Reflection - Integrating Technology into my Classroom

In my graduate course through Walden University “Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society,” I have been introduced to several new technology skills. I have been asked to create my own blog, subscribe to an RSS feeder to keep updated on my classmates and other professional blogs, create a group wiki, and make a podcast. In my previous experience, I have only used a wiki. The other Web 2.0 tools I had never used before. It was an interesting and rewarding experience to learn how to use these new technologies.

What this course has really done is made me even more interested in learning these new technologies so that I can seamlessly use them in the classroom. My district has offered professional development opportunities to learn and collaborate with other teachers in using and integrating these new technologies. To be completely honest, I have always been someone that has wanted to learn these technologies by trial and error. I have become pretty good with some of them that way. However, this course has helped me realize that there are other people out there that would have a lot of knowledge and experience to offer to someone like me. I would like to begin to attend more of these sessions. Some of these teachers use the new Web 2.0 tools and would have valuable information and inside tricks on how to increase student achievement and integrate these technologies on a daily basis in the classroom.

I would be extremely interested in learning more about artifact based learning that Dr. Thornburg (2008) discussed in our learning resources. This means that the teacher becomes more of a facilitator and lets students become more independent thinkers. They would not have to rely on teacher given information. Students will need to be able to access, sort, and apply knowledge to create these artifacts. There is a great deal of websites that deal with this topic. They include Project Based Learning, a page from Edutopia, information from RMC Research Corporation, and the Buck Institute for Education’s Project Based Learning Site. There have also been several books written on this topic that I would love to look into; Passion for learning; how project-based learning meets the needs of 21st century students by Ronald Newell, Teaching beyond the test: Differentiated project-based learning in a standards based age by Phil and Dori Schlemmer, and a handbook entitled Project based learning handbook: A guide to standards-focused project based learning for middle and high school teachers by Thom Markham, Jon Larmer, and Jason Ravitz. They all look like pretty valuable books to gain some ideas and information on project based learning with a focus on also teaching 21st century skills as we discussed in the class.

I have two goals for the future that I would like to attempt to use to transform my classroom into a 21st century classroom. The first goal is to incorporate more Google based technology. It’s easily accessible (not blocked by the school) and provides several options for students. It would allow students to set up an email account, a blog, an RSS feeder, a place to store documents (Google Docs), create their own webpage, search, and yes, even upload items from their cell phones. Why spend school funds for the same programs when it is given to the entire world free through Google?

Setting this up may require an extra day or so at the beginning of the year so that students can create an account and then be given time to play with the features and search for sites to subscribe to. When we work on projects for class, they can subscribe to feeds from websites and have instant access to them throughout the duration of the projects. It would allow them to collaborate with the use of blogs, shared documents, and student created webpages. Although it may be bulky to set up, the benefit could be enormous for my students because it allows them to take charge of their own learning and personalize it for themselves.

The second goal to help transform my classroom into a 21st century classroom is help convince our school to sign up and help educators join social networking sites for education like ePals. Since I teach modern world history, it would be amazing to collaborate with students from across the planet to gain a different perspective of the events and people we discuss in our class. Imagine me telling students that we have a test on Friday on Apartheid in South Africa or that they had better be ready to discuss apartheid with their South African counterparts. More practical learning would take place because there is an audience that students have to be ready for. It would make their learning more collaborative and realistic as they connect with students around the world. It would increase student engagement and achievement as they would play a larger role in their own education.

The hardest job would be to convince my school district of the value of this program. The first item of business it to research more information about the global networking programs out there and then find teachers in my district that could also benefit from technology like this. The process would continue by convincing our administration and eventually the school board in the importance of such technology.

Both of these technologies are somewhat easy to implement in my own classroom setting after the initial setup. It would be a matter of convincing people around me about the importance of such technologies. That is where the educational and research based background given in this course would play a large role.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Program 18, Transforming the classroom with technology: part I. [Motion Picture]. In Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society. Baltimore: Publisher.

Student usage of technology

As part of my graduate class for Walden University, I was supposed to survey my students on what they thoguht about technology and what technology they used.  When I surveyed my 9th and 12th graders, I was amazed to find that all but one of them had a computer available to them outside of the school day.  I was also amazed by how much they used technology outside of school.  To view my findings and listen to a few students and their comments on their use of technology, watch the following video: