A reasonable question that emerges from all the Interactivities we have done to date is how do you pick which technology is appropriate to use in your classroom, and more importantly from lesson to lesson? As I have learned, I need to first consider if the technology is supportive of my lesson. From there I would have to use the tool myself and address issues such as it is easy enough for my students to use and will it help my students meet the intended learning targets? After reading a blog post on Edutopia, I found more questions that are important to consider when it comes to technology in the classroom.
I now realize that all students will come from different households (and even personal beliefs) where each parent has a different set of restrictions and concerns. Will all students be able to create (educational) blogs if required to for a lesson? And will their parents allow them to participate in blogging or becoming part of an online community? What information will my students need to give out to create an account? All of these issues are important to address before planning a lesson to ensure participation from all students and to make sure no student is left out or uncomfortable explaining why they can't have a blog. Relating this even more to art, what about the concerns again addressing copy rights and the public stealing students art work. If my class was to create an Art blog, where they post their work and comment on each others, will the public be able to view their works and comments? How can we prevent the stealing of student work and ideas? Will all students be willing to post their works?
The only true method to finding out will be implementing this in a classroom, and even then every class will have different results and responses.
Liana,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this post with us! I think that it is important for all of us to consider each factor you listed before implementing them into the classroom. Additionally, I think that it is important to follow through with technology use in the classroom. What I mean by this is that often in classes I am required to make an account for a website or download applications that we use for about two weeks and never touch again. I feel that this tactic does not really help me because instead taking a full semester, or even the duration of a unit, to use the technology to enhance learning and teach new ways that these technologies can benefit me in the future, we forget about these tools at our disposal. Overall, it has become clear to me from my own experience that when technology is implemented into the classroom consistency is key.
Thanks for posting this helpful blog Liana. You pointed out some good questions that are really important when implementing technology into our classrooms. Having the entire class participate is important so doing research before using a specific technology as part of an assignment is imperative.
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