ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY
Technology is becoming ever more prominent in education today and will surely be involved in every classroom in the future. Through the process of creating this website and completing quests, I have learned a lot about technology tools that I could use in my future career and classroom to help all students in their education. I have also learned about many technology tools that could help me communicate with the parents of my students in different ways and how to collaborate with future coworkers. I am huge on organization, so I like the idea of creating different spreadsheets and notebooks to keep my lesson plans and different websites or apps that I will use in my lessons organized. Creating the Notebook Stack on Evernote helped me learn about a different way to keep my lessons plans divided and organized by different sections. Evernote let me add notes, pictures, maps worksheets and websites into different notebooks to where in my future classroom and I can just simply go to that notebook and get what information or work I need for that lesson for the day. I also enjoyed the Annotated Video Playlist that was created on Youtube. It gives me a way to be able to communicate verbally with students while they are at home and gives the students a way to complete fun yet interactive homework assignments.
Students can interact with technology in my classroom by using some of the apps that I found for them to use for lessons and reviews. One of them being Kahoot! Kahoot is a fun game that is great for reviews and fun jump starter questions to see what the kids know from the beginning or what they have retained from the lessons. The Socrative Quiz allows me to create lessons, reviews, and assessments that students can simply use their smartphones or tablets to complete. They can also get on the website and create their own quizzes to give to other students as a fun project. The timeline creator allows students to create a fun, interactive technological project instead of creating the same boring poster project.
The great thing about technology today is the younger generations know how to use it so easily. It is actually the older generation that struggles more with technology than the younger generation. Some main skills they will need to know is how to access the internet, being able to connect to a wifi network if using a smartphone or tablet and being able to use search engines and how to properly navigate through the internet. Another skill they will need to know is how to download apps properly and use them properly. Students will also need to be able to use strong discipline skills to make sure they stay on task with what the teacher is asking them to do and so that they don't drift off to playing a noneducational game or surfing the internet.
The great thing about using technology in education is almost every student you will encounter already has their smartphone or tablet glued to their hand and always gets upset when the teacher asks them to put it away. So implementing technology into lesson plans will be forever easier. Having students use their devices for lessons and other projects or reviews will hopefully keep them more interested in the lesson and what they are doing. I know one of my favorite projects when I was in grade school was creating a power point presentation, adding pictures and actions, making the slides swoop in or glide out and adding noises and sound effects. With some of the apps, programs and software available today students can create fun, interactive projects including their thoughts with videos or pictures they found on the internet. They can produce their own cartoons to portray, show and act out different times or important events in history.
Using many different websites and applications, I can design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments. The Socrative website allows me to create online assessments that students can log on from their smartphones or tablets and take. From them completing the online assessments, I can see instantaneously what questions are being answered correctly or incorrectly. After they are all completed, I receive a report on each student's assessment and a report on the class and can see where maybe most of the students are struggling or succeeding. From the reports I receive, I can see where as the teacher I can go back and review things that were missed or questioned by students and what we can move past as a class because the answers were correct. I can also be able to determine if a single student might need individual extra help.
With using technology in the classroom also brings the problem of internet dangers and making sure that the students are using their technology devices appropriately. Many schools deal with bullying through the internet and students accessing websites that are not age appropriate. Many schools can block most of these websites, but sometimes there is still a way for students to accidentally or purposely access those websites. At the beginning of every semester, I would use the Internet Dangers presentation and Netiquette presentation to inform students of what dangers do lie on the internet and how to properly use their devices at all times. I would also make sure to set some ground rules for using their devices in the classroom and to address the consequences to them, for them to know what happens when they do break the classroom rules while using technology.
Every new school year I would like to collaborate with co-workers and principals to update my current lesson plans and how to improve them. Ask co-workers about new websites, apps or technology they are using in their classrooms to see if they would work well in my classroom. I would also attend conferences or workshops on technology in the classrooms and learn how to improve, update or implement new things into my lesson plans.