Using Technology to Amplify Instruction
- Consider the slide below. Are you a native, visitor, or resident? How do you live your tech life?
After looking at the slide and the list I would have to say I’m a tech resident. it’s the diet soda of tech saviness. I’m fairly adept at most things when it comes to using tech, and the things I don’t know I can usually figure out fairly quickly.
- Tech Tools to Enhance Student Learning: Visit each site. These are all tools that I have used with my
students. Think about how you might use each one to reach out to students, parents, or the community.
Write about your favorite three you checked out and how you might use them.
From the list of interesting websites and technology my favorite three would definitely be, Youtube.com, skype, and Kahoot.com. The first two I use all the time. The last, I use often in the classroom. When thinking about how I could use these in the classroom, it is fairly easy. Youtube can be used to stream educational videos to the students. Skype might be more difficult to use but, theoretically you could skype with a knowledgeable person in a profession for example. Kahoot is very easy to use as it meant for the classroom. I’ve used it for quizzes and just for games.
- My Favorite Sites for Your Professional Development : How do you keep learning about teaching
after you leave school? What is your insight about virtual professional learning? What do you
notice about virtual professional development?
I’ll be honest. I’m not a fan of social networking. I find it clunky, poorly done for the most part and just something I don’t like. The blogs I find interesting. I found Kelly Gallagher’s blog to be very interesting with some nice posts and ideas.
\Authentic Tasks for Students: Here are a list of tools that you can use with students to write virtually.
Why is this important? What are the benefits? The risks? Tell me about your favorite discoveries.
I think the idea of virtual writing as it applies to students is very important. I think this because, the average student today is much more tech savvy than when I was a student. So, finding ways to help them write in a language they understand and are familiar with is vital. They understand technology and are comfortable with it. The benefits are easy to see. They now how to find information via technology more readily than in books, and feel more confident. There are risks form this as well. Namely the fact that as they become better at technology they are losing ground when it comes to paper sources for example. as for the tools from the list my favorite by far has to be Powtoon. I’ve used it in lesson plans before and I find it to be so cool. creating fun and useful videos is so easy. I think it’s not only a great teaching tool but would be a great tool for the students to utilize as they write. For example you could assign them a work to write a script for their video, and then have them actually create the video using powtoon and then turn them both in. the other interesting tool i liked was Prezi. I personally don’t understand the program and think it’s a bit pointless as powerpoint is perfectly fine, but students seem to really like it’s funkiness and it gets them writing and creating very unique presentations. and as we all know motivation is very important when it comes to writing.
- What Lies Ahead? Check out what is going on in the teacher-tech world. Review Jane Hart’s
Slideshare Top Tech Tools for Educators 2014 and see what teachers are using around the world.
What do you notice about the tools that educators are using around the world? Here is the link
The first thing I noticed was that the top tools teachers are using are the same overly used social media tools that students and everyone else uses. That’s not to say, they aren’t useful, like I love google docs, I think that’s really useful, they’re just so overly used. But, that over-saturation, is a good reason to at least explore their use in the classroom, as they would probably be something your students would understand and feel comfortable with.
- Check out this digital tool version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Based on what you have done today
and what you understand about Bloom’s Taxonomy, what do you need to consider as you choose
to integrate technology.
As far as I can tell, when I look at the taxonomy chart I’d say I’m at the Applying stage. I can use technology, but I’m not skilled at creating deeper meaning in it’s use. I’m not so learned in it that I can easily evaluate the use of each individual technology, and understand how to fully use it in the classroom to deepen my students learning. for example knowing that assigning a prezi project may be needed to raise a students understanding to the next stage but a powtoon wouldn’t.
- Reflect: Based on your exploration what do you think you will try next?
After reading all this and exploring, I think first that I will continue exploring and maybe take a technology class. as for what I’d like to try directly in class, after I wrote my idea for using Powtoon for script writing I really want to try that. I learned a few things from this exploration. the biggest being that while I understand most tools that can be used in the classroom, I don’t have the deeper knowledge or experience in using them to bring out the most in my students. So I guess I’ll start trying to use them more in class, and stop and reflect on each use to see if I’m improving in its use.
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