Being able to navigate through todays technological world is very important for educators. For many of us, our students are much more knowledgable than we are with current technology. Do not fear! We too can become technological innovators and use the latest technologies in our classroom. Not only does this help students connect to the material it can also motivate us to become better educators. Because technology is always evolving, we need to stay on top of our game and do our own research on how we can incorporate technology into our classroom.
I was fortunate enough to have SmartBoards in some of my high school classrooms. As young students, we all thought they were so cool. But unfortunately, many of the veteran teachers had no clue how to use them. A lot of teachers are not willing to go out of their way to learn the new technology and this can really hurt students. We need to know how students are thinking and where they are getting their information from. And in todays world, much of their time is being used in the digital world, so we too need to join in on the technological revolution and start learning ourselves. For the teachers that did take the time to learn how to use the SmartBoards, they saw an improvement in class involvement and attentiveness with students. Teachers could use the technology to get students to come to the board because we all wanted to use it. And with all the cool functions the boards had, we were all waiting attentively to see what it could do next.
Now, for teachers that do not have access to expensive equipment, there are many other things that we can be doing. For starters, blogging is a great way to get students to converse with each other outside of class. Not only is it a fun homework assignment, they are getting to know each other better and appreciating one another for their ideas, great for todays world of excessive bullying. In today's class I learned about quite a few resources I have never heard of before. Although I thought Poll Everywhere was a fun activity, I do not think many students would be able to handle it appropriately. You may need to reserve this for a class you now would be able to act properly. I really liked the Wordle website and even went home to play around with it after class (as you can see below). This could be a great way to introduce a topic or chapter and have students make inferences about important key words and what the main points in the chapter will be. At the end of the lesson it would be beneficial to then revisit the word cloud and have students repeat the exercise and confirm that they did learn the main ideas presented in the word cloud.
Overall I believe digital literacies are an important resource in todays every evolving technological world. Students now more than ever are getting better and better at using various technologies and in order to give them the best education possible we need to be able to keep up with their knowledge and bring lessons into ways that they best understand.
By the time I graduated high school, our district still did not have smart boards; that was until I returned in the late fall to visit a teacher and discovered they were actually installed and being used in mainly math classrooms. I was unsure of their use since I had been taught by the good old chalk and dust method, but I kept an open mind. I asked my brother (who was still in high school at the time) how they were and if he felt they were a good addition to the classroom. He said they were useful, but only in the classes teachers knew how to use them. The use of technology is great for students as their lives now really revolve around technology and having the "leanest and the greatest", but how can technology be fully utilized in the classroom? Especially in science. And I think the answer lies in what you were saying; blogging and taking class polls just to name some. Teachers should be open to new ideas about the use of technology in their classrooms. I remember when powerpoint was the greatest thing to have in the classroom (which also meant we now had projectors other than overheads) and now we can watch movies and short clips without hauling the great big TV-on-a-cart down the hall and trying to figure out how to use it. Technology can be a great addition to the classroom, and I agree with what you have said here.
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