I recently taught for a few years at a very "techno-friendly" school where each student was required to have a laptop and teachers were encouraged to make regular use of information technology in their teaching and in communicating with students, so I am not completely new to all this. However, I still feel very much overwhelmed and lost among the educational technologies of the 21st Century.
When I was first introduced to this "high-tech" learning environment, the computer became an additional vital organ for me, something I just couldn't live without. I took on board every web tool and software program that was introduced to us by the ICT specialists and figured out how to use it in my class: personal web page, wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, software for making online surveys, movie making software, audio editing software, iStop animation, brainstorming programs, podcasts, news feeds... I realized I was probably not using the technology very efficiently when students started to become confused about where to go online to get assignments for my class, participate in online discussions I had set up, ask questions, etc. because I had so much going on at once. I was getting carried away by virtual gadgets and was way over my head in trying to manage them all.
I am hoping that this journey revisiting how to integrate technology into my teaching will help me find a more clear sense of direction when using some of the web tools that are available to teachers. The questions that I want to try to answer are:
- What is out there?
- How could I use it in my teaching?
- Would it REALLY enhance my teaching/ my students' learning or just create a distraction?
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Wow Marta, I'm envious.
ReplyDeleteMy school is not very "techno-friendly." While it touts technology, we are very limited on what we can allow kids to do on-line. I was the first person in the building to have students blog. I had students and parents sign a permission letter to allow them to do so. How does your school handle allowing students to do on-line projects?
Yes, great school for experimenting with all this. I actually don't work there anymore because we had to move to another state for my husband's job... but it was a private school, so you could pretty much do whatever you wanted. The kids and parents did have to sign some forms when they enrolled that dealt with proper use of internet, etc. Students had very clear guidelines and were given several sessions through out the year about safety online, valid sources, using versus copying info...
ReplyDeleteIt seems like most of the time, when a school is so restricting about what students can and can't do with the Web it's because the people at the top aren't really all that comfortable themselves with these tools and afraid that "horrible" things can start happening...
It must be exciting to be a pioneer though, keep paving the way for others... I bet you'll get all sorts of new ideas and feedback from this course.
Since both you (Marta) and Randy have some exposure to this stuff, feel free to modify my "modules" and explore your interests. Just keep me in the loop to what you want to do.
ReplyDeleteMarta, Hi! As a Veteran teacher I am feeling really rookie when it comes to all this new stuff! I really do see how important it is going to become.
ReplyDelete-Wally
Marta, I too am interested in revisiting the web as educational tool. Twelve years ago for an education class (while teaching middle school in a progressive independent school with forward thinking IT program based around Macs) , I had to do a comprehensive project on how the web could be used to help my teaching. For the topic I choose then, I concluded that the web really didn't help me much. Now, I have a new environment (large public school, with windows machines and extensive blocking, high school chemistry) and it will be interesting to see how time has made it better.
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