Today we had the opportunity to hear from three current teachers, who are all trying to incorporate technology into their classrooms. It is great to hear about challenges and success that have occurred in the classroom.
Ideas from this week:
- Classroom Blogs: Students love the chance to have this connection to the world, and have their blog viewed by anyone in the world.
- Classroom Youtube Playlists: Students love being able to add videos to a playlist, and then have it shared during the class.
- How to use the internet, without using the internet - Real life twitter, with dry erase markers. Twitter profiles for historical figures, just using powerpoint.
- Photo-editing a comic book of Shakespeare or literature.
- Create pinterest boards for characters.
- Remind 101: Text your students in a safe manner to keep them up to date on class news.
- Google Forms: Share what your students are doing to get positive feedback.
You have to prepared for the challenges technology brings, like students not knowing how to use the technology, or limited access to technology. As teachers we just have to do the best we can, trying to keep up and show our students how to use technology for more than just sharing crazy photos.
This has been a week of some challenging questions for all of us.
Question #1 - If your class can be recorded and then put online, why should anyone bother coming to class?
This question will pose a greater and greater challenge for teachers as time goes on. Students like the idea of using the internet, and in many cases would prefer just to learn in the comfort of their own home. So how do we, teachers, get students to come to class? As teachers, we need to make our classrooms positive and engaging places, no more just stand and deliver. We need projects and activities that will engage our students and that they actually find beneficial. Students are more likely to enjoy projects that engage more than one learning style, as well as allow them to engage in activities they enjoy like making videos, or blogging.
Question #2 - What questions must we ask differently in assessment?
Factual questions are still relevant, but of less importance now, since it is so easy to just Google an answer. Questions should challenge students to think beyond the material, looking for connections, real world applications or the big picture (how this fits with my life). This is a shift that has started in assessment, moving towards more authentic assessment, but we are still not there yet.
Question #3 - Do I have to keep this?
School work needs to have value in students' eyes if we want them to keep things. This might mean finding ways to have them share their work with more than just the teacher, so that they then feel a sense of "people are going to see this, so it should be great". There are several ways that this can be done, schools can set up a online display of student work that is accessible to members of the school community like a password protected page on the school website. Students can also be asked to make digital portfolios that they can use for their entire school career highlighting work and growth.
To wrap up another overly long blog post, teaching is a changing world, and we,teachers, have to keep up. Or we might just end up in front of an empty room.
Well, I was sitting this week trying to think of a topic and having a very hard time. Then I sat down to do my homework for another class, and I realized that the reading I had to do was all about topics that we were talking about in this class.
In my textbook for teaching reading, thinking and study skills, there was a whole chapter dedicated to what they dubbed "new literacy" or "multimodal literacy." This literacy is all about being literate with more than just text. This might included images, video, audio and combinations of everything. This is directly tied to technology, as these are all methods that we encourage our students to use when they are working with technology. The text encouraged teachers to work with these ideas when they are teaching literacy, as students are using video, audio, etc. more and more when they are learning.
The book also talked about how, thanks to technology, literacy is no longer a smooth linear activity. Instead online reading is now more like the winding path of the kid in the "Family Circus" comics. When reading online, you have the chance to follow links, skip sections, or only read the first page of something, without delving deeper. This changes how we understand reading entirely, and changes how reading should be taught. We need to focus on helping students navigate this technology rich world, so that they can easily and efficiently learn and grow as students.
The chapter also looked at ways to incorporate technology into literacy instruction, something I found very interesting. One of my favorite activities was writing with hyperlinks. This would serve two purposes, first it will teach students how to create and use hyperlinks, allowing them to navigate online smoothly and effectively. Second, it can also provide scaffolding and support for students who need more than just the plain text in front of them. You could have students hyperlink definitions, maps, videos of experiments, articles or fun things like music. Another activity that is suggested is one that we have put into practice in this class, creating a wiki on a topic. This is a good way to create a permanent resource, and encourage students to work collectively, without having all the time dedicated to group research and presentations. Students can be encouraged to work exclusively online, communicating through the wiki and working when they have the time.
Overall, the connections found in all topics in education amaze me. Everything from one area is relevant in all other areas, something we as teachers need to recognize and use. We are not just teaching in our little math bubble or science bubble, we are teaching in the greater world, where anything is possible.
Well, this is a second start, since I am now in a second course that focuses on using technology in the classroom. This time, it is Internet for Educators, which will be focusing on all the ways that teachers can positively use the internet in their classroom, beyond just sending an e-mail.
Just to introduce myself once again, I am a university student, in the final year of my education degree, who is not super competent with computers.
We are starting off simple, getting back into blogging and getting on Twitter. I have decided in all my wisdom to also start a personal blog, just to discuss things that I find interesting or fun, like DIY, writing, books and more, as things come up. That blog can be found at daytwo2day.blogspot.com, so if you are interested you can read that one too.
I am looking forward to learning more about things like on-line courses, connecting with educators around the world, and reading what my peers believe about technology in the classroom. I can't wait to start creative and innovative projects, that will likely become a part of my classroom. I am also a little scared of what I will do, and most likely mess up, but isn't that the point of school, to learn?
Overall, I am just really excited to keep learning about technology, and expanding my abilities as a teacher. I feel that technology is a crucial part of our world, as it is all around us, in every part of our lives, so if we ignore it we will be lost. And this class is my effort to at least find a map.
