Reflection on The Impact of Technology

When reflecting on the class about Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society I look back and see that this class really helped me understand more about technology. I learned about new things that I had never heard of and now have new ideas to take into my classroom. I also learned more about things that I knew about but did not understand entirely. I love the idea of using a blog which I did not before. When looking at the checklist, I see a few differences from Week 1 to Week 8. The category that says: work to promote best practices in technology integration by researching, evaluating, selecting and sharing new tools for classroom instruction. In Week 1 I checked rarely now I have changed it to Often. I now feel more comfortable about sharing my new tools in my classroom and with colleagues. The category that says: Design instructional activities requiring student collaboration to accomplish a joint task, I checked sometimes in Week 1 now I would change it to Often. I love allowing students the opportunity to work together but after studying about 21st century students I see now how important it is for students to work together. I am still working on becoming more of a facilitator for my students. My 2 long term goals are: 1. use more technology in the classroom and 2. further my understanding of technology so that I can use more technology in my classroom. I plan to achieve these goals by taking classes through Walden and the county that I work in. I am also going to take more risks and experience with different ideas. If they do not work then I will try something new or try and figure out what the problem is. I have really enjoyed this class and learned many new things this 8 weeks.

Podcast About Using Technology

The following is a link to my podcast. It contains information about the demographics of my class and also interviews wuth students about the use of technology.


http://slp1777.mypodcast.com/2009/04/Podcast_about_Using_Technology-197071.html

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I enjoyed looking through the website about 21st century skills. I liked the tools and resources that it provided to help with the teachings of the skills. I also liked how it provided a list of resources to help with professional development. There was not any information that surprised me or that I disagreed with. I look forward to more information and new articles to read.

Using Blogs in the Classsroom

Blogs can be used for many reasons in a classroom. One way that I would use a blog in my classroom would be to keep parents updated on what is going on in the classroom. I could post different types of study guides, HW helpers, and many other ideas so that parents could see more of what happens in the daily lives of their child.

1st grade
I teach all content areas.

Promeathean Boards

A classroom today looks very different than it did 20 years ago. Classrooms are changing every year to keep up with the changes in technology. The way students learn is changing every year too. A new technology in many classrooms is the Promethean board. It is an interactive learning and teaching tool that was created in early 2000 to give students a more hands-on way to learn. It allows the teachers to teach lessons digitally. The lesson board comes with pre-designed programs to fit the subject being taught and then the teachers have the option to personalize each lesson by adding additional text, sound and movies. The board is controlled by a pen that is touched to the board to make each screen change. Everything that shows on the screen in front of the classroom also appears on the teacher’s desktop computer monitor, so the screen can also be controlled from the teacher’s desk. There is also an option to freeze the whiteboard screen so the teacher and students can be working on different things at the same time.

How do you think this new technology would be effective in a classroom and for students, especially special education students and other students with disabilities?