Using New Technologies in the Classroom
Chapter 4
Chapter
four of the textbook “Transforming Learning with New Technologies” is entitled
“Designing Lessons and Developing Curriculum with Technology” and focuses on how
teachers propose, provide, and assess lessons that involve students and teach
academic matter while incorporating technology into all features of lesson
design and development. One thing that really stood out to me in this chapter
was the example lesson in science that focused on Rainscapes Show the Water
Cycle. This lesson would be an elementary school science lesson and the central
focus of it would be “By studying the water cycle, children understand how
water is naturally recycled from the earth’s surfaces to the atmosphere and
back again, changing from liquid to gas and back to liquid.” I think this
lesson is great because is allows students to conduct and engage in an active
activity. Students would learn what happens to water in different settings by
their own experiment, which is great since the students are discovering this by
themselves.
Another
idea that stood out to me in this chapter was assessing and evaluating
students. The chapter stated that one of the most popular ways teachers think
about assessment is through personal experience, which I never noticed before
but I definitely agree with. As students, we had assessments that we either
enjoyed or disliked, so as teachers, the ones we liked would be the ones we
would want to use in our future classroom since it worked well for us as
students. However, the problem with this is that teachers do not automatically
envision using portfolios, creative writing, group work, and more, if they
never were assessed in those ways. A teacher must be open to all kinds of
assessments because different assessments may work better for different students.
Instead of using boring and annoying performance assessments to check student
progress, a teacher should be open in using assessments that SHOW what a
student has learned, which includes a product, performance, and presentation.
Questions I Have
1)Can I evaluate my student progress by both performance
assessment as well as standard based assessments?
2)How can I create a rubric that will accurately include how
to assess student performance, what student needs to do to meet certain
criteria, while being fair to all students? Can I use differentiation in
assessments too?
3)If a state makes standard assessments mandatory to measure
the knowledge of students before, during, and after teaching lessons, can I
include a performance assessment with it that students may enjoy more?
Chapter 8
Chapter 8 of the textbook
“Communicating and Collaborating with Social Media” is entitled “Communicating and
Collaborating with Social Media” and focuses on how teachers can use different
technology tools as teaching and learning tools. Even though technology tools
for communication as been around for many years, it has not been used
previously to the extent that it could be used. Some communication electronic
tools include email, classroom websites, blogs, and more. Email is a great way
for teachers to reach out to parents and vice versa especially since now, most
people have phones that allow automatic emails to be received and will notify
the person when they get a new email. Also, not only is it quick and
convenient, I believe emails are better because they make both the teacher and
parent more comfortable as meeting in face may be intimidating to both. Also,
emails are organized by date, so if a parent is trying to find an email where
the teacher mentioned something, they will be more successful than trying to
remember what the teacher told them months ago about their child. Even though
the textbook did not explicitly mention this, another tool I think would be
helpful would be a class or school Facebook page, or something along those
lines. Parents always wonder what is going on in school, and it may be time
consuming to keep each parent up to date with the lessons, activities, trips,
assemblies and more. However if the class or school had a Facebook, parents would wonder less about
what is going on at school. When everyone is in the loop, at-home conversations
about schoolwork are more productive. Parents also become more invested to work
with teachers together to help their kids succeed. A school or classroom Facebook would allow
teachers to have more time and energy to focus on in-class learning as they
only have to update Facebook once whenever something needs to be added as a
reminder or overall message. Even though these ways of communication may seem
weird to try because they are different, I believe both parents and teachers
should try them out because in the long run, it will be beneficial towards the
student.
Questions
I Have
1)What
do I do if a parent does not have the technology to use an app or website that
I have set up with the classroom?
2)Should
I include students in online discussions with teachers and parents, or should I
just keep it between teachers and parents?
3)How
can I stay safe and private on the online classroom while still allowing each
parent to understand where their child is, and what progress their child has
made?
