Reflection
I consider myself to relatively
proficient in the use of technology as an educator. I take the use of technology in my classroom
in a professional manner. I work with my
students to create guidelines on how new technology will be used in my classroom. The open discussion results in an excepted
classroom structure for technology. I
also work with the school to eliminate loop holes in our security to prevent
any illegal use of our technology.
Before I introduce a new technology to my students I make sure that it
work for my intended lesson in the appropriate way. Then when introducing students to the
technology I model the use in activities with the entire class. For example, we use several LoggerPro probes
that measure a variety of units in our chemistry labs and I demonstrate the
proper use of each instrument with a mini activity. In order to stay ahead in my knowledge of
technology I do many different kinds of research. I talk with educators in the local area, work
with local area educational agencies, and do a great deal of reading on new
technologies. In doing so, I am
maintaining a relatively high proficiency for the use of education technology.
In working on this assignment, I
started reflecting on how I learned to incorporate the use of more technology
in my classroom. An example I have used
in this class involves using wikis where students make content pages about
material used in class. These pages can
include material from class and resources gathered from the internet. Then I can have these wikis shared with
current students and future students as resources for material outside of the
classroom. I would implement the use of
roles as a primary tool for designating work and loads. I would also organize team meetings with
specific agendas to keep students on task and up to speed. Communication is the largest issue and as
long as students can keep in touch with their cohorts things should go
smoothly. Just this change alone
incorporates many of the skills highlighted by the 21st Century
Curriculum.
Another activity that
I'm am proposing to my students is using blogs and RSS feeds to develop
discussions about subjects in Science. I used to do this activity with
students where they would find articles and television shows that interested
them in some aspect of science. They would then develop a short
presentation to introduce their interest to the class. The downside
was sacrificing large amounts of classroom time to have these
discussions and presentations. With the ability to blog and
follow each others' postings, I can have this serve as a activity outside
the classroom where students can debate and discuss their findings without
using in-class time. It can be used as a scaffolding activity that was
illustrated in Richardson's text about blogging (Richardson, 2010). I can then
monitor student progress, give suggestions, and promote discussion by posting to
individual blogs. I can also use what
students have learned and posted to relate to content covered in class.
There still areas that I need to
improve my technology proficiencies. One
would be using technology to organize my teaching. Towards the end of this last school year I
began using a website called Edmodo. The
site functions a lot like Facebook, but is centered around education. I have found that I can use this site to send
out assignments, contact students, and create a class calendar. I can use this to organize my classes where
students can find information easily. My
goal is to learn how to implement these various technologies with few negative
consequences.
There has been a dramatic shift in the
paradigm of education to incorporate new technologies. Many institutions are trying to bring many
new technologies into the classroom. The
focus of this approach to create the "anytime/anywhere learning
scenario" discussed by David
Thornburg in this week's video series (Laureate, 2008). I have used this approach for students via
posting instructional videos and audio recordings for my students. The shear amount of learning information
available to students is outstanding. We
just need to make sure that students and teachers have the skills to harness
these resources for the benefit of the classroom. We need to be able to use technology
effectively and teach our students to use it responsibly. If these ideas are followed, technology can
be a game changer for many learners.
References:
Laureate
Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008).
Technology and Society [DVD].
Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and
Society. Baltimore, MD.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs,
wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. (3rd ed.). Corwin
Press.
