Blog #5 Research

Educational Technology Research

Flipped Learning

“Technology will never replace great teaching, but technology in the hands of a great teacher, can be transnational.” --George Couros

The article I chose was, “Trends in Digital Learning: How K-12 leaders are empowering personalized learning in America’s schools,” from Project Tomorrow Speak Up. There were two statistics that caught my attention right away, one dealing with principals and the other with a focus on parents.

“Two-thirds of school principals now want new teachers to be proficient in using digital tools such as social media apps for communications with parents and students” (2016). Working in a school with seasoned teachers, I can see how principals would want to hire educators who have 21st century skills. Over the past couple of years, the new teachers that were hired are more proficient with tech skills than the current staff, but not as proficient as I thought they would be. Now this sounds like I am tooting my own horn, but I did work on my tech skills over the years and I am just as proficient and in some cases, more so, than the newer teachers. Seeing the importance of collaboration, blended learning, digital citizenship, and 21st century skills, I dove in head first to learn as much as I could. My thinking is, if teachers expect our students to try and get out of their comfort zone, we need to expect the same from ourselves.

My school acquired iPads and Chromebooks over the past three and half years, but since I have been working in my current school, the teachers always had at least one computer in their classroom and a lab to use. Keeping up with one’s skills can be difficult if the devices and opportunities are not available. A few years back it was difficult to find a staff pd where teachers actually used computers, due to places not having Wi-fi. Teachers would watch a long drawn out Power Point, that was usually read to them. How exciting! Now, Wi-fi is standard in most places where staff pds are held, thus making things much easier for teachers to be involved in hands-on learning.

For myself, my interest in technology motivated me to seek out how to use it with my students, and every time I found something I could use with my students, I did. Since trends in education are promoting active learning and moving away from the ever exciting lecture, educators need to step up.

Blog #4--Active Learning

Quadblogging

When I visualize active learning, I picture a classroom with students engaged with each other, movement, noise, student led, and teacher as moderator.

By Metropolitan School - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, 

Not this!

Lecture time

In an active learning classroom, students not only take ownership of their learning, but they also assess and reflect on that learning. Real connections are made through experiences that help students to see the why a topic or concept is relevant. I want my students to grow up to be life-long learners, meaning helping my students develop a thirst for knowledge. As educators, we need to keep up the our ever changing world and to do so, we need to strengthen our own 21st century skills. I love it when a student asks a question and we take a moment to explore the answer using rich content, visuals, and audio.

Intro to Quadblogging

A wonderful concept, but teacher beware. After investigating what Quadblogging is, I would like to try it, but not from the web site. The idea of connecting with three other classrooms from anywhere in the world, sounds AMAZING! Even though using the website to start such an endeavor is on my--Don't try this at home kids--list, the concept behind blogging is worth looking into. I ended up following Nicole's advice and searching out my own group to connect with for my classroom. It is slow moving, but I think it will be worth the time. I hope to have an update soon. Here is my Padlet about Quadblogging.