Reflecting on Implementing Technology in the Classroom
Reflective Essay
By
engaging in the resources of this course, I was able to incorporate technology
in creative ways that I have not even been able to think of. For instance, using
Twitter and social media as a tool in the classroom was not something I thought
could be a incorporated for school learning. Even though I am immersed in
technology and social media myself, I had a perception that social media is a distraction
for students. This course helped me reset my mind into viewing social media as
another tool to connect my students and collaborate with a large audience in
class. I learned that “I don’t have to be a master at every piece of software
that I use” in order to effectively use technology in the classroom (Laureate
Education, 2015). Instead, technology is a tool that can help engage my
students in their learning journey in school as well as a tool to help me
continue my growth in teaching. I found using the resource of social bookmarking
helpful as a tool to organize my resources on the internet. I have been utilizing
the internet for resources, but it was in a way that I would look for it when I
needed it. Social bookmarking gave me a way to organize all my resources in one
place and share with other educators so that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel
every time I wanted to teach something. Lastly, utilizing a blog for my lessons
have been an effective way to develop my own technology skills as an educator. Blogs
has made a significant change to my teaching as “the idea that the relevance of
student work no longer ends at the classroom door” (Richardson, 2010, p.27). My
students got excited when they found out that they can share and post their
work online for the world to see. One of my students was excited to be able to
share their work on their blog by linking it to family relatives that are in
Canada. I found this motivating to continue learning more about how I can incorporate
blogs into my lessons. This course also helped me develop the scaffolding skill
of not having to do all of it at once. That when I start incorporating technology,
I should start small first before trying to incorporate type of technology tool
I can find.
Before
this course, I would get excited about using technology and then quickly get
overwhelmed by all the ways or ideas I can incorporate it into my lessons and
then not do it. The way I have thought about the necessary steps to incorporate
technology into my classroom has deepened. Thornburg states that I used to have end goals that I thought I could
introduce to my students right away such as having a blog for students to post
their work on. My knowledge on how to get to the point where students are
comfortable and can easily access the technology tools have deepened. Just like
anything in teaching, I must start small first. To introduce my students to the
technology tool by first providing a blog that shows the instructions or task.
Then slowly incorporating sources where students are reading blogposts for
their tasks. Eventually asking students to create their own blog and submit
their tasks on it. Before this course, I would have wanted to jump into giving
them all a blog from the start and having a “paperless classroom” right away (Richardson,
2010, p. 46). This is an effective way
to incorporate technology in the classroom as I am creating a foundation first
on what it means to “connect and create with others” (Richardson, 2010, p.147).
One
tool that I am excited to incorporate in my classroom is the use of video
podcasts as an assessment option. I want to be able to introduce students to
the world of podcasting as it is “now every easy to create and publish these
recordings” (Richardson, 2010, p. 115). I love the idea that I can also create
podcasts for my students and they can hear my podcasts of every content level
at the comfort of their own home for extra practice or homework. I want to be
able to have students utilize podcasts to demonstrate their understanding of
their work in creative ways. However, a potential roadblock to its
implementation is that students work at different paces depending on their
level of readiness with the technology and might feel rushed to complete it at
the very last minute. By having a podcast element to their projects, I am also
allowing students to be creative communicators by using the platform of a
podcast to “publish or present content that customizes the message (ISTE, 2016).
My plan to overcome this is that
students will have a rubric provided for them in order to keep track of what is
needed in their podcast. I also want to provide a structure on when their
planning days are, and when their recording days are so that students do not
feel rushed when creating their project. My selected tool assist students with
21st century skills as it allows students to be creative and
flexible with their time. Podcasts also allow students to add their own voice
to the work and verbally process what they learned to an audience. I find this
a better way of assessing students compared to PowerPoint presentations as they
are thoughtfully planning out what they will say instead of just reading off
the slides during presentation week. I also feel like having podcasts as an
assessment tool will allow students to prepare what they want to say, eliminating
anxiety or fear in public speaking.
For the
near future, I want to be able to incorporate technology by providing students
more resources on the internet to explore and engage in their learning as well
as have a way to assess my students through technology. One long-term SMART goal I will set in
transforming my classroom environment is “For the 2020-2021
school year, my class will attend two virtual field trips related to
experiencing the world for our social studies unit.” This is a goal that I want
to meet as I want to empower my students and allow students to “curate
information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to
create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections” (ISTE,
2016). By providing students resources and ways to interactively engage on the
internet, I want to start off small and go deeper with social studies units. The
internet is a place where we can now find endless amounts of information for “whole
group exploration, discovery, and engagement” (Hamilton, 2015, p.65). In order
to have students ultize these resourecs effectively, it is also important to make
sure that I am modeling each new skill. Another long-term SMART goal is that “for the school
year 2020-2021, my class will be fluent in the usage of a blog as they will be
able to post and actively engage with each other for ELA. To achieve this goal, I want first to start
off small and have a blog where they will gain information and knowledge from,
such as prompts and instructions. Then slowly build off from learning and
reading blogs to making their own. I want to create empowered learners through the
usage of blogs so that students can “use technology to seek feedback that
informs and demonstrates their learning in a variety of ways” (ISTE, 2016).
As
a result of this course, I am aware that the challenge of creating consistency
for assessment will be difficult. For instance, when allowing students to use
blogs to assess their understanding, there can be a lot of diversity or ways
they can use that blog to show their understanding. Assessment is now very different
as “technology allows us to collect very rich streams of information” (Laureate
Education, 2015). This also means means that it might be more difficult to
assess them and give them feedback with the same expectations. The usage of assessments that incorporate technology
motivates me to be an unlearner. Instead of holding tightly to how education
used to be, it is important to learn by unlearning and finding “ways to make
our work more relevant to the needs of modern learners” (Richardson, 2015, p. 37).
I am hoping that in my team, we are able to support one another when it comes
to adventuring in the new world of incorporating technology in our classroom.
References
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016).
Standards for students.
Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-teachers
Hamilton, B. (2015). Integrating technology in the
classroom: tools to meet the needs of
every student (First edition.).
International Society for Technology in the classroom.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2015h). The changing role of the
classroom teacher: Part 1
[Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education (Producer). (2015i). The
changing role of the classroom teacher. Part 2
[Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis,
podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms
(3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Chapter 10, “What It
All Means” (pp. 147- 156).
Richardson, W. (2015). From master teacher to master learner. Bloomington,
IN:
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