I did not come up so again, I searched for Lindsey Heather and still nothing. I am very happy that I am a little unfindable. I do have students who say that I was looking you up on my computer, so this is relieving. 

I kept going with the social media pages and looked up my Instagram account. My Instagram name is Lindsey_Not_Lohan. It does come up if you type in my complete username, but it does not show if you type in Lindsey McDill or Lindsey Heather. Someone would need to know that my username is as above in order to see my account. 

Finally, I wanted to see what would come up for my TikTok account. Again, the name is Lindsey Heather. Once again, my account was not a result. 

Image source: Facebook

Image Source 3x: Instagram

Thoughts? 

I am so happy that I have done a great job with keeping my results to a minimum. As I mentioned before, I have researched myself and more accurate results were found of me like my high school cross country records or my soccer teams stats. I must have aged out of those records. I was extremely content with what comes up when you search for me. I always fear that something terrible is going to be attached to my name but that is just because of the adults warning me when I was younger that what is on the internet is never truly erased. I do believe that students should learn this skill about the internet, but I don't think it is the school's responsibility until they are at least at the intermediate level. If parents are allowing their students to have access to the digital world at a younger age, it should be on them to explain the cautions of posting. When it is the school's job, I believe teachers and social workers should come up with a presentation that displays a positive digital tattoo versus a negative tattoo. They could even bring in someone that deals with hiring and share their thoughts. 

Video Source: YouTube

Citations: 

Enriquez, J. (n.d.). Your online life, permanent as a tattoo [Video]. TED Talks.

P. Joyce, S. (n.d.). Why it is Vital that you Google Yourself? Next Avenue.

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Final Week of EDU 776

 Final Week Blog

Image Source: Republic Quote

I truly cannot believe that I am almost finished with this class and that we are three months into the year! It is so crazy how fast time goes by! I have had a great time completing the assignments and becoming a part of the blog world. I even thought to myself I want to start a blog talking about everything that happens daily in my classroom. I know that there would be a ton of teachers who could relate to my stories and who would probably like to add their experiences. For now, I am going to start doing some research on teacher blog pages. I have already found a great one. This blog site titled WAGOLL Teaching has so many different teaching advice from student engagement and learning activities to use in the classroom. Without taking this class, I would have never found an interest in exploring blogs. I am very grateful for this new interest. 

Tools that I have learned from this class: 

My views about technology have not changed that much from the beginning of the year. I still love to use it with my students and in my own personal time. One thing that has changed is the applications that I use. From this class, I learned so many tools that I can use in my classroom from technology tools to engagement. My favorite week was when we were asked to explore different active learning activities. My class and I have already done the Beach Ball Bingo to better their reading comprehension and we completed a Gallery Walk looking at different animals and their traits. These were not necessarily an online activity, but I gained knowledge on active learning and why it is important. I keep going back to the assignment tracker page just to see what my peers researched and how they used/would use the active learning activities in the classroom. I am really excited to keep trying new things and researching new engaging lessons. 

Another tool that I have found useful is analyzing data regarding primary classes and how this helps me as an educator. I have done lots of research on primary grades and how to work with students who are extremely behind. While I was researching, I found out that 1 in 5 students could have dyslexia. This was astonishing to me because of the success that I have had in teaching my first graders how to read, I now can research new ways to work with my students who struggle knowing that they might be the one who is struggling to view the letters correctly. From this, I found different accessibility tools for my students that they could use. I recently made sure that all my students knew how to use the Speak To Text on their tablets, that way they can use the search engine without having to be able to spell it. My students tend to get so frustrated with being on their tablets and not knowing how to get to a certain website. The accessibilities that researched about made it stress free for my kiddos. As a young teacher, I already had good idea of all the resources technology has for teachers, however, this class just opened my eyes to how much more there is in the digital world. I am someone who would say they are pretty techy, now I will not say that as I have learned so much just from this six-week course. 

GIF Source: Art Pictures

The first week of this class we were asked to pick a GIF of how we feel about the upcoming weeks of being in EDU 776. This is the GIF that I posted. The funny thing is during that time I did not know how to upload a GIF, so it plays, and now I do. There is so much blogger has to offer it is amazing. I still feel this way about this course because of everything that I have learned. From creating my own blogs, to viewing my classmates, I gained information that will help me become a better teacher with using technology. If I taught older grades, I think I would use blogs as a way to complete assignments, that is how much I have enjoyed writing them. The exploring for me will continue as I end this course. I want to say thank you to everyone who has engaged with my blogs, and who have changed the way I view internet usage in my classroom and personal life. This has been one of the best experiences I have had while taking a college course. 

Signing out for now, but I will continue to view and write blogs 💗

                                                                            Citations:

                        Learning Ally. (2024, June 21). Dyslexia Awareness Strategies from Learning Ally.  

Speak to Text-Bing. (n.d.). Bing.            

 WAGOLL Teaching blog. (n.d.). WAGOLL Teaching. 

 

Accessibility in Education Using Technology

 Accessibility in Education Using Technology 

Image Source: Westminster 

What does accessibility look like in a classroom? 

In classrooms, there are students who need more support or different kinds of support to allow them to be successful just like their peers. Accessibility is the understanding that all students no matter their abilities can have equal access to resources that benefit the way that they learn. Accessibility has become a huge asset for our students who have higher needs because of the help of technology. Technology has allowed all students to participate and be active members in classrooms because of the resources that new devices have. 

When I was doing some research on the topic of technology accessibility, I found some data that is helpful to understand this idea. University of Berkeley notes that there are between 15%-20% of people who live with disabilities. Technology has helped this people negative the world around them by providing accommodations to their everyday life. This article from Berkely noted that we need to make sure that everyone can understand material with using at least one of their senses. People should have interactive tools that make sure their world is simplified like buttons that can be used for people who struggle with using their hands. All individuals should be able to understand content that they are using by having the tools they need to understand the links they are on. Finally, all websites should have access to all assistive technology and should be able to be used on any device. 

As I am a first-grade teacher and a many of my students are coming into the grade with little to no skills in reading. I have fallen in love with helping my students become better readers and helping them become confident readers. For this blog, I decided to look at tools that could help my struggling readers or tools that could help my students who have dyslexia. 1 in 5 students may be dyslexic. I know that struggling readers do not necessarily have dyslexia, but these tools can be incorporated in lessons to help address students' needs in reading, writing, and comprehension. Below I created a poster that has built-in accessibility tools and a couple extensions on the chrome that users can add to their device. These tools allow all students to understand the material in the way that is beneficial to them. 

Image Source: Personal Creation on Canva

On this poster, I displayed five different accessibility tools that students with dyslexia, or our lower skilled readers could use on their Chromebook. 

1. OpenDyslexia: OpenDyslexia is an extension on chrome that changes the font to make it easy to read for students with disabilities. 

2. Word Predication Software: This is a tool for students to use that suggest words or phrases that helps with the spelling and word recognition to speed up the typing process. 

3. Speak It: Speak It is a text to speech tool that reads any text out loud. There are options for students to pick the pace and voice of the speech to help students with the comprehension. 

4. Dictation: Dictation allows students to speak into their Chromebook to enter the text from them. This help students with spelling, short answer questions, note taking etc. 

5. Read Mode: This is a tool that is on chrome that simplifies what is on the webpage by removing all the distractions for focus. 

Why is accessibility important? 

In just my seven years as a teacher, I have watched so many of my students struggle with reading and writing. A ton of my students love to use their devices instead of using a pencil. These tools can provide my students resources on a tool that they love to use. Every student deserves to have access to support in the way that will benefit them. These will keep their stress level low because instead of continuing to struggle, students will feel that they are supported by their device. In my classroom, my students are given the option to either write their spelling words on paper or they can write them on their tablets. For some of my kiddos, they struggle with spelling and writing so I have given them access to these tools, especially the dictation one. They can use that to dictate the word but then they do need to copy it with either the keys or a drawing of the spelling. I also love to use read mode and word predication with them because at their level they are beginning to learn how to read and write. They should not have to struggle in typing or reading online materials because of the struggles they have already in the classroom. These are three things that I am very good at using in my classroom because I have seen the benefits that it has had on my students of all skill level. I introduce these tools at the beginning of the school year so students can practice using them. One thing that I would like to get better on is learning more about accessibility tools that devices offer. I have a student in my classroom right now who speaks only Spanish. I struggle to remember to talk into Google Translator so my student can understand in his language. I want to find a tool that dictates what I am saying in my students language without the constant pulling up Google Translator. I want to get better at exploring and using tools that will meet my student's needs.  

References: 

                        American Consortium for Equity in Education. (2023, November 10). Understanding the definition of accessibility. 

                                    Visser, C. (2024, August 1). Unlocking Potential: Assistive Technology for Dyslexia. Accessibility Checker. 

                                        Learning Ally. (2024, June 21). Dyslexia Awareness Strategies from Learning Ally. 

                     World Health Organization: WHO. (2024, January 2). Assistive technology. 

Are you Influenced Yet?

 Are You Influenced Yet? 

Image Source: Movie Insider

Let's look back to March 2020 when the whole world changed. As I was just in the middle of my second year as a teacher, I remember getting an email that stated we would be at home for two weeks. As teachers around the world would say, it was the most hectic Friday trying to get packets ready for the students. However, the world was determined to make this change easy by providing our students with one-to-one devices. Now, this did not happen at all schools, but it happened at a lot of districts. This made it easier to connect with each other in an unforgettable time. Not only did kids use their devices for school, but they also used it to stay connected to everyone who was going through the unknown just like them. This is when the market for influencers on TikTok and Instagram became so huge that influencers were influencing the whole world and increasing the growth by almost 50% more than the year before. We as educators need to use this information to better educate the students who are growing up in a time that influencers are the normal. 

Image Source: Influencing Market Hub

As I was doing my research, I came across an article from the Pew Reasearch Center that discusses how adults sharing that they get their news from TikTok, has increased from 3% in 2020 to 17% in 2024. The article states that about 4 in 10 young adults now regularly get their news from TikTok. This is a huge increase; however, I am not shocked by this at all because this is where my peers and I get our news from. When my friends are discussing the world around us, we share what we have "read". Most of the time what we have "read" came from a TikTok video. No longer is reading the news actually "reading". As a teacher, I need to take this information and use it when I am creating an engaging learning environment. I can create activities based on these statistics to engage my students in the world today. An activity that I would love to do if I was teaching an older grade would be for my students to use their social media platforms like TikTok and research a current event that is happening via the videos that they are watching. I then would have the students create their own videos or posts that represent the information that they have learned. This way we can see the impact that social media is making for our students based on the information that they are learning. This would also help our students stay engaged with the content that they are learning as they will be using their platforms that they already spend time on. Research like this is so important for educators to explore because we need to change the way we teach as the way technology is used keeps changing for our students. Our students are already using the applications whether we like it or not, they might already be getting their news from these platforms. These students grew up in a world that technology is so advanced that students of any age can understand/use it more than some adults do. 

Image Source: Pew Research Center
52% of Tik Tok users regularly get their news from TikTok in 2024. In 2020, only 22% of users got their news from TikTok

Pandemic Funding Supporting Technology:

As I mentioned above, the pandemic created funding for our students to have access to one-to-one technology. One-To-One technology means that all students have a device provided by the district. This could be iPads, tablets, computers etc. Now teachers need to figure out how to continue to adapt new technology into the classroom as the pandemic created such a strong relationship with it. In the article Beyond the Homework Gap: Leveraging Technology to Support Equity of Learning Experiences in School, it discusses that 60% schools and district administrators agree that technology when used well in the classroom will benefit our students in the classroom. However, we need to make sure that all students have the opportunity to have access to these technologies to create future successes for all students no matter where they go to school. Since the pandemic, there have been a ton of fundings to help the increase technology in the classroom. Below is a chart that shows how districts are using their funding for technology investments from 2019-2021.

The article says that there are five goals that should be looked at when collecting funding for new technology investments. Those goals are improving home-school-communication, improving the quality of instructional materials, increase teachers understanding of how to implement technology within lessons, increasing student engagement, and providing new and equitable educational opportunities for all students. The Spectrum Enterprise who collected data for this article, looked at how districts are already benefitting from using the funds to better our technology usage. There have been huge increases for all five goals from 2019 to 2021. With home school communication it has increased to 74%, improving the quality of instructional materials and enhancing teachers' skills with technology went up to 61%, increasing student engagement improved to 52%, and providing new opportunities for students increased to 51%. I was pleasantly surprised when I was reading the increases in percentages, as I see these goals declining in my district. Ever since Covid, we have a had a hard time creating strong relationships with our families. This even causes a ton of our students to have chronic absences. If students do not come to school, we surely can't increase any academic goals. I am happy to see that around the United States, schools are benefiting from the increases in funding. However, like this article has mentioned we need to make sure that every kid is given the same opportunities to get the same results. I will be sharing this data with my school, as I believe this might help us in our goals. We can come up with plans to increase our communication with guardians and improve our instruction materials as we are a one-to-one district. 

                                                                        References:

Chavda, J. (2024, September 19). More Americans – especially young adults – are regularly getting news on TikTok. Pew Research Center.

Influencer Marketing Hub. (2024, June 24). The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report.

Perez, E., Manca, S., Fernández-Pascual, R., & Guckin, C. M. (2023). A systematic review of social media as a teaching and learning tool in higher education: A theoretical grounding perspective.

Project Tomorrow. (2024, September 11). Special Report #1: Beyond the Homework Gap - Project Tomorrow. Project Tomorrow - Preparing Today’s Students to Be Tomorrow’s Innovators, Leaders and Engaged Citizens.

Toness, B. V. (2021, July 14). Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US.

Results from my Personality Tests

Results from my Three Personalities Tests 

First Personality Test: 

In this blog you will see that I took three different personality tests. The first personality test was the 16 Personalities assessment. After I took the test, it showed that I was an executive type meaning that I am a leader, and I approach life with a sense of duty and responsibility. It noted that I do not waste time on problems and complete them with efficient steps. On the test, it also tells you how your personality shines in the workplace. This was a clear indicator that I chose the career path that was right for me as I am organized, and I thrive in environments that have clear expectations where I can have my own structure. This personality test is definitely describing me as a person as most of my families and friends would describe me using these words. I have always been the person who gets things done right away and does not waste time in deciding how I want to do something. I am organized with calendars and lists of what needs to be accomplished in my work, and I am a leader when it comes to how I take on challenges with my coworkers.

Image Source: 16 Personalities 

Image Source: 16 Personalities 

The picture above is my percentages when it comes to extraverted or introverted, intuitive or observant, thinking or feeling, judging or prospecting, and assertive or turbulent.  As you can see, I am 75% extraverted, which is my strongest trait. I am energized in social events, and I love to show my excitement when I am with others. I believe this has helped me become the teacher that I am. I do a great job with showing my personality with my students and try to make their school year exciting through my excitement. My two highest percentages that I am observant more so than intuitive and I am turbulent versus assertive. What does this mean? I have a strong understanding of what is going on, I focus on the now with myself and others. I know things before they happen because of what I have observed beforehand. The other high percentage that I scored was that I am turbulent. After I scored that high in turbulent, I had to look up what that means. The 16 personalities define it as being eager to improve but has a hard time accepting that they are doing what they can and try to do or be more. The negative of being high turbulent is that I respond poorly to stress. Boy oh boy, this is me and has been me since I was little. I have a very hard time dealing with being under pressure and things around me happening in the negative. For example, when I am teaching, I feel that I get stressed out easily because of the behaviors and the students who might not be where they should be academically. I work a little too hard to get them to be where they need to (which is a positive but can be tiring,). As I mentioned before, I am organized and I plan before doing anything, this defines the 75% of my judging personality. Finally, I am almost in the middle of thinking and feeling. This means that I focus on making decisions due to the facts/information, but I also focus on the feelings of the individuals that will be involved with the decision. The ones that I connect the most with are that I am an extravert and that I have a high level of emotions that causes me to be eager to improve. 

Second Personality Test: 

The second personality test that I took was the Personality Type Indicator. This test again showed that I am extraverted and that I am halfway for feeling and judging. The personality type test noted that I am organized and extremely aware of my surroundings understanding how others are feeling before they express it. Both tests seem to be very similar in my results. There are some negatives to being an ESFP or the Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving in me. To start, I am living in the now instead of looking at my responsibilities that I have in the future. I also am always seeking excitement and if I can't find it, I get bored very easily which leads to not a constant lifestyle, or risky life because my thrill for excitement. When I was in college, my roommates would say "Why can't you ever just sit down?", or "How do you get bored so easily?". These results help me understand myself in that aspect. Finally, I am very overemotional and tend to get upset with criticism and disapproval. If people express to me that I have things I need to work on, I overthink and work to become better at the task. I am more so driven by criticism to prove that they are wrong. 

Image Source: Personality Type Indicator 

Third Personality Test: 

The third test that I took was the Five Thirty-Eight test. This test had me answer questions with disagree strongly or agree strongly and have options for in the middle like somewhat agree and somewhat disagree. The test gives you scores in five different traits. The five are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, negative emotionality, and openness to experience. The test scores them with percentages out of 100. For extraversion, I was 75% out of 100%. This stated that I am a happy independent that has a lot of energy and enjoys social outings. The next trait was agreeableness which I scored 58% out of 100%. This does not mean that I am not agreeable but that I have a little less tendency towards others empathy and compassion towards others. For conscientiousness, I scored 88% out of 100%. This again notes that I am organized, well planned out, and a very hard worker. Negative Emotionality is the next trait that I was scored on. I received my highest score with 96% out of 100%. With such a high score, this means that my anger, frustration, and anxiety cause some tension in my relationships. The final trait that was scored was openness to experience which I scored at a 75% out of 100% which means that there is a high chance that I am actively seeking new adventures or hobbies. I really enjoyed this personality test as I felt like a lot of my high percentages reflects who I am and the percentages that were in the middle-made sense as I do tend to agree with people but also do not hold back when need be. 

Image Source: Five Thirty-Eight Personality Test

Reflection:

Image Source: Slide Show Torrey Trust

I have a very strong personality that everyone can see through my actions. When I was done taking these tests, I shared the results with my siblings and they all said, "Yes that is 100% you." The ones that stuck out the most was the fact that I am an extravert and that I am observant. I believe that these tests are accurate as most of them reflects who I am as a person and as an educator. Understanding myself so well before and after these assessments helps me understand what I bring to a professional learning network or a PLN. A PLN is a group of people that you can connect with to increase your understanding of an idea. PLNs usually happen on an online database. As an educator, PLNs are a great way to gain knowledge on subjects that you are teaching students and ways to better yourself as an educator as these kids now a days need constant support. There are four types of people that participate in a PLN. They are an encourager which is someone that keeps you going and continuing with your learning. These people appreciate your participation to learn new techniques. The next is a challenger which these types of people will challenge your thoughts and ask you to really think about your answers or your thought process. Advocate is the next trait when it comes to members of the PLN. An advocate is someone who will speak up for you and share with everyone your strengths. Finally, the fourth trait is a technical advisor. which is someone who is extremely good at the subject that you are trying to learn more about. These are your peer-relationships that are in a professional learning network. I do not think that I fall under one specific trait but sometimes I think I can fall under all of these traits depending on the networking I am in. My biggest trait from above is my ability to give off a positive energy. This definitely helps me be the encourager in a PLN. I would really like to become someone who is a challenger or an advocate for others. There are times that I am a technical advisor, and I need to be better about sharing what I know. A PLN that I would be a technical advisor in would be phonics for students who are learning how to read. I have found such a joy in that.

Action Plan based on my Personality Traits:

Image Source: Darbi Blogs

As I mentioned above, my strength is that I am an extrovert and that I enjoy showing others my excitement when I am around them. However, with that strong positive emotion comes my strong negative emotions too. I believe that this is my biggest weakness when it comes to being under stress. Sometimes this means that my negative emotions come out like my frustration, and anger when I am stressed. I am creating a 3-step plan that allows me to strengthen my skill level in controlling my negative emotions. 

Step 1: I will find a PLN that deals with people working through their emotions. I need to seek PLNs that have technical advisors in this subject area, this way I can learn from them on how they have improved handling their stress or how they have helped others improve. I think online networks would work best for me because of how much downtime I spend on the internet. I would use TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook. On this step, I am truly just learning from others and finding a safe space to explore my peers' experiences. Step one should take about a week or two to find the right network for me. Each day I should be looking for new connections. 

Step 2: On this step, I would like to try a technique that I learned from networking. The technique should be mentioned in the PLN that I found the most beneficial. This could be a coping mechanism while I am working (where I am the most stressed) or an activity that others have done when they are under high levels of stress. I believe that this step should take some time as I need to find out what works for me. 

Step 3: My final step would be to comment on the PLN. The comment should be something that has been a positive about joining the PLN and maybe even a compliment towards someone who has given me good advice. On this step, I want to be a contributor, and I want to become either someone's encourager to keep following along or an advocate for others by sharing how being apart of this group has helped me. This step will be my end goal, and each step will start over as I want to continue my involvements. 

Being a part of the internet for such a long time, I never realized how many PLNs I have been a part of. These can range from education to health to activities to do in different areas. I am always a watcher instead of participating. I want to become someone that is an active member in Professor Learning Networks for not only my career but my everyday activities. As mentioned in one of the articles above, these networks are a great way to find a place where you belong. 

References: 

ESTJ. (n.d.). True You Journal. 

        Free personality test | 16Personalities. (n.d.). 16Personalities. 

                        Hurt, K. (2023, December 26). How to build a better network of peer relationships. Let’s Grow Leaders. 

                        Limited, N. A. (2015, November 28). Identity: Assertive (-A) vs. Turbulent (-T). 16Personalities. 

                    Lynch, M. (2017, August 13). What is a Personal Learning Network? The Tech Edvocate. 

                    PsychReel. (2022, January 8). Thinking vs Feeling (A Complete Guide) - PsychReel. PsychReel. 

                                    Test, M. P. (2020, August 3). Personality Type Indicator. My Personality Test.