Week #5: Digital Hot List
April 29, 2014Link to Diigo List: Technology in Education
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Week 4 - Vision of Technology Integration
April 21, 2014
My vision of technology integration in education starts with
one simple idea. I want my children to
be interested in going to school to learn.
Right now it is almost a daily occurrence where I hear one of the
following from one of my daughters:
“I don’t want to go to school.” “School is boring.”
“We don’t learn anything useful in school."
“When am I ever going to use this in real life?”
My vision of technology integration is:
Every student having a device which will give them access to unlimited learning
There are many devices which can be used by the individual student in the
classroom today including smart phones, tablets, computers, etc. However, technology continues to change at
lightning speed. My vision is not only
that each student has a device, but that the technology being used in the
classroom remains current.Using various forms of technology to engage children of all ages and different learning styles to be curious and to become life-long learners
Technology is very much a part of our lives and what better way to engage our students than through their favorite mediums? At Vandalia-ButlerCity Schools the teachers and administration have embraced technology integration and are constantly working to improve student engagement.
As
I researched different ways of using technology in the classroom I found that
the information available is endless and there is no need to recreate the
wheel. I can use presentation software
(Microsoft PowerPoint, Prezzi, etc.) to create a game show to present material
to a student. I can use a tablet or
computer to take a virtual field trip, learn physics, play interactive
educational games, or Skype with another classroom anywhere in the world. I can teach students to use a blog to post
their ideas and have conversations with other students by commenting on one
another’s blog. I can use a SMART Board
and have the students interact with the presentation of materials.
New curriculum which utilizes technology to advance student learning to prepare them for the jobs of the future
As my oldest daughter entered high school I quickly came to realize that
there are only a few educational tracks for her prior to college and if she was
planning to go to college that there would be a tremendous amount of math and
science in her high school future. I
never really thought about this before because I personally loved math and
science and went to college and got a degree in chemical engineering. My daughter, however, is not the engineering
type so why is she required to take so much math and science in high school? My vision is that there will be new
curriculum that will use technology to allow students to explore their
interests and prepare them for jobs in the real world. Not every job requires intense math and
science, but most jobs today do require the ability to use technology. In her article on the future of curriculum Tina Barseghian discusses three trends which she believes will shape the future including
digital delivery, interest driven curriculum, and something called Skills 2.0.
I
am hopeful that these trends will indeed shape the future of curriculum and we
can be successful teaching our students practical skills such as collaboration,
innovation, critical thinking, and communication.
Educators who are willing and able to learn, unlearn, and relearn as technology changes
I believe that we must have
educators who are willing and able to change as technology continues to change.
Fortunately there are organizations like the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) which are working to connect educators and create connected learners around the world.
Sources:
YouTube: Technology
in the Classroom: Digital Media, Gabgorrilla, Oct 20, 2011
YouTube: The New
Basics: Classroom Technology,
vbaviatorproductions, Oct 18, 2012
12 Easy Ways to Use Technology in Your Classroom, Even for
Technophobic Teachers, Kim Haynes, http://www.teachhub.com/12-easy-ways-use-technology-your-classroom-even-technophobic-teachers
YouTube: iPads In The
Classroom, Government Technology, Mar 29, 2011
YouTube: Digital
Literacy-Using Technology in the Classroom, EDTP504, Mar 27, 2011
Three Trends That Will Shape the Future of Curriculum, Tina
Barseghian, February 4, 2011
The Occasional CEO, How to Spot a Digital Immigrant, Eric Schultz, Nov 30, 2012
Smartphone Picture: http://pixabay.com/en/smartphone-android-os-samsung-153650/
iPad Picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/3gstore/4745626595/
Alvin Toffler Image: BrainyQuote http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alvin/toffl409080.html
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
My Literature Review: iPads in the Classroom
April 12, 2014
My two daughters both got iPad
Minis this year for Christmas. My
youngest, who is in seventh grade, has started taking hers to school to use in
her social studies and language arts classes.
My oldest, who is a sophomore in high school, doesn’t take hers to
school but tells me that they have them to use in several of her classes. The use of iPads in my daughter’s educations
got me thinking about how iPads might be used with younger students as well.
In the article titled “iPads in Primary:
Does 1-to-1 Make a Difference?” http://plpnetwork.com/2012/07/02/ipads-primary-1-to-1-difference/
Kathy Cassidy discusses the benefits of each child in her first grade class
having their own iPad to use in the classroom.
She starts by talking about the responsibility of making sure that
having an iPad for each of her students will make a difference in her
classroom.
“If they become a babysitting
tool, then I have failed.”
Some Rights Reserved
Most children these days have used
some type of technology device by the time they are in preschool. Cassidy says “Technology, which they already
use in various forms in their life outside of the classroom, is a normal and
intuitive part of their lifestyle. Like most of the rest of us, when they use
technology, they are engaged!” I agree that
using technology is a normal part of life for children today and it makes sense
to carry that into the classroom. I
think the real challenge is to make sure that the use of an iPad is really
enhancing the child’s education and not just changing the format of teaching
from paper to electronic.
When we are at home and my girls
are working on homework we are often all sitting at the same table. When they are using their iPad to do homework
we have a headphone rule: if what you’re doing requires sound then you need to
have your headphones on so it doesn’t bother anyone else. In the article Cassidy talks about this very
thing and how she was worried that it would negatively affect the collaboration
between her students when using the iPads.
She goes on to explain that is has had quite the opposite affect and
says that “…there is more collaboration and authentic problem-solving happening
in my classroom than there was before we obtained our devices.” At first I found this hard to believe, but
the more I thought about it the more I realized that my girls do the same
thing. If they come across something
that they think is really cool they immediately take of their headphones and
beg their sister to “come check this out”.
Cassidy talks about how having the iPads has
helped take away some of her frustration with not being able to give every
student instant feedback. She provides
some amazing
links which demonstrate how the students use the iPads to show their
learning with videos, pictures, or a screencast. She also talks about how having individual
iPads for each student has made it much easier for them to pursue their own
interests through video using Discovery Education which is service which provides all types of
digital content. She touches on is how she uses the iPads to allow the
students to find and watch videos of their recent connections with other
classrooms around the world. She is also
planning to use the iPads themselves to connect to other classrooms using Skype or
Facetime in the near future.
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places at once.
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The last topic that Cassidy
mentions is management of the devices themselves. She says “Truthfully, management of these
devices has proven to be more of a hassle than I had anticipated…”. I hadn’t really thought about the management
of the devices themselves. When I found
this picture I realized exactly what she was talking about.
As I looked further I also found that Cassidy had a solution
for this issue as well.
This article showed me that using
technology such as an iPad can promote student learning by providing
applications which are fun, creative, and engaging for the students. The use of
iPads in the class room can also provide a variety of technologies (games,
videos, pictures, etc.) that will enhance the content instruction and advance
the students’ technological literacy. This reading has made me stop and consider
ways of using technology that I hadn’t thought of before. It has made me realize that when I get to the
point of searching for a teaching position that the availability of technology
to use in the classroom will be very high on my requirements list. As I continued to search I found many videos on iPads in the classroom. This is one that gave me lots of new things to think about.
References:
1. “iPads in Primary: Does 1-to-1 Make a Difference?” article
2. iPad as a babysitting tool picture
3. Syncing iPads picture
4. Neat iPads picture
5. Neat iPad chargers picture
6. iPads in the Calssroom video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzSNdxsfk0Q
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