What to do with Technology in the Classroom?

[Kristy Templar]

How can I enhance my classroom teaching and learning with Technology?

I would like to incorporate the following Web 2.0 tools but what should I do with them?

VoiceThread:

Flickr/Flickr Tools:

Twitter:

Blogs:

Delicious:

RSS:


I have general ideas on what I would like to do but more ideas would be great!

[David Hayward]

I agree with the general idea of figuring out what goals you and your students are trying to reach then choosing the technology tool that best helps you and your students to reach that goal. Although sometimes that can be a difficult task as technology changes and new tools are continually introduced. Here is a great article from 2008 about Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. It does a wonderful job of explaining the thinking skills using verbs and matching them to new technology terms. The taxonomy map was especially helpful. I have used this with educators leading discussions about what technology tools to use in the classroom. It brings up great discussions about the roles of various technology tools. http://techlearning.com/article/8670

[Diane Munzar]

You have found and used some interesting resources. We are in quite a different set of circumstances in the board I work in . The E.T.S.B. in Quebec has set up a portal for all teachers and students. We are able to create communities, blog, chat and use delicious for creating bookmarks that we want our students to use in many different subject areas. Students in my school board have all been issued their own laptop, allowing for a really wide use of technological exploration. It is interesting to have students creating their own websites on their laptop using NVU and then posting them on our board site. The class I taught last year created their own youtube videos depicting an influential person in history. We have been members of Worldmathday for a couple of year. Great way to review math essentials.
This year my 6's each presented a math lesson on our smartboard and I was able to post them on our website for review or if students were absent.
We would love to team up with another class somewhere to do a technology project- perhaps using teachertube to present videos about ourselves..... We are open to suggestions...!

[Todd Williamson]

Hi Kristy! Thanks for sharing this wonderful question...I'm sure my response here will only touch the surface of things I'm considering for the upcoming school year as well, but here are some of my thoughts. First of all, make sure you are aware of the COPPA laws that restrict collection of information from students under the age of 13. I am a 7th grade teacher so this affects the majority of my students for a large portion of the school year. Many sites have a provision in their Terms of Service that students under the age of 13 are not supposed to sign up for accounts. Be mindful of this in everything you do.

First with Twitter...two thoughts. For actually using Twitter, why not set up a classroom account that students can post to from class? Perhaps a summary of what took place in class today, questions they would like to have answered, etc. That way, you would have control of the account password, but students could begin to see the use of the tool. Second, have you heard of Edmodo? It is a private Twitter-like network designed for classroom use. I am going to be working to employ Edmodo during this school year. You can send assignments, links, images and videos to students and they can communicate with each other via this private network.

With del.icio.us, I have my own personal account, but set up a tag for "students" allowing me to direct my kids to that for links I want them to check out. Another option, with even more possibilities is Diigo Education. Diigo is a very wide-ranging tool that allows social bookmarking, group creation, website highlighting and annotation. It's a SERIOUS tool to learn to use. Depending on your student group you could possibly start off with a class del.icio.us account and then gradually move them into some of the things available through Diigo education accounts.

I am thinking of setting up a Private Flickr Group for my students this year as well. They can sign up for accounts and upload pictures from class/team activities and keep me from having to do all the work there. That way they can work on tagging, adding notes, etc about the activities we participate in during class. This way I can use those images for Animoto videos, slideshows, etc throughout the year and to review at the end.

I am also going to be in conversation with our new language arts teacher about using student blogs as digital portfolios this year. Tagging a post with one of the content area tags will allow us to sort through information about what they are doing in each class. This will be a huge undertaking, but one we're very excited about pursuing.

I'm also looking to create an environment where students have a number of technology "tools" to select from for completing curricular goals. On their blogs they may create a podcast, Animoto Video, link to a VoiceThread, generate an online comic, review a YouTube/TeacherTube/SchoolTube video, create a similar video, etc to show what they are learning related to information in class.

Hope that helps...it probably raises even more questions :) Would love to dialogue more about getting some of these programs off the ground. As Mary said, always keep in mind what the goals of the tech. are, don't just add it for the sake of adding technology. Remember to replace something in order to keep the workload managable for you AND the students!

[Mary Henton]

Thanks, Kristy, for "putting yourself out there" by posing the question and being open to response and feedback. I agree with Kim that the first place to begin is to determine outcomes for your students. I think in terms of, "How do I want these learners to look, act, sound, work differently as a result of this class?" Perhaps looking at district or state standards around 21st Century, metacognitive, or social skills might be a way to get a handle on this.

I've just pulled down the Ohio science standards to try and come up with a concrete example, and I notice that the verbs attached to content expectations include analyze, summarize, explain, investigate, design and build. From the metacognitive and 21st Century skills perspective, then, I think about methods and tools that help students develop any one of these skills. If I want, at some point in my curriculum, to help students develop the ability to analyze and explain, then I might consider using podcasts as a tool through which students demonstrate that skill (while they demonstrate understanding of whatever the content/topic is).

Todd Williamson, one of the Teacher Leaders here on MSP2, talks about how he used podcasts in his science classroom (on Today's Middle Level Educator--NMSA's podcast). He doesn't talk about podcasts as a tool to enable students to demonstrate knowledge so much as podcasts as a tool to enrich curriculum. But I think you'll recognize the opportunities.

If you want to develop collaboration and cooperation skills, then wikis are excellent tools. With a wiki you and the students can see exactly what each student has contributed and each has contributed or participated. Wikis facilitate student interaction with each other and with the content. Karolee Smiley, another MSP2 Teacher Leaders, is going to use wikis this next year with her science classes. I'm sure she has some ideas.

One last thought. I don't know if you looked at the discussion here on MSP2 about blogging with students. But in some of the responses there are references to articles that might be helpful as you figure out the answer to "What are the outcomes? And what tools will assist us in getting to those?"

M

[Kristy Templar]

I can't get my link to work so here is the web address: http://kisd-23things.blogspot.com/2008/07/23-things.html

[Kristy Templar]

There is the link for the 23 Things. There are some great videos and such to learn more information about Web 2.0.
Good questions back at me! I am not sure yet what I will want kids to be able to do. I am teaching with all new materials for both math classes and my science classes next year. Yikes! But life is always full of changes.
Collaboration on information would be great (wiki) I am presuming. I am struggling a little bit right now with them because I am not really sure what to do with it and how to use them exactly. I am reading up on it though.
I am going to create a classroom blog for parents and students with my teaching partner this year and I will be using Wordpress.
I have created my RSS and thought about using that for current events using the Science sites that I chose to have feeds from. I also want to expose kids to many of these tools because I want them to be able to use and choose what they would like to use at times.

[Kim Lightle]

Hi Kristy - Really great questions. I've thought long and hard about the digital tools that I want to use in my projects and classses I teach and realized that it isn't the tool that I really need to worry about - I need to focus on what I want to do and then pick the tool that allows me (and my students) to do it. So -- what do you want your students to be able to do? For instance, do you want them to write and be able to edit/comment on others work - then choose wiki - pbworks is my favorite. Do you want them to be able to have a portfolio of their thoughts/work for an entire year - then choose blog (I like Wordpress a lot). I use RSS to populate my MSP website - if you click on the Science Pathway link you'll see that I RSS three WordPress blogs on the right side of the page. So... what do you want your students to do?

BTW - it would be great if you would share those 23 things!