I am Vernell Wilks, and it has taken me FOREVER to get this blog started. You see, I am NOT tech savvy just yet, but soon I will be. It is great to be amongst other folks who understand the importance of becoming more tech literate in the classroom.
I currently work for a Group Home where I teach a multitude of subjects. I know all too well, the importance of keeping the students interested and engaged as well as meeting them where they are.
Dr.Thornburg's comments in Technology and Education (The reading for week 1) are absolutely true.
Our grandparents should not be able to sit down in today's classrooms and feel right at home. In fact,
anyone who comes to a 20th century classroom should feel excited, overwhelmed (in a good way), and eager to come back.
I whole-heartedly believe that educators must take charge and start deliberately searching for technology to be used along with current lesson plans wherever possible.
I look forward to learning more about this subject, and actually sharing with other teachers.
Welcome to my blog.
Vernell,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that things in education need to change and I love your comment about grandparents not feeling right at home in today's classrooms. However, I feel a change is needed but education is lagging in this area, to a harmful degree. I am excited that I have finally started my blog, and I know that I too have a long way to go. I look forward to learning from each other on this great adventure!
Nice to meet you!
Kathlyn
ReplyDeleteFinding ways to incorporate technology in the classroom is important. We as educators must discover ways to use it. In your group home, you may choose to start a book club and allow students to respond through the use of blogs. The students could use them like journals. They could site their opinions, concerns, or objections to the book being read. A blog could also be used to display upcoming events, resources on a given subject, or a means to respond to literature. This form of technology is a great way to share things such as homework sheets, how to videos, and math or multiplication facts for memorization. In English, this would be a good way for peers to edit and revise each other’s work, depending on the age of your students at your group home. In social studies, you could post events that needed to be researched, historical points of the week, or a moments in American history monthly facts sheet. In science you could display diagrams of plants and animals, illustrate vocabulary words, or display parts of the water cycle. As educators, there are many ways that we can use blogs in our classroom. A challenge you may face in using a blog could be finding insightful consistent ways to get information posted in a timely manner. Blogging would truly be a new and innovative means of using technology in your class.
Daphne
Those are excellent ideas, Daphne. Thank you.
DeleteI could definitely use your idea for using blogs in English. My students are seniors, and although I am not teaching English this year, I will be in the near future.
I believe the challenge for using blogs at my school would be inefficient technology at the school. We face so many challenges with our computer lab that it makes teaching anything in there very frustrating.