Students you will teach (and any of you born after 1980) are sometimes called “digital natives”, a phrase coined by Marc Prensky. Most of the teachers, however, are considered “digital immigrants”. It is not unusual to find resistance among teachers who have the challenge of learning new strategies to incorporate technology in the classroom and adjusting teaching methods and classroom environment to better support the learning process. Additionally, teachers have to use technology in a way to support the six main areas enlisted in the ISTE standards: Creativity and Innovation; Communication and Collaboration; Research and Information Fluency; Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Desicion Making; Digital Citizenship and Technology Operations and Concepts.
My purpose on this blog is to reflect and refine my teaching experience as an international teaching assistant in an undergraduate-level course called EDIT 2000 (Teaching with Technology). On this course college students from the University of Georgia learn how to use and manage technology in educational settings (especially K12 settings) and to communicate means for using technology in educational settings. I hope to combine my ongoing teaching experience with the knowledge I gain from this class to build a stronger approach to technology integration into secondary education. Here you have a couple of videos I chose to illustrate examples of technology integration that are somewhat similar to what I am interested in
From Marquita Jones
ReplyDeleteThe first video is a great reminder to use technology to do things better than you could without the technology. Often times teachers incorporate technology, but it does not have any real value.
The science project is awesome. I absolutely love that the length of the students' clips have to reflect the length of their geologic time period. What a challenge! This activity will definitely give students perspective on the short amount of time humans have lived on earth compared to other organisms. I also like how the teacher integrated all the students' clips into one video to reflect all the time periods. Although I don't teach the geologic standard, I definitely can use the idea of creating a long video from several student clips. This project has the wheels turning in my head as I think of the possibilities.
Education is so full of buzz words and ideas, and so often, technology sits at the center of this buzz. Understanding what it means to fully intergrate technology in the classroom is difficult. Teachers use it to say they are using it, but it serves no better purpose then the more traditional methods. It has to create new learning with the technology for us to say we are truly integrated. I really struggle with these ideas in my school. I see teachers "using" technology, but they cannot explain why the technology makes the lesson better. They honestly believe that it is just better because the technology is there, and that is not always the case.
ReplyDeleteLucas,
ReplyDeleteDid you see my comment from last week? I remember writing out a comment to you first post, but don't see it here.
Thanks,
Jack
Hi, John!
DeleteI haven't received your comment. Probably it was not saved. Maybe you forgot to sign in to your Google account? Sorry about it.
Lucas