A Reflection on the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

As this course, Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society, draws to a close, I have taken some time to reflect on what I have learned in the last seven weeks. I have been considering how this course of study has impacted my growing technological aptitude, my knowledge of how to integrate technology in my classroom, as well as how I plan to become a “teacher leader” in the area of technology integration going forth.

This course has helped me to develop my own technology skills as a professional teacher, and I have deepened my knowledge of a teaching and learning approach that utilizes technology. I have learned how to create a blog, such as this one. I can now incorporate a wiki into collaborative classroom projects. I also learned how to record a podcast and incorporate podcasting into classroom learning activities. These Web 2.0 tools have facilitated powerful changes in my pedagogy and the content that I teach. This course helped me understand the distinction between doing things differently and doing different things with technology, which will dramatically help inform my teaching practice. I am not just using these new forms of technology to teach the same old things that I used to; Instead, as Dr. David Thornburg describes, the power comes when I utilize technology to do different, creative things (Laureate Education, 2010).

The learning resources in this course really emphasized being less teacher-centered and becoming more learner-centered. I have always preferred to use a learner-centered approach in my classroom because I feel that it meets the individual needs of each student, improves a child’s motivation to learn, and is more active, with students constantly engaged in the learning process.  I always try to engage my students in learning through activities like role-playing, discussing, researching, and collaborating on projects with one another and their teacher.  Now, with the knowledge gained through this course, I can also integrate the use of blogs, wikis, and podcasts into my teaching repertoire to create learner-centered activities that integrate technology in meaningful ways. This course opened my eyes to the fact that as technology advances, so must my instructional approaches. I must constantly enhance my teaching repertoire and find new, creative, and inventive ways to use technology to bring information to students in interactive and engaging ways. I have found that using technology has made teaching more interesting and stimulating for me, as the teacher, but also for my students. It is very is gratifying to see the enjoyment and pride that students exhibit when they have learned new things while using technology.

We live in a digitally-driven society. Technology is everywhere, touching almost every part of our lives in this modern day. Yet, I have experienced a profound gap between the knowledge and skills learned in school and the skills required for this 21^st century global society.  I teach in a poverty-stricken urban district where our classrooms are frequently lacking in technology resources for student learning. This challenge of inadequate technology resources for students is what has motivated me to get my Master’s degree in technology integration at Walden University.  I am determined to know the latest, greatest, and ultimately best practices that will help my students acquire the 21^st century skills that they will need to be successful in the future.  This course has helped me understand the importance and necessity of technology usage in the classroom to prepare students for the demands of the 21^st century workplace. After this course, I plan to continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology. I have made it my main objective to design and develop a learning environment that integrates various technology tools and applications to enrich students’ learning experiences. 

Continuing education is the first component of my plan to address the challenges associated with teaching 21st-century skills in today’s schools and in my classroom. In addition to educating myself and completing this Master’s program at Walden University, I have set two additional long-term goals that I feel will help transform my classroom environment. My first goal is to introduce podcasting to my entire elementary school as a means for students to communicate information, enhance their technology skills, and develop their speaking and listening abilities.  According to Tony Vincent (2009), author of Podcasting for Teachers & Students, “Knowing that there is a real-world audience gives students purpose and motivation to create a spectacular product. The process of putting together an audio recording is extremely valuable and is certainly a cross-curricular experience.”  Although we have the capability and components, podcasting is a technology tool that is not being utilized in my school.  Teachers may not be informed of the many uses and benefits that podcasting can bring to our educational setting. As a teacher leader, and our science and technology area-specialist, I plan to accomplish this goal by educating other teachers on ways to implement podcasting in the classroom.  I will encourage teachers in my school to begin using podcasting as a forum for documenting field trips, recording class discussions, sharing book reviews, conducting interviews, or to review curricular content (Vincent, 2009).  Within the next two years, I plan to develop a club that delivers the school news through a weekly podcast.  Instead of a traditional newspaper club, this podcast club will allow students to work collaboratively and with technology to report news stories and current events with their classmates and with a potentially world-wide audience. Podcasts give students a new way to construct learning artifacts, work collaboratively, and can empower them to be creative and innovative. This course has shown me how technology, like podcasting, can further facilitate the construction of knowledge, and I am so excited to introduce my students to this tool to yield rich learning experiences.

As a kindergarten teacher, I have the pleasure and the challenge of exposing my students to technology within their earliest school experiences.  My second goal is to create a Kindergarten Blog for my classroom. My students are new to reading and writing, and at first, this technology could be a little advanced for my five- and six-year old students' capabilities, but I still think that it is very important to expose them to this vital technology at an early age. I hope that with continual exposure throughout the year, my students will become familiar and comfortable with blogging, and by the end of the year, they will be to publish their own writing to the blog. The great thing about blogs is that students can work at their own pace and ability level. Some of my students may be able to write only a sentence, while others can write a short story.  This class blog will be a beneficial resource to introduce my young students to the world of blogging.

My blog will also be a resource to parents and families. I will also use the class blog to post pertinent information like calendars, daily schedules, upcoming events, homework assignments, and various home enrichment activities. It will be a forum for caregivers to check-in for the latest updates, stay informed of current kindergarten events, and ask any questions that they may have. I also plan to use the blog as tool to point parents in the direction of free resources and opportunities while linking them to learning websites that they can use with their children to practice and reinforce language and math skills. I also plan to use the space to share digital photographs of learning experiences and publish examples of exemplary student work to showcase the learning and growth that is occurring throughout the school year. I am excited about the possibilities, and I cannot wait to employ a blog for use in my classroom! It will be so much fun to discover all the new directions this technology can take my instruction and my interactions with families.

In the first week of this course, I was asked to complete a “Self-Assessment Technology Checklist” to assist me in assessing my own skills and practices regarding integrating technology in the classroom. Looking back on this checklist, I have found that my answers have not drastically changed after completing this course.  I entered this course with an open mind and an understanding of the importance of incorporating technology in the classroom. If anything has changed, it would be my proficiency in the usages of various forms of technology and my enthusiasm for integrating technology.  This course has truly reenergized my approaches to instruction.  I am so excited to construct a classroom learning environment that infuses technology like wikis, blogs, and podcasting. I know that these tools will help me foster the foundational 21st-century skills that my students will require for success in the future.  I plan to use the technology-focused knowledge, strategies, and skills that I learned in this course to create the most effective, motivational, and technologically advanced learning environment possible.  “Classrooms in the 21st century need to be collaborative spaces where student-centered knowledge development and risk taking are accepted as the norm and where an ecology of learning develops and thrive” (Nussbaum-Beach, 2008).

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). The emergence of educational technology. Baltimore, MD: David Thornburg, Ed.D.

Nussbaum-Beach, S. (2008). No limits. Technology & Learning, 28(7), 14–18. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com/article/no-limits/44886

Vincent, T. (2009) Podcasting for teachers & students. Retrieved from http://learninginhand.com/storage/podcasting_images/Podcasting_Booklet.pdf

Profiling Today's Students

I have created a podcast that includes interviews from three second grade students, and it reveals how technology is already an important part of their daily home and school experiences.

Please take a listen:

http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/12987/episodes/65697

Then, share your thoughts and comments!

Evaluating 21st-Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st-century skills into education. The organization brings together the business community, education leaders, and policy makers to define a powerful vision for 21st-century education to ensure every child’s success as citizens and workers in the 21st century. The Partnership encourages schools, districts and states to advocate for the infusion of 21st-century skills into education and provides tools and resources to help facilitate and drive change.
—Partnership for 21st Century Skills

There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills learned in school and the skills required in the 21st century workplace. As a concerned educator, I want to learn how to bridge this gap and utilize the best practices that will help my students acquire the 21st century skills that they will need to be successful in the global workforce. Educating myself is the first step to address the challenges associated with teaching 21st-century skills in today’s schools and in my classroom.

I have spent some time exploring the website of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. I have familiarized myself with their mission, the members of the partnership, and the various resources available on their site.  I have found this site to be extremely helpful and full of rich resources for educators.  I also found their blog entitled “P21 Blog” very interesting and informative.  Each month, this blog site invites two prominent educators to respond to a “driving question” about 21^st Century Skills.

The blog can be followed at:  http://www.p21.org/tools-and-resources/p21blog

I appreciate this site’s mission to provide students with the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed in this century.  They call their holistic approach to teaching and learning, the “Framework for 21st Century Learning”.  The framework uses a rainbow to represent the skills, knowledge and expertise that all students should master to succeed in work and life in the 21^st century. This framework supports the foundational skills of critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity, and innovation. Furthermore, what I found most helpful about this site are the free, downloadable resources for educators.  One resource in particular that will be very useful is the “P21 Common Core Toolkit”. My district recently adopted the common core standards, and this toolkit provides a guide to help teachers align the common core state standards with the “Framework for 21st Century Skills”. This document provides lesson examples and assessment ideas and can be accessed at the following link: http://www.p21.org/tools-and-resources/publications/p21-common-core-toolkit. I believe that teaching 21st-century skills is vital, yet many of these skills are not clearly addressed in the common core content standards.  I think that this toolkit will be an excellent way to connect 21^st century skills with the content that we are required to teach in the classroom. I will most definitely share this free resource with my colleagues.

Overall, this site helps educators, policy makers, parents, and community members learn about and develop a new understanding of the issues surrounding 21st-century skills.  I did not find any information or opinions that I disagree with at this time. The topics discussed have great implications for my students and for me, as a contemporary educator.  I plan to utilize the resources and information this site offers to further my knowledge of the most current technology tools to help my students acquire the 21^st century skills they will need for survival in this complex, globally-driven society. I believe that it is possible to prepare our students with the skills that they will need to thrive in this century, and I am committed to learn strategies to bridge the gaps in education, create a 21^st century context for learning in my classroom, and prepare my students with the skills that they will need to compete in the labor market of tomorrow. 

If you would like to learn more about this advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st-century skills into education, visit http://www.p21.org/

Please feel free to share your experiences or challenges associated with teaching 21st-century skills in your classroom.  Can you offer any additional resources or insight to help other educators further their understanding of the ways to teach 21st century readiness skills for their students?

Utilizing Blogs in the Early Childhood Classroom

This week, I have been considering how I will begin to integrate blogs as an instructional tool in my classroom. According to Alan November, author of Web Literacy for Educators, “Blogging represents one of the many tools that pioneering teachers are using to empower students to take more responsibility of managing their own work and adding value to the world” (November, 2008). I am new to blogging, but through my experiences and research thus far, I have discovered their value to enrich the learning experiences of my students. As a kindergarten teacher, my students are new to reading and writing. Unfortunately, I believe this technology could be a little advanced for my five- and six-year old students' capabilities. They will not be able to interact with their classmates through written expression independently, but I still think that it is very important to expose them to this vital technology at an early age. A class blog could be a beneficial resource to involve parents and family members into the realm of kindergarten learning. 

My idea on how I could utilize a blog as a resource in the early grades is to create a “Kindergarten Home – School Connection” weblog.  Parent involvement, especially in the early grades is essential.  Research suggests that parental involvement is a huge indicator of a student's success in school (November, 2008).  I would like to start a kindergarten weblog to post class-related pertinent information like calendars, daily schedules, upcoming events, homework assignments, and various home enrichment activities.  This blog could be a forum for parents and families to check-in for the latest updates, stay informed of current kindergarten events, and ask any questions that they may have.  I already create a monthly newsletter that I send home in a paper version. I could easily upload my newsletter to the blog and use it as another great tool for communication. I always try my best to inform parents of the many ways that they can help their child succeed at school and at home. I could use the blog as another tool to point parents in the direction of free resources and opportunities available in our school and community, such as math and literacy nights, family game nights, free resource fairs, school supply drives, food banks, uniform swap meets, free tutoring services, etc.  Moreover, I could also use the space to share digital photographs of learning experiences and make comments on various class events.  Furthermore, I could publish examples of exemplary student work to showcase the learning and growth that is occurring throughout the school year.  Lastly, I could use the weblog as a resource page to link students and the families to vocabulary practice, grammar games, and helpful learning websites that they can use to practice and reinforce language and math skills. 

It was not until just recently that I was introduced to the world of blogging. I never knew how simple, effective, and powerful a blog could be when utilized as a teaching tool.  I am excited about the possibilities, and I cannot wait to employ a blog for use in my classroom! It will be so much fun to discover all the new directions this technology can take my instruction and my interactions with families.  It is clear that weblogs have the potential to enhance and deepen learning for students in the modern day classroom.  The possibilities for the usage of blogs in an educational setting seem endless. I’d like to know more about how other educators are currently using, or plan to use, blogs to support classroom learning.  What are you doing? What works best for you? What have you tried, but was unsuccessful? What examples of lessons can you provide that incorporate blog work? What suggestions can you provide me as a rookie to the world of blogging? How can I further develop an effective blog site that will enrich the learning experience for my young students and their families?

Your insight and recommendations are always appreciated,

Happy blogging!

-Cristina Stratton



Reference:

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Chapter 6, “Expanding the Boundaries: Blogs, RSS, Podcasts, and Wikis”

The Innovative Educator: 6 Ways to Turn Your 1-Computer Classroom Into a Global Communication Center

The Innovative Educator: 6 Ways to Turn Your 1-Computer Classroom Into a Global Communication Center

Welcome!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my new blog! I am very new to the world of blogging...so bear with me as I tinker and figure this all out!

Technology is everywhere, touching almost every part of our lives in this modern day. I have created this blog to learn more about how my fellow educators are incorporating technology in their classrooms.

Changes in technology in recent decades have greatly influenced the ways in which we work, play, and learn. Today’s students are growing up in a digital age and technology is an essential part of their daily lives. However, schools have been slow to keep up with the fast-paced change of today’s technology.  I teach in a poverty-stricken urban district where our classrooms are frequently lacking in technology resources for student learning. Therefore, I have made it my main objective to design and develop a learning environment that integrates various technology tools and applications to enrich students’ learning experiences. I want to learn as much as possible about the uses of technology in schools to create a more effective, motivational, and technologically advanced learning environment for my students.

Technology is always evolving, advancing and changing, thus, we need to continually keep up to date with the latest and greatest in the field of technology. As new and emerging technologies transform the landscape of education, the possibilities for learning and discovery grow exponentially (Laureate Education, 2008). I invite you to take part in the technological revolution by examining the evolution of technology in society and its impact on education. Integrating technology into our classrooms will help students acquire the 21st century skills they need to survive in this complex, highly technological, knowledge-based society.

Please use this blog space to share your own experiences and ideas about technology incorporation in your classroom. I look forward to collaborating and sharing best practices with other teachers who are passionate about education.

Thanks, Cristina