A Class in Review
Reflections
My views on technology have changed over the past 8 weeks. I have been exposed to and explored numerous quality tools and apps that I will implement in my life and classroom. One tool that I have continued to use in my personal life is Wakelet. I have been someone to have 100 tabs open on their phone as a way to save recipes, articles, and websites. I have continued to use this to organize my personal online resources.
Stand Out Topic
One stand out topic for me was the Educational Technology Research findings. As a student of the assignment I enjoyed being able to pick the research topics that I explored. As an educator, I was reminded how meaningful it can be to students for them to have autonomy over their learning. This got me thinking about how I can incorporate more student choice into our writing, social studies, and science units. Allowing students to have choices can be even simpler with the use of technology. I can create a one page document that has various links for students to choose to explore. Additionally, I was reminded of how important it is to continue to learn. Being a life long teacher while actively teaching and taking grad school classes can seem exhausting. However, if you involve yourself in quality Professional Learning Communities, learning about new and advanced research practices will occur naturally. Our students deserve the best, researched based teaching practices and those practices will change over the course of my - godwilling - long career. Currently, I am excited to continue researching guided reading tools and practices to keep things fresh and exciting for my students.
One Challenge
One challenge I felt going into this class was how to implement technology in a meaningful way with my first graders. Although I have learned more potential lesson plans and tools to use, I still feel slightly stunted. Since my school has the students use Chromebooks getting out our technology and putting it away can be a long process. I envy the teachers with iPads who can have students quickly grab their devices and take pictures, videos, use apps, and more. The age and size of my students makes the Chromebooks a stationary activity. I would love to be able to use the iPads outside, around the school, and in more frequent times of the day for projects. Although I feel stunted by the exact type of technology we use, I am pleased to have learned more accessibility features that Chromebooks have. When I started teaching, I never took a deep dive into what they can do for my students. In my UDL assignment I explored the following features: Screen reading, changing cursor color or size, dictation, live captions, and word prediction. These accessibility features can help my special education students, English language learners, and everyone in between!
Next up for Ms. Davega: Learning how to use my new Promethean board in meaningful, engaging ways!
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