Skip to main content

Forging Ahead

Since taking this class entitled “Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society” I have learned how to blog, create a wiki, and create a podcast. I would not have made time to learn these technologies without this class.

Reading the 21st century learner expectations and skills necessary for students to succeed in the future has challenged me. Students need to use higher-order thinking skills. Sometimes the students have insights into technology with which I am not familiar. This sharing of the knowledge is the key to learning and development for both the teacher and student.

I have become more conscious of being learner-centered in my classroom. I plan to give more collaborative projects. For the collaborative projects, the students will choose from a variety of technology topics to research, rather than the assigned topic. I will give the students opportunities to help each other during class time rather than having them quietly doing independent work.

I will continue to use and learn more about the wikis, blogs and podcast technologies and incorporate them into my classroom. With each different technology the students use I may interest some of them to do more research that is independent and incorporate that into their daily lives. Maybe some of those skills could translate into achievements outside the classroom in the community.

One long-term goal is for my students to collaborate in making a wiki. I would take the project that I currently assign as a presentation and brochure to make into a wiki. A second long-term goal would be to keep an interactive class webpage where students would post work and blog. An obstacle I would have to overcome is time because students lose instructional time for guidance referrals, office visits, and other issues because I am just a “related arts teacher” not an “academic” teacher. These projects would also require that I overcome the school district’s internet filter policies that block most wiki and blog sites. I plan to accomplish these goals by asking the technology department for permission to experiment with a student blog. I will also work with my school's instructional technologist to modify the district filter policy.

I hope to continue utilizing these blog, wiki and podcast technologies that I have learned and applied in this course and transfer this knowledge to my students so that they can use those skills in the future.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Idea for my Classroom

I teach Introduction to Computer Technology in grades 5-8. So using a blog with my classes would be a natural fit. I would have the students blog about ways they use computer technology every day. The students would reply in a post on the blog site. Then, they could return to the blog later to see what the other students had to say in response to their post. In this way, we could have a meaningful class discussion over the internet. This blogging experience would demonstrate to the students the power of a blog and allow them to learn to use a blog.

My GAME Plan-Week 4

During week 4, I need to evaluate my Action Plan using the following questions. Are you finding the information and resources you need? I am doing well finding information. I make time to read educational technology (ed. Tech.) blogs and listen to ed. Tech. podcasts. I have also signed up for our school district's instructional fair technology classes. I plan to attend sessions on Web 2.0 tools that work within my school district's strict filtering policies. I also plan to attend sessions on using Ebooks, and creating a web 2.0 web site, using our district-provided software.   Do you need to modify your action plan?  So far, I do not need to modify my action plan. Things are going well. I even have colleagues who plan to attend the technology sessions with me. What have you learned so far?  I have learned that I am using some of the teaching and assessment methods about which I am reading. I am feeling good about being a self-motivated and self-directed lear...

Behaviorism in Practice

The book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, made two “generalizations.” 1. “Not all students realize the importance of believing in effort. 2. Students can learn to operate from a belief that effort pays off even if they do not initially have this belief” (Pitler, 2007). Pitler continued by giving two examples of teachers who used spreadsheets for students to track and evaluate their own effort in relation to their grades. The teachers incorporated spreadsheet skills and graphing/charting with their regular math lessons. This use of technology showed the students with graphic representations how their effort was directly related to their grade (Pitler, 2007). The students recognized the correlation between their behavior, putting forth effort, and the desired response, a good grade. This is a practical application of behaviorism. Another instructional strategy mentioned in the book suggested using word processing software tools to research, not just write papers. ...