The second concept, Technology-Based Teaching Tool. Basically talks about how technology has extended the time that teachers spend with students. Technology has made it possible for teachers to interact more with kids that need the extra help rather than going at the same pace with everyone. They do this by dividing the class to have some students working individually while others work as a group. I think this is a great tool, being able to assist the kids that need more help and at the same time spend equal time with both groups being divided. Doing this also lets the teacher see who needs more assistance and who learns better at what. As a matter a fact today when I went to do observational hours I saw the teacher do this. I did not think it would work because I thought half of the group would be distracted, but I was wrong. Every kid in the class was well focused, asked questions when they needed help, and finished their assigned work of the period on time. I could tell that the kids using the technology where the ones that Knew exactly what they were doing rather than the kids in the discussion group did not have much experience with technology.
The last concept, Your Must have Technologies for teaching : Computer educator Mark Prensky has a list of 132 tools that can be used for students to learn. I think that is a pretty big list of must haves but than again we all have a type of list of the things we must have to succeed in school. I can think of my 3 already but I'm pretty sure the list can keep going. thinking about this, and knowing that someone else can make such a big list makes me wonder what else can I use in the future to instruct, and activate students engagement with learning.
As a 21st Century teacher we need to look for new ways to use technology to assist students and help them learn. Showing new ways to help them be successful at the same time having a joyful, interesting, hands on education. I believe that I have a lot to learn still, but because I am taking this course I am confident that I will end up having some cool and interesting ideas for my future teaching career coming up !
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Your reflections are 'spot on'! :) It sounds like you are truly ready for using technology in the classroom with your positive attitude and already established knowledge - of course, there is always more to learn (as you also point out!). It is especially good to know that you saw some effective use of technology in your recent classroom observation - there is more of that at every level, but we need to be cognizant of using it to enhance the lesson and not to 'drive' the lesson. Great first post!
ReplyDeleteGood work on getting the image embedded and attributed. However, it looks like you selected a copyrighted photo, so you'll want to be sure to change that out and for future, remember to do advanced search on the Creative Commons Flickr search!