As some of you know I have been fairly reluctant and even resistant to some of the tech tools that have been presented and how useful they would be in a math classroom. But recently I have been coming around! The presentation by Liz Kolb on cell phones in the classroom and the webinar that I watched about twitter got my wheels turning about using technologies and devices in the classroom.
Liz Kolb showed us some very interesting websites to use to get students involved in class through their cell phones. There are a couple of different ways and different apps and websites that Lisa showed us that I would like to try using in my classroom. The first is remind101. I have seen other teachers use this and I think it is a useful tool. My mentor teacher always posts the homework to the class moodle website but I think that some parents and students would find it easier and more useful to receive a text.
Another website tool that Liz suggested was polltgo.com a website that allows you to poll your students instantly. This is something that we have seen our professors and others use or some other type of polling website that allows students or audience members to respond. I really like this idea to get students involved in the class discussion or to share answers that some quieter students may not feel comfortable with but I have some concerns. I like that the tool allows for the students to have anonymity when responding to questions in class which would hopefully help with participation and allow students to guess if they do not know without being embarrassed. But I am afraid with the anonymity comes the ability to goof off and give ridiculous answers. I would like to think that I will have created a classroom where this is would be unacceptable but I have seen adults not take these polls seriously and take advantage of the anonymity. I do like that some of the other sites similar to polltogo.com that Liz showed us can have people sign in so students' name or login name would be attached to their post. I believe that this would eliminate some of the abuse of the poll but I also think that it may take away the advantage of having less confident students involved in the conversation. I do still think that completing a poll on their cell phones may reach a different group of students than a normal class discussion.
Along with polltogo.com I believe that twitter could be an interesting tool to use in the classroom. I am going to have to look into it more to see what trouble students can get into on twitter before encouraging my students to use it in the classroom or for homework but it could be a good tool for homework help or another way to have a class discussion while we are in the classroom. I am also excited for the networking possibilities of twitter. I never knew you could connect with people in such constructive ways through twitter.
I am excited to learn more and try some things out. I think that I would like to do some testing with the polling and see how it goes in the classroom. I foresee using it in a warm up in the future! I will keep you posted on how it goes!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Technology at a Small High School
So far from my experience student teaching at a small high school technology has been an interesting area to explore. By "small" I am talking around 300 students make up the student body. The school is an accredited International Baccalaureate high school, the student body is academically driven and focused. This forward thinking curriculum and academic work ethic I imagined coming with cutting edge technology. That is not the case.
The school has a computer lab and two computer carts and every classroom has a document projector and a smart board, so there is not shortage of technology but the functionality of the technology is more of the issue. There are always at least one or two computers in the computer lab that do not work and the same goes for the laptop carts. In my mentor's teacher's classroom we have only used the laptop cart once but the word in the teacher lounge is that one of the laptop carts is much better than the other and competition is pretty fierce to get the "good" laptop cart. Another issue that my placement school has with technology is that there is not designated "tech" person. There is not a librarian or technology trained person at the school. The lead teacher has been designated this person by default but has no experience or qualifications to be a technology expert. This makes fixing the broken computers in the computer lab and on the laptop carts difficult. The lack of computers has not affected my classroom as much as it has affected other teachers classrooms. But there aren't enough computers for an entire class to do research which some of the other teachers struggle with.
Another aspect of the small school that the tech study help me think about was the school's device policy. There are no phones allowed out in the hallways or used in class for non-educational use. Inside the classrooms it is up to the teachers to decide how they In my mentor teacher's classroom the students are allowed to use their phones as their planners or to take pictures of some of the group work that we do in class. There are also two students who do all of their work on their computers. When working on my tech in my placement survey I discussed with my mentor teacher how he felt about students using technology in his classroom. He said he did not mind as long they were using as a learning tool. This policy seems to be the norm at this school, but in talking with the students there is one teacher who lets them have the phones out and text if they would like. I thought this was interesting. According to the student who I was speaking to the teacher's idea behind his policy is that the students are going to text anyway so he might as well let them text and get back to work then have them spend time hiding the text from the teacher. I thought this was an interesting policy. I would be interested to see how this policy plays out in his classroom.
I have always thought of technology as a distraction but after the cell phone presentation and seeing how limiting a lack of technology can be I wonder if we let student bring their own device if our classrooms may be more productive?
The school has a computer lab and two computer carts and every classroom has a document projector and a smart board, so there is not shortage of technology but the functionality of the technology is more of the issue. There are always at least one or two computers in the computer lab that do not work and the same goes for the laptop carts. In my mentor's teacher's classroom we have only used the laptop cart once but the word in the teacher lounge is that one of the laptop carts is much better than the other and competition is pretty fierce to get the "good" laptop cart. Another issue that my placement school has with technology is that there is not designated "tech" person. There is not a librarian or technology trained person at the school. The lead teacher has been designated this person by default but has no experience or qualifications to be a technology expert. This makes fixing the broken computers in the computer lab and on the laptop carts difficult. The lack of computers has not affected my classroom as much as it has affected other teachers classrooms. But there aren't enough computers for an entire class to do research which some of the other teachers struggle with.
Another aspect of the small school that the tech study help me think about was the school's device policy. There are no phones allowed out in the hallways or used in class for non-educational use. Inside the classrooms it is up to the teachers to decide how they In my mentor teacher's classroom the students are allowed to use their phones as their planners or to take pictures of some of the group work that we do in class. There are also two students who do all of their work on their computers. When working on my tech in my placement survey I discussed with my mentor teacher how he felt about students using technology in his classroom. He said he did not mind as long they were using as a learning tool. This policy seems to be the norm at this school, but in talking with the students there is one teacher who lets them have the phones out and text if they would like. I thought this was interesting. According to the student who I was speaking to the teacher's idea behind his policy is that the students are going to text anyway so he might as well let them text and get back to work then have them spend time hiding the text from the teacher. I thought this was an interesting policy. I would be interested to see how this policy plays out in his classroom.
I have always thought of technology as a distraction but after the cell phone presentation and seeing how limiting a lack of technology can be I wonder if we let student bring their own device if our classrooms may be more productive?
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