As a technology teacher and technology coordinator, there are many different ways that I evaluate technology applications. There are some applications that I would like to use in class, there are some applications that I know other teachers would like to know about, and there are some applications that I like to use outside of class.
Lately, I have found that some of the most valuable applications that I use are the ones that I use both professionally and personally. Google Docs is a great example. I use Google Docs for its sharing and storage capabilities all the time. I find it invaluable for group projects in school. Delicious is another great site for storing valuable websites; however, recently I have also learned to love Evernote. Evernote is a similar program to Delicious in the respect that it stores data online. However, evernote can store all types of media and I find that it is just as good at tagging and saving websites. I have been using this tool to organize all my sites and important information. I like that it is a fully downloadable program and web-based with the ability to sync.
Overall, whether it is a program for students, myself, or another teacher, I find web-based technology to be a great resource and learning experience for all. Most importantly, this technology allows teachers to teach in new ways that may allow them to better teach their students. Differentiated instruction is a key to many learners.
B. What effective teaching and learning strategy(ies), based on the work by Marzano (http://gets.gc.k12.va.us/VSTE/2008/ ) will these technology applications address, to make a difference in the learning experience for your students?
These teaching and learning strategies will help address the following 9 areas which are crucial to learning:
Identifying Similarities and Differences, Summarizing and Note-taking, Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition, Increasing Value in Homework and Practice, Using Non-Linguistic Representation, Incorporating Cooperative Learning Effectively, Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback, Generating and Testing Hypotheses, and Utilizing Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers.
C. Choose one of the seven things and describe an activity or lesson you could use in your classroom. Include in the description how the lesson meets either a Michigan curriculum standard or another Educational Technology standard.
The lesson that I would like to use is part of Thing #6 ( Digital Citizenship).
For this activity I will try to get at the topic of online safety and predators. I will begin by giving students a quiz about their social networking habits. The number of hours on social networking sites, the number of friends on the site, the types of friends, the criteria for “friending” others, and other similar types of questions will be found on the quiz. After students have filled out the quiz (which will be in a Google form), then we will look at the answers as a class. Next, we will watch some videos about online safety (Dateline, etc.) Finally, we will discuss the risks and the ways to stay safe in online communications.
This lesson would meet a couple different focus areas in the Michigan curriculum. Specifically, this lesson would address standard 9-12.DC.4 (“identify ways that individuals can protect their technology systems from unethical or unscrupulous users”) Additionally, this lesson would address standard 9-12.CC.3 (“collaborate in content-related projects that integrate a variety of media”)
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