I’m really happy with the way the format of this class allowed me to explore various tech tools and spend time trying them out. My goal was to figure out how to have students use technology as a learning tool instead of simply using technology as a teaching tool. The format of this class allowed me to create projects using many different tools on a personal level, and then adapted them for use in the classroom. It worked really well to complete a project using classroom photos and materials, show them to the kids, and get the kids excited to try the same tools out on their own. Many of the tools I tried out made their way into my integrated unit. They include: weekly journaling in Moodle, VoiceThread, Wordle, Google Forms, Google Docs, Picknik, Smilebox, Prezi and Jing.
I’ve found the most use as a teacher tracking individual student mastery with Google Forms. Each day or two I would link a Google Form with a few check-in questions to the class website. They didn’t take long for the kids to fill out, yet the information gathered was useful to me - and the students alike. I really like the “show summary of responses” feature. It allowed me to quickly view which students needed what type of extensions or remediation. I shared the graphs with students as a way to check the work, and that allowed students to see where they fit in as part of the overall learning picture with their classmates. It also allowed them to see authentic text from their classmates and observe the types of errors that are still being made. This is valuable! I have also found Prezi to be very beneficial for student engagement and exploration. After a very short introduction to Prezi, the students have taken off with digitally documenting their learning! Each student has used this common tool to create wonderfully diverse information books about the content we’ve been learning in Social Studies. I have required a common theme, but students have chosen the aspects of this theme that they would like to research, write about and illustrate. They have gotten A LOT more done in a short time with this newfound enthusiasm! A simple check-in partway through, during which I met with students individually to go over their progress, gave an opportunity for students to assess their work and adjust their goals appropriately.
I have been using Google Docs with colleagues as well as students, and the students are very interested in seeing how this works. For example, I showed the students how I had recently collaborated with colleagues for our group project. They saw how our written conversation evolved into a specific wish list from several conversational exchanges. The students then took that wish list and created multi-flow maps in Prezi to highlight the direct benefits of having various tech tools in the classroom. I took their ideas and put them into our group presentation for class. The kids saw an authentic example of how technology can make any task innovative, effective and collaborative, and then participated in the process. It was a great way to introduce sharing and collaborating via Google Docs between students!
I love to use technology in my personal life, and I use technology in a variety of ways as a teaching tool in the classroom. The 20% project in this class gave me the skills to turn it into a student learning tool as well!
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