Mrs. Cassidy is doing a great job using technology in the classroom. Her use of wikis, blogs, skype, and a webpage is enhancing the the quality of education for her students. There are a few things I would like to implement in my classroom and they are webpages, blogs, and skype. A webpage can be beneficial because the students can go on the teachers page to look up assignments. This can keep the students up to date on work the teacher has assigned and upcoming assignments. Blogs can be very big especially with me teaching Secondary History. With blogs I can give my students certain time periods or events in history and they can give their own opinions for quiz grades. Also other students will be required to comment on a student's post, voicing their opinion. My students will also be required to create a Timetoast after every time period we have covered in class. A great idea I have is grouping my students and they develop a group blog or webpage over time and at the end of the semester they will present their blog or webpage for a big project grade. They will get an important time in history for example: Colonial, WWI,WWII, or Civil Rights. They will be required to have a video, Timetoast, a report with credited resources, and their own opinion. This can be their own lesson plan for the rest of the class. Skype can be very big because the class can interview an expert on a topic of interest. Using skype will get students excited and they will build interest in history. Most students say history is boring when all they do is listen to a teacher talk for over an hour and do worksheets.
There will be speed bumps on the road to better educating my students using technology. One is many students, especially low-income students, do not have access to computers outside the school environment. This has plagued many teachers from innovating how they completely would want to innovate. If we can get better access to all students no matter what your family income is will change education forever. Another speed bump is teachers have to teach to prepare students for a standardized test. The public school curriculum does not give educators the autonomy to be more creative and they have a certain time period to cover only the topics that will be on test for the school to make AYP. To tackle the first problem it would have to take a shift in making computers easier for parents who are low-income to get computers in the home. But we can at least get more funding for every child to have a computer in the classroom; one computer for 25 students is not going to cut it. To tackle the second hurdle we as educators have to still use the technology to give students the opportunity to research for themselves. My lesson plan will have to revolve around the topics I am required to cover within a semester.
Mrs. Cassidy Skype Interview
Hey Erwin, Using blogs, webpages and skype are all very beneficial to the learning environment in a classroom. I think that using blogs and having students blog about different time periods is history and also having them create Timetoast timelines is a creative way to teach them history. This will also get them using internet resources to research history on their own. The obstacles that you said we have to overcome are very real and when we are able to provide more access to computers for students it will make integration that much easier. I didn't see any obvious mistakes on your blog post it looks great just check to see that your title modifier is working on your picture.
ReplyDeleteHello Erwin,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think you have some great ideas for implementing technology in your future classroom. You've captured the spirit of this class in this post! Keep up the great work!