Application #7: Reflection
I was able to further develop my own technology skills as a professional teacher in this course by maintaining a professional blog, participating in a collaborative wiki, and learning how to plan, create and share a podcast. Through the use of these tools, I was able to brainstorm ways in which I can engage and create meaningful learning experiences for each of my students. Many of these tools will need the assistance of adults since I am working in a kindergarten classroom, but one tool that is kindergarten friendly and that we started creating last week, is the podcast. I am already thinking about starting a classroom blog for students & parents to interact with their classroom teachers and creating a wiki space for kindergarten teachers across our school district where we can share our ideas and resources.
For the first six years of my teaching career, I taught students the way I was taught so one of the ways in which I have deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process is to remember that the digital natives in our classrooms do not learn the way we learned in school. As an educator, I need to fit into technology to help guide students , using relevant, immediate lessons (Thornburg, 2004).
I try to do a good job of integrating technology into the classroom, but after conducting the technology survey, my students' responses really opened my eyes to how they learn. The Listen to the Native article suggests that we put engagement before content when teaching (Prensky, 2005). It's harder for them to sit still when they are so used to multitasking playing a video game and Skyping with a friend. In many ways, these technologies are demanding that we reexamine the way we think about content and curriculum, and they are nurturing new, important shifts in how best to teach students (Richardson, 2010). My students are capable of so much more, so I really need to evaluate the way I teach and seek to incorporate the things my students use daily outside of school into their learning experience in the classroom.
One area where I have felt strong as an educator has been being more of a facilitator of knowledge and creating more of a learner-centered as opposed to a teacher-centered classroom. I encourage students to seek out the answers ahead of time and allow them to solve a problem before I intervene. That is where the true learning occurs. Students are so used to being told what to do, that when they actually get the opportunity to solve something on their own, they are lost. Good example is during Recess. Students will get to recess and they will just sit on the bench because they don't know what to play. I often hear "What should I play?" Why is creativity being put on the back burner?
I plan to continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology through the use of RSS feeds. I have really enjoyed getting ideas from fellow kindergarten teachers and subscribing to their blogs through Google Reader has really helped me gain some great insight. In kindergarten, I have felt especially challenged in how to incorporate technology because they do not know how to read or write yet. When I begin a classroom blog, I will need to rely heavily on other adults in the building to help students collaborate as well as their families who have access to technology outside of school.
My first long-term goal for transforming my classroom environment is to have a classroom blog that is updated at least three times a week. I would use this classroom blog to update families on what is going on in the classroom along with videos & podcasts where students showcase what they have been learning in school. For example, in kindergarten, I could incorporate videos of students writing the letter of the day as well as a student reading the sentence that will be added to their alphabet journals. It would include useful links that both families and teachers have found. My second long-term goal for transforming my classroom environment is to have students using or being exposed to some form of technology for every subject throughout the day. So, if we are in our Math block, I want students to either be creating or collaborating on the computer during their center rotation and demonstrating their knowledge on programs such as Google Docs.
One thing I need to remember to keep in mind. There are so many great resources out there for educators to use in their classroom, but it's important to learn how to use one tool very well instead of trying to incorporate all of them at once and getting mediocre results. It can be overwhelming when learning about all the new tools and resources. I need to start with the end in mind, so if that means I only work with one resource for 9 weeks, that's where I'll start.
For the first six years of my teaching career, I taught students the way I was taught so one of the ways in which I have deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process is to remember that the digital natives in our classrooms do not learn the way we learned in school. As an educator, I need to fit into technology to help guide students , using relevant, immediate lessons (Thornburg, 2004).
I try to do a good job of integrating technology into the classroom, but after conducting the technology survey, my students' responses really opened my eyes to how they learn. The Listen to the Native article suggests that we put engagement before content when teaching (Prensky, 2005). It's harder for them to sit still when they are so used to multitasking playing a video game and Skyping with a friend. In many ways, these technologies are demanding that we reexamine the way we think about content and curriculum, and they are nurturing new, important shifts in how best to teach students (Richardson, 2010). My students are capable of so much more, so I really need to evaluate the way I teach and seek to incorporate the things my students use daily outside of school into their learning experience in the classroom.
One area where I have felt strong as an educator has been being more of a facilitator of knowledge and creating more of a learner-centered as opposed to a teacher-centered classroom. I encourage students to seek out the answers ahead of time and allow them to solve a problem before I intervene. That is where the true learning occurs. Students are so used to being told what to do, that when they actually get the opportunity to solve something on their own, they are lost. Good example is during Recess. Students will get to recess and they will just sit on the bench because they don't know what to play. I often hear "What should I play?" Why is creativity being put on the back burner?
I plan to continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology through the use of RSS feeds. I have really enjoyed getting ideas from fellow kindergarten teachers and subscribing to their blogs through Google Reader has really helped me gain some great insight. In kindergarten, I have felt especially challenged in how to incorporate technology because they do not know how to read or write yet. When I begin a classroom blog, I will need to rely heavily on other adults in the building to help students collaborate as well as their families who have access to technology outside of school.
My first long-term goal for transforming my classroom environment is to have a classroom blog that is updated at least three times a week. I would use this classroom blog to update families on what is going on in the classroom along with videos & podcasts where students showcase what they have been learning in school. For example, in kindergarten, I could incorporate videos of students writing the letter of the day as well as a student reading the sentence that will be added to their alphabet journals. It would include useful links that both families and teachers have found. My second long-term goal for transforming my classroom environment is to have students using or being exposed to some form of technology for every subject throughout the day. So, if we are in our Math block, I want students to either be creating or collaborating on the computer during their center rotation and demonstrating their knowledge on programs such as Google Docs.
One thing I need to remember to keep in mind. There are so many great resources out there for educators to use in their classroom, but it's important to learn how to use one tool very well instead of trying to incorporate all of them at once and getting mediocre results. It can be overwhelming when learning about all the new tools and resources. I need to start with the end in mind, so if that means I only work with one resource for 9 weeks, that's where I'll start.
References:
Prensky, M. (2005). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8–13.
Richardson, W.
(2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for
Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Thornburg, D. (2004). Technology and education: Expectations, not options. (Executive Briefing No. 401). Retrieved from http://www.tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/expectations.pdf
