As I reviewed the
National Educational Technology Standards for teachers this week I found that I
am confident in areas of collaboration, authentic lessons, and using technology
that I am familiar with in my lesson plans. However, some areas I would like to
improve upon include indicator 3d “model and facilitate effective use of
current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use
information resources to support research and learning,” and indicator 5a, “Participate
in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of
technology to improve student learning,” (International Society for
Technology in Education, 2007). To improve on these two standards I
would like to set the following goals:
·
Incorporate one new type of technology into my
life each new semester of school.
·
Have students using technology in the classroom
weekly.
To achieve these
goals the actions I will need to take are to research types of technology and
become comfortable using them. I will need to take the time to explore how each
new technology works and experiment with it myself to become comfortable with
it. As I become familiar with the technology I will make a note of ways that
that technology can be used to make my life easier or more efficient, or how it
can be used in my classroom.
When I create
lesson plans with my colleagues I will need to be prepared with ideas for using
technology in the classroom and express to my team the importance of using
technology in the classroom. I can research other teachers’ lesson plan ideas
that incorporate technology in Analytic Geometry classrooms via the internet
and have those contributions ready to present when planning lessons for our own
classrooms.
I can monitor my
progress by sharing my goals with my colleagues and have them hold me
accountable to my goals. By December I
should be proficient with a new type of technology that I was not comfortable
with in August, and then in May I should be proficient with another type of
technology. I can reflect on my lesson plans at these two benchmarks and
evaluate how frequently the students used technology in my classroom. I believe
if I set the standard for myself that each week’s lesson plan should include
technology that I will be able to make that happen.
I will be
consistently extending my learning through the incorporation of using
technology in my lesson plans and researching what other teachers are doing in
my subject area.
References
International Society for
Technology in Education, (2007). Teacher
Standards. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2
When exploring the introduction of technology in the classroom, it is advisable to create a class blog where students are able to share works, communicate, and support one another in subject content areas. The teacher poses relevant questions in the particular subject area of interest bi-weekly. Students should be assign questions in which they will answer and/or discuss on the class blog. Blogging etiquette and expectations should be established in the beginning, so students are clear on appropriate behaviors and responses. Students should also be encouraged to publish interesting facts, inquiry projects, and other information that would benefit learning. Hence students become self taught and teachers no longer remains the sole repository of information in the classroom; thus encouraging cooperative learning.
ReplyDeleteElicious, I agree with your input about the value of blogs completely, however our school has all blog sites blocked.I do not feel it is fair to assign a blog post as homework, as many of my students do not have access to technology or the internet at home. I hope that as our school becomes more progressive I will be able to take advantage of this tool. Thanks for your insights.
DeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you have outlined some clear goals and steps in order to achieve them! One of your goals is to "incorporate one new type of technology into my life each new semester of school". I think it is really smart of you to not force yourself to have integrated that new technology into the classroom or instruction each semester, but first look to integrate it into some aspect of your life. Becoming familiar with the technology tools that are available will help you more successfully integrate it into instruction in appropriate ways as well as really leverage technology in authentic ways. So often we forget that the classroom should merge with our own lives, just as we look to integrate instruction with our student's daily life.
Thanks for sharing.
Kate
The first technology I plan to become comfortable with is using the calendar on my smartphone. I have been kind of "old school" and dedicated to my paper agenda book. My calendar is my lifeline during the school year as I have to keep up with IEP meetings and lots of other deadlines. If I can become comfortable with using my phone with this it will help me a lot.
DeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteI believe that you will certainly be working towards meeting the 5a indicator, by using your PLC at your school you can accomplish a great deal. One of the ideas that we learned about in our earlier courses was using wikis as a learning tool. This is something that I have tried to incorporate into my own classroom, and would recommend this as something to try in your own classroom as well. I used Wikispaces for my student made wikis, and it was interesting to see that even though I was using this new piece of technology in my lesson, students who were doing the bare minimum prior to creating the wikis continued to do the same. It was my hope that by adding this element of technology to their research would somehow magically inspire my students to want to do more. I then thought back to one of our earlier courses where they stressed the importance of using technology in new and meaningful ways, and not just adding a technology component simply to have technology in your lessons. In having my students create wikis, I was able to give students different jobs/tasks, and I was able to better facilitate the lesson. I had assumed all students were good at researching a topic, but quickly came to the realization that there are plenty of students that struggle using technology. I now realize that these are skills that I need to evaluate early in my class, and continue to reinforce even when working on projects such as wikis.
I think that it is great that you are looking to other teachers that have had success using technology in their classrooms, because I think that a lot can be drawn from the educational community both locally and beyond. I still think that self reflection is the best way to evaluate your efforts during the lesson, and again following the activity. I have found that I am often much more critical on myself then others seem to be. Using technology at least once a week in your class seems like it should be fairly easy, and I think that it is great that you are going to try using new forms of technology. Often times I believe that teachers find something that works well as a technological tool, and then they continue using it because of comfort, not taking into account current relevance. I hope that you are able to improve on how you use your two standards, and I think that it will be interesting to see how you are able to incorporate new technology use into your math class.
Thanks Again,
Brian
I think you have done a great job in making achievable goals. I think it was very smart to state that you will incorporate one new piece of technology each semester in school. That should give you plenty of time to learn the piece of technology. What are you going to do if the allotted time was not enough for you to become familiar with the technology component?
ReplyDeleteMaking notes while you are exploring these new pieces of technology is an easy way to determine what works and what doesn't. You can make a journal specifically for this reason. I really liked how you are already holding yourself accountable through your colleagues. This will help keep you on track and help you achieve your goals. Keep up the good work!
Karen