Learning Outcome #13:
Demonstrate sufficient technology skills and the ability to integrate technology into classroom teaching/learning
Incorporating technology in most lessons is an essential step for teachers to take. Now more than ever, students must have technological skills to transfer into their lives outside of school. Students will also need such skills when entering either college or the workforce after high school. Transferable, life-long skills are what students will most benefit from learning and being technologically capable is essential for students.
While student teaching, I did not have many technology resources available to me, but I was still able to incorporate technology in many of my lessons. I frequently used video clips, PowerPoint presentations, and document cameras in my lessons. When possible, students worked in computer labs on technology related assignments. At Nottingham High School, my students used Glogster to create multimedia, interactive posters; students also completed web quests. Even something as basic as a PowerPoint presentation seemed to keep students much more engaged than a sole handout with discussion. In my experience as a teacher, students respond well to using technology and are often more receptive to learning a concept that is foreign to them if the lesson is based in technology.
Technology can offer students and teachers an endless number of opportunities to learn; therefore, I will continue to use technology in my classroom. In the future, I will expand my classroom by utilizing such tools as SmartBoards and Promethian boards, blogs, wikis, and social networking sites such as Ning, SocialGO, and Moodle, as I have been in classes that have used such tools, and my experience has been enriched because of the technology used in the class. As a teacher, using technology can also make collaborating much easier. Creating a classroom with a focus on technology will maximize the classroom experience and prepare students for what comes after high school. The technologies discussed above also extend the classroom walls, meaning that students do not stop learning when they walk out of the classroom.
Proficiencies:
Dynamic and Static Characters PowerPoint Lesson
Glogster Student Sample
Witch Hunt Web Quest
Image from http://langwitches.org/blog/2009/03/29/take-the-technology-out-of-the-equation/