Technology in the Classroom - The Future of Teaching is Now

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As our course begins to end I find myself beginning to reflect on the course as a whole, and on what I believe that the main takeaways have been. One of the most predominate 21^st century literacy that I believe will really effect my students in the future is technological literacy. Technology is an ever growing phenomenon and it is inevitable that it will play a huge role in my future student’s lives. Therefore I believe that it will be crucial to actively and effectively integrate various technological resources and tools into my classrooms. What I find most interesting about this is notion is how much the concept of utilizing technology in the classroom has changed. I remember that when I was in school “using technology” involved going to the computer lab once a week to play on computer applications such as Kid Pix, which is a similar, less advanced version of MS Paint that is available on most PCs today. While at the time this was a new and exciting form of expressing ideas, it is nothing in comparison to the vast amounts of resource and tools available to students today. In classrooms today, technology cannot only be used for educational games, but also for teacher resources, social media, interactive tools for the classroom, as well as individualized support for the students that need it. It is clear that technology is quickly becoming a skill that teachers in the 21^st century need to be comfortable with in order to be successful in their careers. This blog post will focus on interesting new technologies and tools that I have encountered and discovered that can be used in your future classroom.

Teacher Resources

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One of the great things about the technological advancement of our society is vast amounts of online and digital resources that have become available for educators and future teachers like myself. Going digital in terms of planning and organization gives the opportunity for teachers to have access to more and more information and tools than ever before. Our class was lucky enough to have a guest speaker present on an excellent source for current and future teachers to use to organize all of their links of online resources and ideas in a digital format that can be shared and accessed by educators across the province. The Cube is a great resource for teachers to have because it creates one central location for us to keep these technological tools and ideas. In my four years of university I have been exposed to so many great and educational ideas that I would love to use in my future classroom. However, I will admit that it has been a struggle to keep them all in one place where I know that I can find them later. This tool would eliminate this worry as even students who are a part of a Faculty of Education (like myself) have access to this. With the rise of social media and technology I find that I am constantly coming across information, ideas, activities, and new and interesting ways of teaching students in the 21^st century. Social media websites like facebook, pinterest, and even twitter are constantly spreading concepts that I find interesting and that I would like to save. We have learned throughout this course that creating our digital foot print will ultimately benefit us when we are looking for teaching jobs and for when we get a classroom of our own. Having a central location to save and share ideas (such as the cube) will help teachers like myself stay organized and current with regards to their teaching practices and the content that they teach.

Classroom Technology

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Throughout my experiences volunteering and conducting placements in primary and junior classrooms, I have had the awesome opportunity to see new technology in action. When I was in school smart board technology was only just created, and we had one board for our entire high school of 1000+ students, that would be wheeled around to the classrooms for the teachers that booked it. It would then have to be calibrated and if anyone bumped into it or if it shifted the slightest bit, we would have to stop what we were doing to recalibrate. This was problematic because most of the teachers did not have the training and/or the patience to use it properly. Our first smartboard actually got ruined because I teacher used a permanent marker on it, rather than the specialized pens that it comes with. That all being said, it is clear that steps are being taken to ensure that new technologies are used correctly in classrooms. I know that now there are professional development classes for teachers to take that teach them about tools such as smartboards and Ipads and how they can effectively integrate into their classroom learning. In most of the classrooms that I have been placed in there has been a permanent smart board located in the classroom. As this is a permanent technological tool, much of the troubleshooting issues are not experienced and students’ learning is rarely hindered.

In preparation for my final assignment I have been following an account on twitter that shares resources and information regarding teaching students with special needs and individualized education plans. A common technological tool that is brought up is the iPad. iPads are another tool that I have commonly seen implemented into the classrooms that I have volunteered in, and I believe that they can be a great resource for children who need individualized learning. There is a breadth of educational applications available on this device that teachers can use to ensure that all of their students have equal access to education that is best suited to their individualized needs. As I was exploring for this topic I came across this blog regarding iPads and all of the different ways that they can be used to an educators advantage. Give it a read if you are interested learning more here.

This blog post shared some great educational tools for all future educators out there; however this is just the tip of the iceberg. I encourage all of my colleagues to explore and collaborate technological tools and online resources so that we can help bring our future students into our technological society successfully.  Happy teaching!

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Environmental Literacy - Teaching our Students to go Green

Over the past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to both teach and learn from my peers with regards to the 21^st century literacies that are present in today’s classrooms. The jigsaw method is one of my favourite ways of collaborating with my fellow classmates, as it allows us to practice teaching to one another while learning new concepts. One of the literacies that I found to be most interesting was Environmental Literacy. This concept intrigued me because it was something that was rarely focused on when I attended elementary school. Environmental literacy refers to educating students about the physical world that they live in and how they're actions can affect the Earth positively or negatively. I feel that this is such an important concept to be teaching young minds because they are ultimately the people who will have to live on the planet that we have left for them. Therefore, it is imperative that we teach our students how to properly care for the Earth, especially amid the current crisis of global warming. In addition to topics such as recycling, water consumption, littering, and buying local food, we need to simply teach our students to appreciate and respect the earth.

During our classes we have had the opportunity to explore various programs relating to the literacies. One of the programs regarding environmental literacies incorporated activities in which teachers conducted some lessons and classes outside. They may be teaching students about the alphabet or simple math equations the same as they would inside the classroom, but just outside. I liked this idea because as a young scholar I can’t recall many instances where I was outside during the school day other than at recess. I believe that this would be a good idea to use in my future classes not only for its environmental awareness aspect but also for allowing my students to get some fresh air by being outside. I feel that students would not only be excited to engage in outdoor classrooms but also be able to focus better. This type of instruction would clearly benefit students who cannot focus when they are sitting inside all day.After thinking about this topic I started to think about some ideas that I would try out in my classroom. In terms of teaching young students math I thought that it would be fun to get students to collect natural elements of the outdoor classroom to use as manipulatives rather than the typical blocks or counters typically used in classrooms. They could use rocks, sticks or fallen leaves to practice addition and subtraction. As I previously stated I think that this would hold the student’s attention much better as opposed to practising these skills in the classroom.

An interesting resource that really sparked my interest was the Green Sparks Initiative, which is an American site that provides educators and other individuals with ideas and links for teaching students about how to be environmentally aware. They provide ways in which teachers and other school officials can strive to have a “green” school. This includes some of the topics discussed above, but also about healthy eating and about global environmental issues. This is a great example of how the 21^st century literacies can be integrated together to teach students how to be critical thinkers. This single resource promotes both environmental literacy, global literacy, financial literacy, and healthy living.

As a future educator, I will strive to include topics and concepts mentioned throughout this blog into my classroom. In doing this I can better prepare my students to be active citizens passionate about caring for the planet that they call home.