Greater Tech Usage

Ever since my time as a pre-service teacher, I was dreaming of integrating a variety of technological pieces into my instruction. As I moved forward, I used a little bit in my student teaching and continued to dream of a technologically literate classroom. Last year, my first year of teaching, I used tech on a regular basis. From the class wiki, to having kids highlight passages on the Activeboard, to having students create presentations in powerpoint, we were all over technology.

Now was it what I had been dreaming about? I suppose I could answer in two different ways. Relative to where I was in teaching, I felt fairly good about how I was able to integrate technology into my daily instruction without making it feel forced. Relative to others I am inspired by, I was itching to add more and make them integrate with more fluidity than before.

This coming year I have a few new wrinkles planned...

• A class blog: with the 70-80 kids I'll see, the goal will be to divide them into 3 groups and have an A, B, and C. One week, A will be blogging in response to a question, quote, statement. That same week group B will be responsible for commenting on the work on 1-2 of their peers (I'll tweak it based on ease of use, efficiency), and group C will be off. We'll rotate each week. This will likely be connected with social studies and/or our novel study, giving everyone something to connect to.
• Wiki Group Work: my past class of kiddos was great at creating powerpoints. While I sometimes struggled with the content they created (writing style, conventions), their technology knowledge was fantastic. Instead of 20 powerpoints on the Boston Tea Party that just get sent to me (they presented too, but it was really an audience of 1... me) we will create using the wiki. We'll be using some rubrics to assess our cooperation, our contributions, and the content. Plus we'll take out some of the flash that became uber-distracting with the powerpoints.
• Podcasting: I had hoped for a podcast this past year, but it just didn't happen. What I am considering doing is having a monthly podcast from each rotation group, with 3 students per rotation working on it. Essentially it will be "Social Studies in October...etc" They can cover concepts/content they liked, books they read, or something I haven't envisioned. They'll need to create an outline/script, and then use Audacity to record it (3-10 minutes). We may also podcast some of the other audio projects we're working on.

There are probably 1,000 other things that I could do to integrate more technology into my classroom. But those are the big 3 I am going to be focused on. Secretly I am hoping that wikis become the technology focus this coming year for my district (we have a yearly district focus with training around it). But, I'm also hoping it is something entirely new that I can wrap my head around.

Quality Assessments

I wrote earlier about my reliance on the reading-writing connection. That connection has been one of my main ways of assessing comprehension. I want to ensure authentic assessments, and fewer photocopied sheets that relate to readings out of context. Those readings aren't entirely bad, as they certainly save time and they are focused in on particular skills. But I'd like to see where student thinking is, and see how they are processing information. Hence why I have relied on writing.

What I stumbled across this morning was a post on the Tempered Radical. His post was in regards to a classroom blog, and some of the in's and out's using that mode of technology. Among the many things I've been thinking about, a classroom blog has been one of them. In fact I've been considering it since September, so this was a nice post (series of posts actually) related to how to best make use of blogs.

Ideally I'd like to get one up and running. I'd assign different kids to write each week, and others to comment. We'd have a focus question or prompt related to the social studies content, and they'd be given some time in class to write (as well as time at home to finish). I've stopped short, largely because I've chosen to focus in on the instruction, and I haven't wanted to jump through the hoops of getting parent permission quite yet. But I think that time is coming near.

Why so near? Because I am going to get social studies podcasts up and running. I've got two working microphones, and a handful of student computers. My goal is similar to that of student blogging, in that students will be discussing what they've learned. They'd work on a script or have some focus questions to answer prior to their recording. I believe I need to get approval for students to record and publish (for the sake of uploading to the public at-large). If I am going to do that, I will get permission for both. Save paper, have clear instructional goals laid out. We'll see. I think both could be highly effective tools that aren't entirely reading/writing based.

Integrating Technology

I hope to integrate some technology into my teaching this Spring. We only have one student usable computer, but that isn't a big deal to me. I am excited about the kids creating, or at least creating the audio for, a podcast. I'd like to make a series of them that could go on the school website. This will likely be related to an All-About unit that I want kids to write. The other option is during a poetry unit. I'm also considering using tech in a PhotoStory way, which would be to have student artwork on screen with voice (re: student) narration to the artwork.

I want to use the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives during math in our math opening too! I have a wiki that I've "started" but I don't have any content yet. The model I'm using is here. It is a project to be worked on over the next few weeks.

As TeacherWife told me yesterday, you will have a ton of ideas but you'll likely only get a chance to implement some of them in this short period. Those are the words that I need to keep in mind when I worry that I'm not meeting my own expectations.