Embracing Technology

The world has changed.  We are now a society that is fully engulfed in technological needs.  This era will influence the new types of careers and jobs that will be available to my students.  As educators, we must continue to remain practical in our ways of preparing our students for the world in which they will inherit.  We must incorporate today’s tools into our daily lesson.  Therefore, learning to incorporate group lessons, respond to and create a blog, create and utilize a wiki, and create a podcast has been the beginning of my technological growth. 

I know that my teaching process and my perspective of the class needs to change.  For example, I must teach with the end in mind with technology being used as the product or the process.  I must deepen my knowledge of the teaching and learning process.  Also, I now realize that teaching today involves me as the facilitator and not the lecturer.  This technique I can honestly say will continue to be a daily exercise by both myself and my students. 

I have two long-term goals that I hope will help me change my classroom into a technologically focused class.   Yet, I cannot forget that there are barriers such as limited access to technology and lack of teacher training in the use of technology.   The first goal is to get my entire class proficient with the usage of the latest technology.  This includes using the tools that we already have at home: digital cameras, video cameras, and IPods.  Yet, time is a big obstacle, so I must create a timeline to get everything accomplished.   My second goal is to become a more technologically savvy teacher.  I am fortunate to work for a school system that offers the latest educational classes in technology.  Yet, beyond my graduate classes, I must also integrate technology into my life. By using technology and continuing to learn about technology on purpose, I will definitely change my classroom environment.

In regards to a survey that I took that focused on the integration of technology into my daily lessons, I have grown.  I originally stated that I rarely designed lessons incorporating technology to support the lesson goals.  Now, each lesson that I create has a technology piece. I have already begun utilizing the tools that are readily available in my school district such as research and writing tools. Now that we have a classroom that completely incorporates technology, I feel more comfortable with the idea of incorporating new ideas to our classroom.  I think this aspect of my professional development I am most proud of.

Change is inevitable. Technology is the natural next step in our growth.  I cannot turn my back on technology.  Ultimately, if I am to remain a relevant teacher I must not only be able to use technology, but I must also be able to integrate it.

A Website with Great Intentions

I had the chance to visit the website entitled, Partnership for 21^st Century Skills (P21).  Yet, I have conflicted feelings about the P21 website.  I was not visually impressed. The font was too small and the information was not easy to identify.   Maybe because I thought that I would be able to see some cool interactive displays and activities.  Although I was excited to see a website specifically created to endorse student achievement for the purpose of competing in the 2st-century,  I was not excited to come back.

Surprisingly, this site identified two very important tools in Wisconsin.  Under the state initiatives I found that Wisconsin is a participating in the P21 program as well as the STEM program.  This gives me a better understanding of what my state has to offer as far as preparatory standards.

I do not disagree with any of the information or opinions expressed on this site.  It may be because of my limited comparisons to other websites that are proactively trying to incorporate more technology into the school systems.  I may not ever see anything wrong with this site until I am able to use it more.

So what does this all mean to me as an educator?  I believe that we will not only need to stay current on the latest technology, but we will need to collaborate with our colleagues to gain the important strategies to use this knowledge.  As teachers, we must rely on one another to gain access to those critical 21st century skills that we need to empower our students with.  We will have to rely on our community to keep us aware of the latest innovations.  No longer is the culture of school going to be the same.

Just as important, this means that my students will have and will continue to need a myriad of support coming from the community.  We as teachers reallly need to stay current on the latest employable skills that students need.  Does anyone know of any activities that promote these skills?

Blogging to Enhance Learning

I have been reading the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson.  Some of the ideas that he describes for using blogs in the classroom not only seem doable but they are very progressive.  Yet, because I am still very novice to blogging, I appreciate the ideas for getting both my class and myself comfortable.  Eventually, I can return to this book of resources and to embrace more engaging activities like allowing each of my middle school students the opportunity to create and maintain their own student weblog.  Most important, Will Richardson continually encouraged his reader to remain readers of blogs so that we can share with each other the cool ideas for using blogs in the classroom.

For a couple of years I used Class Homepage on www2.Scholastic.com.  What I realized is I can begin to introduce blogging the same way that I used my Scholastic homepage.  I can update homework information, highlight student achievement, upload forms for parents, showcase student work, and give my parents and students links to helpful websites.  This is important to me because I had a group of dedicated and tech savvy parents that appreciated the ability to communicate with me and access the resources that I had found to benefit their student.  My students were very much interested in the website, seeing their work displayed, and would often help me make updates.  Therefore, I know that my students will benefit from blogging.

Blogging is a good instructional tool because it not only fosters the read/think frontier of learning but it also forces students to remain conscious of their audience, which is now the world.  Eventually, it is my goal to allow blogging in my classroom to enhance the lessons and allow my students the opportunity to interact about content.  For my middle school students, “the relevance of student work no longer ends at the classroom door can not only be a powerful motivator but can also create a significant shift in the way we think about the assignments and work. . . (Richardson, 2010).”  Now my students will become more serious about their writing traits, revisions, and editing skills.  Who wants to look bad in public?  Ultimately, my students will grow in my writing class and be more prepared to interact with the world.

Resources

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3^rd ed.).      Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.