[Linenkugel] After reading both articles and colleague responses, it made me start thinking of the timeline of my own experience with technology. Since I have been in the OHLSD district, we have taken several different approaches on technology in our specific building. When I first started 9 years ago, we had a computer lab with 30 Mac Desktops and I was able to have Photoshop Elements on all 30 of them:) I could take my whole class there with an assignment that we could all work on simultaneously....This was AMAZING! Those were the days!;) Unfortunately, we have since gotten rid of the lab, Macs and also ½ of the total of Photoshop Elements and the other ½ (after some begging) were placed on the mini laptops (which for those of you that know what these are like... not even comparable for several reasons - the main one being the size of working space and screen). This is where I struggle to assist all of my students at the same time while having another project going on at the same time because only ½ of the class can work on Photoshop on a rotation.
Once I started using my document camera, I actually felt some of the same feelings that Berger was describing of ‘jumping & shouting for joy’...because no longer did I have to teach a demonstration/process to 4 tables/small groups huddled together at a time, but, my whole class could look up and watch me go through step by step up on my Smartboard (much more efficient). This has also allowed my students to show/present their own work or offer a demo of their own.
For the last several years, I have implemented technology in my classroom and have had some hurdles along the way. Some of the frustrations with adding technology still exist daily, like the getting out and putting away of all of the mini laptops into the cart (which is never easy or quick); logging on process; so that takes several minutes out of instruction...which is where the BYOD can come into play for me for certain things and has/will be much more efficient & more successful for the majority of the students. I have used this for simple tasks like finding an image to use as a reference and/or to fill out a survey/google form for creating groups or deciding on choice for projects. As stated in the article, “According to a 2011 Pew Internet Project teen survey, 77 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds have cell phones, a major jump from 45 percent in 2004.” Edutopia.org and for those that do not have the technology or for whatever reason their parents won’t let them bring it in - we have mini laptops available for them to use. Although if BYOD is going to be used across the whole building on a daily/weekly basis... we will need to have more carts available or have to split them into smaller sets rather than a whole cart; assuming each teacher only needs a few (5-10) to accommodate for those without their own device.
Like with change, there will always be resistance and as long as we as a district are committed to allowing for time & money for professional development & room/time for the learning curve ...we can work through it together. If there is training and available personnel to assist the teachers that need it - it will be much easier to convince them of the many pros that this has to offer to their classroom and enhance the learning of their students.
I am also interested in further developing our districts concept of eKIDS and the idea behind creating and doingTAPS so that in addition to teacher resources we could have these students be ambassadors and be seen as a resource as well. Some students are so interested in learning more about technology and willing to try new things without the fear of failure or it being too hard. Both of these articles were interesting to read and I especially took note of a few of the suggestions for middle school (I already shared the frog dissection with our 8th grade biology teacher). I am interested to try the textplus.com application and compare it to remind101 that I have implemented using this past semester. With all of the trouble that my classes just had with saving their projects, I am thinking that the use of the dropbox (free for up to 2 gigabytes) might offer some resolution to that as well.
I have 2 new 6th grade classes and 2 new 7th grade classes coming to me for the first time tomorrow and have included on my syllabus that I am participating in this elearning/BYOD opportunity through OHLSD/XU and made them aware that I will be using this with their children this semester and that more information will be coming to them soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment