Recently my co-operating teacher offered me the chance to take part in some teacher personal development she had organized for some of the history teachers at our school.
I took it and was glad I did. One of the things that USD stresses and has high focus on is Digital Literacy and engaging students, who are now extremely tech savvy, with the use of new technologies.
In this case she had asked the promethean board tech guy to come and give us a working demonstration of the use of google earth in the classroom. My coop specifically wanted to find a way to utilize the features of google earth in a way that combined geography, historical content and time together for either a student of teacher presentation. It was really valuable in three ways. First, we began to come up with what looked like some really interesting ways of having the students work with technology, things that would likely increase engagement for the students. Second, I learned A LOT about how effective a flexible promethean board set up can be in teaching a class. Third, it made me go back and start thinking about the question of Digital Literacy in the classroom. The fact is, as new teachers we are constantly told that students are tech experts. This is true, to an extent. What I have seen is that many students are experts in technologies that allow them to find what they are looking for on the internet quickly. However, most of the students seem to have various levels of struggle with technologies that are geared towards education. For example...in a recent project I observed some students doing research by typing a question into the search engine box. This resulted in a 'yahoo answers' response (this is typically a personal opinion response from another student- often these are wrong). As I noticed the student took the answer down into their notes so I began a discussion with the student about looking for reliable sources. I don't mean to say that all students would do this but in some form I have seen students make missteps in the use of technology (another, for example, issue is that of neglecting to use or know about spell check in Word). Fortunately, my coop wrote into the planning a time where we could go over some of these technology issues (a class I, myself was able to teach).
However, my point here is that while students do have a more facile time working with new technologies, we should not take this to mean they always understand how to be use these for education.
I look forward, myself, to becoming more adept at integrating these things as they come along.
I took it and was glad I did. One of the things that USD stresses and has high focus on is Digital Literacy and engaging students, who are now extremely tech savvy, with the use of new technologies.
In this case she had asked the promethean board tech guy to come and give us a working demonstration of the use of google earth in the classroom. My coop specifically wanted to find a way to utilize the features of google earth in a way that combined geography, historical content and time together for either a student of teacher presentation. It was really valuable in three ways. First, we began to come up with what looked like some really interesting ways of having the students work with technology, things that would likely increase engagement for the students. Second, I learned A LOT about how effective a flexible promethean board set up can be in teaching a class. Third, it made me go back and start thinking about the question of Digital Literacy in the classroom. The fact is, as new teachers we are constantly told that students are tech experts. This is true, to an extent. What I have seen is that many students are experts in technologies that allow them to find what they are looking for on the internet quickly. However, most of the students seem to have various levels of struggle with technologies that are geared towards education. For example...in a recent project I observed some students doing research by typing a question into the search engine box. This resulted in a 'yahoo answers' response (this is typically a personal opinion response from another student- often these are wrong). As I noticed the student took the answer down into their notes so I began a discussion with the student about looking for reliable sources. I don't mean to say that all students would do this but in some form I have seen students make missteps in the use of technology (another, for example, issue is that of neglecting to use or know about spell check in Word). Fortunately, my coop wrote into the planning a time where we could go over some of these technology issues (a class I, myself was able to teach).
However, my point here is that while students do have a more facile time working with new technologies, we should not take this to mean they always understand how to be use these for education.
I look forward, myself, to becoming more adept at integrating these things as they come along.