This
course on 21 things for 21 century teachers has been a refreshing
reminder that what I am doing as an educator in learning new technology
is useful and helpful. I have learned about a couple new tools that I
had not used before taking this course but many of them I had used
before so it has simply been validation that what I have been using is
educational sound and used by others in similar ways to what have used
the tools for. This last summer I had been using twitter to connect
with other educators and decided that I wanted to create blogs for my
classes to better communicate with students, parents, and concerned
others. This face of my classroom has become useful to some of my
students and I hope through this course to make my blogs more useful.
A
new tool that I am consistently using is Diigo as a way to develop my
professional development library and remember all the awesome digital
resources I find. I am currently integrating Diigo into my Careers class
to help students share resources with me and with their classmates
about different areas of careers that they are researching. This ability
to collaborate and communicate with each other is an effective teaching
and learning strategy. Diigo also allows me to reinforce the effort
students are making to learn more beyond the small body of information
that I guide them to. The summarizing and note taking components of Diigo
make it an excellent tool for students to develop their understanding
and make their own connections between content.
My
use of Google Docs has also strengthened my teaching practice by being
able to give real time comments and feedback to the summaries that
students write. Being able to collaborate with students in this way has
been amazing as I see them catch a passion for learning more. I have
also used Google Docs to create quarterly plans with class goals,
assignments and additional resources so if a student misses a class
they know what needs to be done and why to make up what they missed.
Many students have found this helpful in their hectic lives to have a
concrete list of what is happening next.
A
new tool that I would like to use more in my classroom is Skype. My
students often ask me, “Where is the real world application of this math
topic?” I would like to use Skype to communicate with professionals
that actually use the math we are using in our classroom. I would like
students to see that professionals in all areas of careers use math in
different ways - not just engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. I
envision having a Skype chat once a week where a career professional
shares how they are using a particular math topic that we are learning
about in real life. It would be great to connect with former graduates
of Battle Creek Academy so students can begin to envision themselves
doing what these professional alumni are doing.
I
have modeled collaboration and communication by sharing my library of
research with my students and showing them how a professional would use
tools like Diigo and Google Docs. I am planning on presenting a short
faculty inservice on using Diigo to help my coworkers strengthen their
professional practice. I hope to help other less technologically
comfortable students and adults see my excitement for technology and how
it has made my life better as a person and as a professional. Hopefully
my excitement will help another individual take a risk to try something
new with technology in their professional or personal life.
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