I’m currently an Instructional Technology Specialist, but if I’m being honest, that title still feels a little clunky when I speak it out loud. Why? I've got a raging case of imposter syndrome and while I’ve always sold myself as a “tech-savvy” teacher in interviews and on resumes, I never saw myself as one of those “techie” teachers. I personally don’t care that much about having the latest and greatest gadgets. I rocked a flip-phone until 2012, I didn’t have internet connectivity at my house until 2013, and I have never used iTunes. I am actively cynical about the effectiveness of interactive whiteboards (sorry, not sorry, but I'm looking at you, SmartBoard). So how the fork did I go from being a fresh-faced English teacher who was dedicated to daily handwritten journals in a composition notebook to “instructional technology specialist?” When I catalog the evolution of my classroom practice in my mind’s eye, it’s pretty clear that while I was never (okay, mostly never) distracted by the shiny-object syndrome of ed tech, but I was always very intensely focused on leveraging ways to get the hard job of teaching in a backward-design, student-centered pedagogy done and done well. And tech makes that easier. I’m going to take you through the tech evolution of just one classroom practice to show you why I think tech in the classroom matters. Let’s start with the why: I believe that the fundamental power of learning is that it has the potential to be transformative. But I don’t think classrooms are transformative when the teacher is the only one doing- doing the planning, the creating, the critical thinking...all the classroom heavy lifting. So for me, technology has always been a way to drive cracks into the barriers that sometimes stop the stuff from happening. Case in point: daily journals. In my first two years of teaching high school English, my 150+ students wrote in their journals daily and every Friday, I either camped out in my classroom or loaded boxes of journals home to read and respond to. I’ll give you a moment to either laugh at or cry for past me. Go ahead. As you can imagine, that wasn’t a sustainable practice, although I’ll give credit to past me that it was a noble task to attempt. But given by lofty claims that the teacher shouldn’t be doing all the work, it sure looks like past me was working harder at writing workshop than my students were. And, because I was a human, I eventually couldn’t handle that workload anymore. For a couple of sad years, daily journaling in my class was a bit of a mess. Then, our school adopted a Learning Management System, and since I was fresh off of reading Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them, I started thinking about how I could use my new, online classroom to generate some better journaling practice. I will now use the phrase yada, yada, yada to skip over the planning, tinkering, and trial and error phases and go straight to the iteration of writing workshop practices that became blended into our digital classroom LMS:
The system wasn’t perfect, but it was a much-improved practice. It was a big investment in terms of planning, thinking, and initial organization of the whole setup. But the payoff was huge. I had daily writing happening in a way where students got meaningful feedback again. Thanks, technology. I still believe in composition notebooks and writing by hand, but why should I come up with 180 journal prompts when I could use tricider to have students suggest and vote up topics? Or use my LMS digital course to have students in writing groups? Those handwritten drafts aren’t going anywhere, but if the tech moves me away from the control panels of the classroom, the learning will be more transformative for all. And that, in a slightly long-winded and meandering fashion, is why (and how) I’m an Instructional Technology Specialist. I’m not here for the technology, I’m here for the learning. Thoughts? Ideas? Want to know more? Get at me on Twitter (@teachefy) or drop me a line.
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Take your welcome screen to the next level with “Classroom Screen.” This is a free online tool that lets you project useful widgets such as a timer, text area, drawing tool, name picker, work directions, and more. There are world language options and there is an iPad app available as well. It takes just seconds to set up. The only caveat is that you can't save your screens, but that is nothing a little Snagit or other screenshot magic can't help you with. And it is free, so how much can we really demand?
If you didn’t read that blog, here’s the nutshell: Most students in most schools are being delivered content by the teacher rather than actively engaging with it. What does this mean for us? This means too much time in a seat, too much low-level work spitting back content on worksheets and tests rather than mucking about in the skills and concepts. I realize that it can be very easy to get defensive on this front. Jennifer even points out that many teachers say that they want to do more engaging activities with their classes but feel both pressured to do otherwise and unsupported in exploring new teaching strategies. I get that. I really do. At the end of the day, who runs your classroom? You do. It is necessary to check yourself on the passive vs. active learning front: How much time do you spend talking in class? Students? What would your experience be like as a student in your own class? Just because you said it, does that mean students learned it? So how can we use tech intentionally for active learning as opposed to just using it to replace lecture? Read on for a thoughtful tech tip... Cross-curricular connections are everything. Let me say it again for those of you in the back of the room. Cross-curricular. Connections. Are. Everything. When our middle school students suddenly realized that the claim, evidence, and reasoning stuff in Science was jiving with the answer, cite, explain analytic writing in ELA, it was a Joey from Blossom level "WHOA!" moment for all. Then, our students next-leveled that connection by using a claim, evidence, and reasoning format to list their grievances about school, but you know, still proud of 'em, right? But to the point...cross-curricular connections is that mystifying Twilight-Zone of instruction...we know that it sends learning into another stratosphere, but how do we do it? How can we do it well? How do we make one framework for teaching literacy standards blend into the wiring of Science standards? I know that I've been guilty of thinking about the connections between content area topics and skills much more than I've been able to allow students to discover them. In order to help demystify the process a bit, I'm going to put cross-curricular ideas in the cross-hairs this summer. First up, here's an ELA + Social Studies + Current Events + SEL whopper for you. |
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November 2018
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