I worked on a group project with my fellow USJ graduate students that pulls together tools for middle school teachers in the areas of mathematics, social studies, ELA, and consumer sciences. We focused on cross-content activities on Ancient Egypt. The Google Slides presentation contains descriptions of the tools, links, and pros and cons for each activity.
For this blog, reflect on your classroom: what is your pedagogy style, what is your role in the classroom (refer back to Blended Learning book) do you have more than one role or do you tend to lean towards one style of teaching; are you blending technology, if so how and if not what is holding you back. Most importantly, tell us about your students and their take on technology - knowledgeable, engaged/distracted by technology, are they motivated and empowered to teach/collaborate with peers.
My pedagogy style is face-to-face driver. I use technology in the classroom every day. I use the smartboard and a hovercam for studentnotetaking. I also use Kahoot.it for doing review quizzes about once per week. This gives me a good idea of how the class as a whole is doing with specific standards. I assign work in TenMarks math software once per week for students to complete in class on individual ipads. I receive data for each student on how they did on each assignment, which is broken down by Common Core State Standard. I can also see if students viewed the video or hints provided for each question. As a math teacher, I love to collect data on student learning and adjust my lessons based on the results. I use email to communicate with students outside of school hours, for instance, when a student has a question on the homework. Students also have access to my website where I list the homework assignments and links to them. My students are fairly knowledgeable with the use of technology such as google apps, email, and navigating the internet. In sixth grade students are learning to become independent about their homework and organization responsibilities. I encourage them to contact me directly with questions and to view their grades on PowerSchool themselves. My students are very excited to use the ipads. Some software is more exciting to them than others. They really enjoy taking the Kahoot.it quizzes. There is only feedback for the class as a whole viewed publicly. I can look at the data for individual students privately. The problem I've found with Kahoot.it is that students are so excited that it can be hard to call them back to order after each question. It is a nice break from the monotony of individual quiet work, though. Most students are engaged when using technology. I think that a mixture of hand written and technology assignments works best for my students and teaching style. Most of my students prefer working in collaborative peer groups. I have had several students put together a slide presentation of their own initiative to present to the class describing a content area we've covered in class. I agree that the role of literacy and blended technology in the classroom is growing in importance and inevitable in today's society. Although online and internet skills are not specifically addressed in the CCSS, I believe it is a responsibility of educators to prepare our students to be literate in our increasingly technological world. My own eighth grader struggles to understand the importance of evaluating the source of online information. With endless amounts of information available instantly, understanding the source of that information, and the purpose of the originator, gives the reader perspective and understanding that is vital to comprehension and assessing validity. In the article Seeing the forest, not the trees the authors note, "They (students) also are relatively unskilled with critically evaluating onlinesources (Walraven, Brand-gruwel, & Boshuizen, 2008). Many find it difficult to judge the accuracy, reliability, and bias of information that they encounter during online reading and research (Bennett, Maton, & Kervin, 2008)." Evaluating the validity of a piece of writing, and carefully considering the purpose of the author is a skill that must be taught and practiced, and a skill that is extremely valuable in real world applications.
In the article The power of natural frameworks: Technology and the question of agency in CSCL settings by Annika Lantz-Andersson, the author explores what happens to learning activities in school when digital technology and multimedia applications are introduced and to understand how students frame situations when interacting with new tools. "When students are grappling with mathematical word problems with (a) specific educational software and get the feedback that their answer is "Incorrect", they become hesitant about the nature of what is wrong." Is it a problem with the student's procedure, or with the software? The study in this instance revealed that students tend to blame an incorrect answer on the design of the technology, and in these situations they do not seem to engage in mathematics at all. I interpret this as a warning to educators to be purposeful and analytical about the use of technology to enhance student learning. When mathematical procedures are hidden in a technology, students lose their initiative to work through problems, because the procedures are invisible in the technology, and therefore, students do not know whether they are procedurally wrong, or if the software is wrong. This "diminishes student agency at the expense of technology." Educators must be aware of how technology is being used in the classroom, how students respond the the technology, and determine whether the technology is beneficial to student mastery of content. |
AuthorMrs. Kennedy Archives
April 2016
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