ICT in the Classroom:
On Wednesday this week, I went to talk to my cooperating teacher, about issues as timeless and mundane as when to show up at the school on a given day, or what he expects from the students and any student teachers in his classroom, but what I also ended up hearing a lot about was technology in the classroom and multimedia, not only as a tool that the teacher used, but one that students used on a regular basis, as an integral part of their education. Their current English project is a whole-class long presentation that must involve technological as well as non-technological methods, and it is regularly expected that they use classroom technology in order to conduct research for projects and do assignments.
I didn't really doubt the value of the class before hearing all this, but if I had, any of those doubts would have been laid to rest. My development as a technology-user has only begun, and it's unlikely to end, at least before we all end up with the technology directly wired into our brains (it's coming, there's already experimental neural interfaces in testing).
Five Best Things I Did/learned in ICT: (Arbitrary List #1)
1.) Horrible Students- the video, the epic
2.) Topical Website- I'll have to edit it a bit for classroom use, but I'm using it.
3.) Google Docs- Holy Moly, I actually know something about ICT!
4.) Animoto
5.) E-Portfolio
Five Most Frustrating Things That I Experienced/Did in ICT: (Arbitrary List #2)
1.) Why The Heck Won't The Darned School Give Us Some Goshdarned Disk Space (The PG version)
2.) Wikis- Surprisingly useless in a collaborative context
3.) Connection Problems with Group Presentation- GRRRR
4.) Why Are There So Many Tools That I Can't Learn Them All
5.) Google Isn't Working In Google Chrome What Is That Even About
Overall, I would say that I have learned a lot and enjoyed a lot in my journey learning about ICT, but perhaps the real benefit is that I'm a little less afraid of just leaping in and trying something new, monkeying around with it until I get something that works. It's that same spirit of bold innovation which spurred explorers to discover and map the New World, one that I need to cultivate in myself before I can cultivate it in my students. I was around to see the transition from the analog world to the digital world, my students will be entirely creatures of the digital age in all of its promise and problematic implications.
As I begin my second placement, I look forward to putting in practice some of the things I have learned in this classroom and perhaps coming up with some new tricks and tools that I can share with students, coworkers and others. It has been a true pleasure to learn with Mike and perhaps I will be able to have another class with him in the future.
Farewell and Goodnight (for now),
Kris Keen
Friday, 8 March 2013
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Week Eight: The Fine Art of Presentation
Week Eight: The Fine Art of Presentation
One of the first things that any aspiring technologist should realize about technology is that sometimes it doesn't work out very well. This is what our enterprising group discovered on Wednesday, as the presentation we had intended to do was somewhat derailed by the lack of cooperation of the components involved. Fortunately, we were able to negotiate that difficulty somewhat and show everyone the wonder and amazement of Remind101 through a more interactive method, but it would have been nice if things had worked out a little better with the smartboard.
How can you prevent such things from happening in the future? The first thing is to make sure that you are familiar with the technology or application that you are using with your classroom, that you've used it a few times, and if at all possible, with all the specific equipment you will be using in the actual classroom demonstration. If you are intending to hook something up to a Smartboard, do it after class sometime, so you know what to expect. Knowledge is your first and last line of defence.
Secondly, it never hurts to have a backup plan in case something doesn't go right. Perhaps you can scale down what you'd intended to do into a form that would be more viable, or perhaps you can simply do what you'd intended to do in a low-tech form if necessary. Perhaps there's another activity that can keep them busy while you figure out what went wrong. While it's always ideal if your Plan A works out perfectly, you should always be ready to employ a Plan B. We thought of one somewhat on the fly, which worked out all right in the end, but a prepared plan would have been better.
Remind101:
Now that I've discussed several of the potential issues with presenting technology, I'd like to spend some time to briefly discuss Remind101 itself. I think this could be an extremely useful app for classroom purposes, neatly solving some of the most intractable problems of having teacher e-mail addresses and texting numbers in the hands of parents, students or others. It's useful for the teacher to have a service which can instantly send reminders and brief notes to people in defined groups and the confidentiality and inability of others to reply to the messages means that it can stay on task, as a professional tool, rather than a socializing one.
I don't think I would use this with actual students in an Early Years context, though it may be useful with their parents and between teachers. With older kids, it may be a different story, though it would require a certain degree of sensitivity about the nature of the school you were in. In a school in a privileged area, virtually everyone might have a phone that can take advantage of this, in a poorer district, it might be a source of undesired conflict between "have" and "have-not" students. This could be especially tense in an area where there is a mixed demographic (I tend to think of Vincent Massey, which contains some of the richest as well as some of the poorest kids in the city) and some caution may be in order before introducing it to students. It might be easier on something like an extracurricular club or sports team than in a general classroom.
Overall, I thought Remind101 was a useful app and I was happy to show it to the classroom. It's crazy to contemplate this, but my next blog entry will be the course wrapup, where I reflect on some of what has happened in the class, what I have learned, and what I would like to learn more about as I start my second placement of student teaching.
One of the first things that any aspiring technologist should realize about technology is that sometimes it doesn't work out very well. This is what our enterprising group discovered on Wednesday, as the presentation we had intended to do was somewhat derailed by the lack of cooperation of the components involved. Fortunately, we were able to negotiate that difficulty somewhat and show everyone the wonder and amazement of Remind101 through a more interactive method, but it would have been nice if things had worked out a little better with the smartboard.
How can you prevent such things from happening in the future? The first thing is to make sure that you are familiar with the technology or application that you are using with your classroom, that you've used it a few times, and if at all possible, with all the specific equipment you will be using in the actual classroom demonstration. If you are intending to hook something up to a Smartboard, do it after class sometime, so you know what to expect. Knowledge is your first and last line of defence.
Secondly, it never hurts to have a backup plan in case something doesn't go right. Perhaps you can scale down what you'd intended to do into a form that would be more viable, or perhaps you can simply do what you'd intended to do in a low-tech form if necessary. Perhaps there's another activity that can keep them busy while you figure out what went wrong. While it's always ideal if your Plan A works out perfectly, you should always be ready to employ a Plan B. We thought of one somewhat on the fly, which worked out all right in the end, but a prepared plan would have been better.
Remind101:
Now that I've discussed several of the potential issues with presenting technology, I'd like to spend some time to briefly discuss Remind101 itself. I think this could be an extremely useful app for classroom purposes, neatly solving some of the most intractable problems of having teacher e-mail addresses and texting numbers in the hands of parents, students or others. It's useful for the teacher to have a service which can instantly send reminders and brief notes to people in defined groups and the confidentiality and inability of others to reply to the messages means that it can stay on task, as a professional tool, rather than a socializing one.
I don't think I would use this with actual students in an Early Years context, though it may be useful with their parents and between teachers. With older kids, it may be a different story, though it would require a certain degree of sensitivity about the nature of the school you were in. In a school in a privileged area, virtually everyone might have a phone that can take advantage of this, in a poorer district, it might be a source of undesired conflict between "have" and "have-not" students. This could be especially tense in an area where there is a mixed demographic (I tend to think of Vincent Massey, which contains some of the richest as well as some of the poorest kids in the city) and some caution may be in order before introducing it to students. It might be easier on something like an extracurricular club or sports team than in a general classroom.
Overall, I thought Remind101 was a useful app and I was happy to show it to the classroom. It's crazy to contemplate this, but my next blog entry will be the course wrapup, where I reflect on some of what has happened in the class, what I have learned, and what I would like to learn more about as I start my second placement of student teaching.
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