Week ten – Classroom technology and collaboration.

In high school History classes, I would like to use social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to consider the future, and what students will be studying in the future. Also using learning management systems such as Google Classroom is a way that I want my future students to collaborate not only with each other but with me as well. I would use Google Apps to give and mark homework, as well as activities for the students to be working on collaboratively during lessons. This could work in a primary setting too.

Web based learning and technology are here to stay. It allows students to access a social and educational community to immerse themselves in content. It allows students to become their own teachers, and learn HOW to learn in the 21st century and beyond.

Week nine – Planning lessons with technology.

Teachers engage in pedagogical reasoning constantly. Through this process, they combine how students learn and creates environments where they are informed of their students needs. As technology advances, it becomes apparent that teachers need technological competency to connect with students in our classrooms.  The TPACK framework can pinpoint where teachers lie on the scale of knowledge and technological relevance. I consider myself to be confident with technology and content, however pedagogy is something I need to work on more prior to my graduation, I understand what I need to teach and have a collection of resources to teach. I understand that pedagogy will be different for different schools or years, and that is something that I personally need to work on, but I am confident that I will be able to do. I would put myself in the “Technological Content Knowledge- TCK” area. The importance of the TPACK framework, to me is to consider that as a teacher I need to know and understand all three elements of it to teach effectively.

 

The thing that scares me most about lesson plans, is catering to all learning styles and all individuals. I want to present engaging and educational lessons for my students, and I understand the elements that can lead to these types of lessons. I also think that once I get to know my students, I won’t find it as scary because I will know how each of my students learns (hopefully!)

In regards to the banning of phones and other digital devices in schools, I feel as though it is the way of the future, but I also understand that it brings up issues of social justice and equality amongst students. Some students simply cannot afford the devices that others can. In my classroom, I would have time allocated for BYOD time factored into the lesson, and once that time is up, devices would have to be put away. This approach aligns with the option of limiting the use of technology in the classroom and the establishment of rules and expectations around technology when it is being used (Johnson, 2012).

Week eight- Classroom technologies and ethical issues.

Roblyer & Doering (2014) has found that issues surrounding classroom technology use are abundant. These issues are around general ethics of technology use that students may or may not be aware of, including piracy, copyright, safety and plagiarism. (Roblyer & Doering, 2014).

Students are not the only ones at fault for copyright and plagiarism, teachers (including myself as a pre-service teacher) often access online learning activities for the classroom. It is important for us to acknowledge the original developers of said activities. Schools are governed by ethical and legal responsibilities and these need to be addressed to ensure that students and staff alike are doing the right thing.

 

  • Roblyer, M., & Doering, A. (2014). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: International Edition, 6th Edition, Pearson.

Week seven- Web based learning.

As studying History helps us to understand change in society, and events that shaped todays world it is an interesting and exciting subject to study. The past causes the present, and so the future. As much as I love history as a teacher, I also am not in denial and understand that students don’t love history. The integration of web-based resources in lessons could make or break the learning experiences of my students. Google cultural institutes purpose is for users to “Learn more about historic moments from the last century with photos, manuscripts, archived letters, and first-hand video testimonials.” (Google, 2015) This platform provides an interactive space for students to explore artworks and elements of history in a visual manner. They can even take a selfie and find which historical artwork their doppelgänger appears in! IMG_5346.PNG.png  < Google arts & culture app featuring me.

I would also the learning management system “Google Classroom”, particularly in upper primary (year 5/6) and high school. There are many justifying reasons for this, but the main points are that it is cheap, easy and inclusive. I have used google classroom on my pracs, and it proved incredibly successful, however the school I was at did not have a BYOD policy so I had to use the schools computer lab for those lessons, which is something to consider about this learning management system.

  • Google (2015)

Week six- The internet and the classroom.

Roblyer & Doering (2014) identifies five controversies around internet use in the classroom. These are

  • accessing sites with inappropriate materials
  • safety and privacy issues for students
  • fraud on the Internet
  • computer viruses and hacking
  • copyright and plagiarism issues

The one I have chosen to discuss is copyright and plagiarism issues. The text states that the growing number of digital texts online means that unintended plagiarism or use of material without referencing the original source is becoming easier (2014, pp.236). As a result of this, teachers need to educate students about plagiarism and attributing original sources. Websites such as turnitin or SmartCopying can be helpful in the teaching of ethics in regards to internet resources.

Any activity that includes web-based resources should have an element of the lesson where teachers remind students of copyright rules and consistently check for plagiarism to stop the behaviours before further education ensues.

  • Roblyer, M., & Doering, A. (2014). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: International Edition, 6th Edition, Pearson.

 

Week four- Teaching and learning with digital technologies.

Developments in education have been largely affected by technology. As education and teacher pedagogy develops, technology grows and changes alongside it. As education and technology change and grow, it is important to use them with each other to cater for a wide range of learners. The point is made earlier in the module that some teachers find that they struggling with the advances in technology, and thus feel like they are lacking in this area of education. This being said however, it is important to remember that students are taking control of their own learning and thinking.

Objectivism, pragmatism and interpretism are three theories which Sieman (2005) touches on. Sieman (2005) discusses the values that society considers important as an important factor to individual learning. Bell (2011) similarly discusses connectivist theory as foundation steps to cognitism, behaviorism and contructivism learning theories.

  • Siemans, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. The International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. 
  • Bell, F. (2010). Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation in technology-enabled learning. The International Review of Research  in Open and Distance learning. 

Week three- What are classroom technologies?

  •  The hardware device I have chosen is the interactive whiteboard. It is very uncommon for a classroom to not have a IWB in it. Benefits of this hardware is it accessibility and usefulness. Limitations are when it does not work- for example when I was on my last placement it was in a K/1 classroom. The IWB did not update with the computer update, and was not aligned for more than half of my placement, making lessons planned on the board (such as handwriting) extremely difficult. When it did work, however it was fantastic! Jolly Phonics was on the board and all the students could interact with the lesson and learning experience.

    My teaching area is anywhere from kindergarten right through to year 12 Modern History, so in regards to relevance to my area of teaching, I will be discussing in terms of high school modern history teacher.

 

High school students should already know word processing skills, but there should be a minimum of 1 introductory lesson to word processing and keyboarding skills, to ensure that all students are all at the same level. This may not be a formal task but a 5-10 minute overview and practice for the students.

Word processing and the impact on handwriting- by the age of high school, students have already had their handwriting basics taught in primary school. So in theory, this should not affect their handwriting.

Week two- Why do we include technology in the classroom?

There are so many reasons why we would or could include technology and the reasons that we may hear will be different because of the nature of different teaching styles or pedagogy.

Alan November discusses the learning opportunities provided by technology in a classroom. He notes that technology mostly is used in schools to get information, but he suggests that it could and should be used as a tool to start a global conversation between students, and teachers alike to globalise the curriculum.

He also discusses the fact that we want students to become lifelong learners. This aligns with my personal beliefs. The internet and technology, when taught correctly provides students with the skills to become those lifelong learners.

 November does however argue that because of the accessibility to technology, a spike in plagiarism has been the result. He also argues that because of this accessibility to technology and the internet, a loss of critical thinking skills has been the result. (November, 2015)

The use of technology in classrooms, in my opinion creates a space for students to learn HOW to learn, and places importance of student based learning rather than teacher based learning. In the coming decades, the students of todays classrooms will be learning and discovering more about the world than any teacher in this day and age could ever teach them. Therefore, teaching about the ethics of technology and its place in society  in the classroom setting sets the students up for a more realistic education than one which they get “Chalk and talk” learning experiences.

I believe that I am a digital immigrant. Although I am nearing 22 years old, I have grown up with skills to learn how to develop my own technological skills. As a new, young teacher going into classrooms, I understand that there will be many attitudes and experiences of technology and to cope with these, I believe that positive exposure is the best way to do so.

Week one- Introduction.

 

Hi, my name is Lucy Cheetham, I am about to start my final year of Bachelor of Education (K-12) with Modern History as my major. I have completed four professional placements, at Eglinton Public School, Mudgee Public School, Dubbo College Delroy Campus and Dunedoo Central school. I feel as though I was thrown a bit in the deep end when I started university, knowing the basics of technology, but with the help of some amazing lecturers and peers, I feel that I am pretty confident with my ability to use technology within the classroom. I even set up a google classroom while on my prac at Delroy and the students thrived in that environment.

I am from Mudgee, NSW- it is wine country and I love to visit the local wineries on a Saturday afternoon and relish in the beauty that surrounds my hometown.

I have done the majority of my degree so far by distance education, I have learnt so much already about designing websites, but have not yet done blogs- so this is my first ever blog post!

After graduating, I want to teach in rural and remote communities. I know that there are so many great ways nowadays to engage with students, and the nature of my classrooms of the future are likely to be ones where students may live hundreds or thousands of kilometres from me. School of the air would be a dream job for me, so learning about Learning Management Systems and using technology to communicate with my students is something that this subject will be great for.

You can find my portfolio of digital resources here;  https://lgcheetham.wixsite.com/esc407digresources