I chose to look at the report about defining the emerging
role of social learning tools to connect students, parents and educators, from
the Project Tomorrow website. The report examines how social learning is being
used in the learning process and how to better understand the value of
incorporating technological tools in the classroom. It was not a surprise to me
to see that they discovered that students, teachers, administrators and parents
all increasingly see the value of social learning in both their personal and
professional lives. I did find it interesting that students in particular had a
heightened interest in using social learning tools in order to enhance their engagement
and academic productivity in the classroom. I found this surprising because I just
assumed students wanted to incorporate technology because it more fun and they
can access Facebook more easily, not because they find it relevant for their
personal learning process. This report shed some light into the increasingly level
of support for technology in the classroom which will inform my teaching by
allowing me to take more risks by incorporating new and exciting technological
tools into my curriculum. It also made
me realize that if I incorporate more technology, my expectations for the
students will increase as well. I will have to teach and model appropriate use
of the tools while also creating guidelines to ensure that students are not
misusing the technology and their privileges. If technology in my classroom use
can be implemented, taught and monitored I would definitely buy into the idea
of using more tools to enhance student learning.
The video “Learn to Change, Change to Learn” on the Speak Up
website discusses how technology can influence academic success for students by
allowing students to research, analyze, collaborate, and synthesize learning
through tool using technology. They discussed that their needs to be a shift
from teaching students to standardized tests, to teaching students how to
critically think and solve problems in more authentic settings using technology
as the base. I agree that students need to be taught how to use the advancing
technologies in order for them to compete for jobs that require knowledge from
multiple literacies. I thought that the ideas presented video were idealistic
and focused on how awesome education can be, but it did little to explain HOW
we can create the shift to enhance student success and learning through
technology. I think that there should be more research put into what implementation
strategies are successful and how the use of technology with students can be
monitored. A major concern for me is that I feel like my students would be
easily distracted from learning content, so I would like to see what
preventative measures I could use to help deter this problem. Overall, I
believe that the message to create a student who has multiple literacies and
can critically think and collaborate to solve problems is very important, but
there needs to be some guidance in to how to actually implement and monitor
such changes.
Starting a ‘Future Teachers” type of organization at my
elementary school site could be beneficial in many ways. One advantage to
starting one of these organizations is that the teachers at my school site
would gain new ideas and perspectives when it comes to teaching their students
science and math. Education is advancing all the time so this would provide the
teachers with the opportunity to keep up with new practices that might enhance
their teaching style and student success. Another benefit would be that the
students might be more engaged and motivated to learn science and math. It is
important to get students hooked on math and science early in their academic
years because they will most likely carry that passion for those subjects
throughout their lifetime. I was unable to find any information on how to
specifically start one of these organizations at my school. I would assume that
I could bring it up to the principal or the faculty during a staff meeting and then
make further arrangements after. I think the main concern would be how to fund
such an organization so it would be important to be an advocate to gain support
from the school, parents and the community.
I also think starting programs like the 'future teachers' would be a win win for all parties involved. It would be a great way for elementary students to gain role models and get interested in the subject matter. Also benefiting would be those future teachers who get the chance to start in the profession at a young age and get a taste of what teaching is all about!
ReplyDeleteCorey,
ReplyDeleteYou touched on a problem that I think exists in a lot of these educational posts that we are supposed to read. They do a very good job of explaining the problem, but it does a poor ob of how in fact we are supposed to do anything about it. Is there a research article out there that tells me how to implement mobile technology in the classroom, without the kids playing games or checking their Facebook.
Corey,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with all your ideas about starting a "future teachers" program at your school! I think its such a great opportunity for everyone involved!