Job Switching Pt 3/3

Job Switching Pt 2/3

I Love Lucy - Job Switching Part 1/3

PBL Article

Eckstein, M. (2009). Enrichment 2.0 fifted and talented education for the 21st century. Gifted Child Today, 32(1), 59-63. Retrieved from ERIC database.
In her article for Gifted Child Today, Eckstein () discusses the use of enrichment clusters. Such clusters are “organized around major disciplines, interdisciplinary themes, or cross-disciplinary topics.” They arrange students according to interests, and they are focused on the production of real-world products or services. Because Web 2.0 has changed the internet from a read-only medium to a medium in which anyone can publish and share information, education must work with this new technology to more effectively reach students. Out of this came Enrichment 2.0 which is based on the cluster model. Enrichment 2.0 “is an inquiry-based learning model where students select a topic, and prepare an authentic product or service.” Tools of Enrichment 2.0 include wikis, social bookmarking, RSS feeds, blogs, and podcasts.

PBL Relfections

It was amazing to see the learning that was taking place in my classroom. Students were able to make the connection between the concept and the real world. They were able to answer the infamous question, "When will I ever use this?" If only Home Depot can build something on our campus every year to help the students see the importance of the concept. Although my school is located in East Cobb County and the majority, if not all, students will go to college, we have some choice kids from West Cobb County who will not go to college. The discussions that went on between the students and the men who were building the structure reinforced that you do not have to go to college in order to use math; math is all around us. Students enjoyed taking the knowledge gained and creating their own model. I am looking forward to implementing this project based lesson plan each year; of course, modifying it based on the needs of my students.
The project based learning (PBL) activity was a real eye opener. The development through online collaboration made me feel like this was way too much work to put into any activity, but in reality though face to face collaboration would be most likely way to create a plan for a PBL activity. In the end though I found that the budget project we created would go a long way to show practical uses of basic math to our students. Most of the time when we as math teachers are asked “When am I ever going to use this?” we find an answer with a career orientation. That answer is usually countered with “Well I am never going to be that.” The budgeting project answers that question in a way that no student can counter. All of them are going to be on their own and spending their own money. Even though the project started with students choosing a career path and looking for the amount of continued education needed for that career, one of our drawbacks was that not all students want to go to college. We discussed that these students can complete extra research into their chosen career and creating a budget on a high school dropout’s or high school graduate’s expected income. The project will help students see the reality and consequences of their choices. My group worked well together to help each other understand each step of the project in order for the group plan to come together as one complete project.
The project I developed was similar to one that had been brewing in my mind for some time now, so this was good to have a chance to think through some of the details. However, the project I am planning to implement in my class is somewhat different. Since I teach 5th grade instead of middle school, I would like to connect my class with another class near a historical landmark in the United States such as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My plan would be to have my class and the other class conduct book discussions online about a book related to the Civil War. An additional change would be in the technology used for the project. Rather than using a blog as the communication portal, I would set up a Moodle for the groups to use. One of the elements in developing this project that I found most interesting was reading articles about public library systems that are holding book discussions on Moodle for their student readers. It was useful to read about their successes and failures to better understand how I can make this work in my classroom.
One of the biggest discoveries that I made in planning this unit was the incredible amount of time I would need to allot to planning and preparation before the unit was to actually begin. Since this project involves another classroom with another teacher in another location, a lot would have to be set up in advance to make the project a success. Since time is such a limited resource these days, it would be very difficult to get teachers involved in a project like this unless they saw real value in it. For this reason, I think it might be necessary to try it on my own or with just one other teacher from my school for the first time. This would give me an opportunity to work out the kinks and demonstrate student success and engagement so that other teachers will be more likely to get involved in the future.

Project-Based Learning

My group's project-based learning examples focus on vocabulary acquisition across the curriculum at the middle school level. My project focuses on 8th grade language arts and learning vocabulary while reading a short story. The short story of focus is "The Most Dangerous Game." Before reading the story, the vocabulary words from the story are divided up amongst the students, and they complete a Comic Life project based on their vocabulary word. They are required to provide the definition of the word, other forms, synonyms, antonyms, a sentence from the text, their own sentence, and a mnemonic device to help the class remember. When completed, each student's comic life will be projected on the Smart Board, and each student will present on his/her words. Below are links to each part of the project:
http://stu.westga.edu/~rrogers1/7464_PBL_rrl.pptx
This PowerPoint explains to the students how to completed the project

http://stu.westga.edu/~rrogers1/7464_Oral%20Presentation%20Rubric_rrl.docx
This rubric is used to grade the student's oral presentation

http://stu.westga.edu/~rrogers1/7464_vocabcomiclife_rrl.bmp
This is an image file of a comic life vocabulary example

Emerging Technology that Supports eLearning

One of the disadvantages of elearning, in my opinion, is student organization. I see firsthand that my students are very unorganized, for the most part, and they have a hard time keeping up with dates and assignments. With an online class, this is solely the responsibility of the student, and while the teacher can use online tools like calendars and reminders, it is still the responsibility of the student to check those things. I worry about my high school students now, and whether they will be able to function in an online classroom environment. Much of the success in an online class stems from the students' motivation; how badly do they want to succeed? For many of my students, motivation for school is nonexistent. Do I like online learning? Absolutely. I believe benefits like the way online learning builds responsibility and engages students, saves money, and exemplifies convenience far outweigh the negative aspects.

Blog Entry 9

Part of the new teacher evaluation system in Georgia, CLASS Keys, involves professionalism. One of the professionalism standards states, "P 2.1 The teacher strives to establish respectful and productive relationships
and cooperative partnerships with families and the community in order to
support student learning and well-being." Since my school system is small (one high school, one middle school, and three elementary schools), one of our goals to meet this professionalism standard is to meet with other grade-level teachers to align what is being taught from K-12 in our subject area. Since we are all at different schools with different planning times and all professional development days have been cut, we are trying to come up with creative ways to "meet." My current project involves creating a blog for ELA teachers in Heard County. This blog will serve as a place for the teachers to get together at the most convenient time for each individual teacher to share ideas and strategies for teaching ELA. This technology will provide a much better alternative than trying to get all of those teachers physically together while still giving us an opportunity to collaborate and share our thoughts.

Movie Maker Project Links

Our Movie Maker project documents are available on our Wiki via the following links:
Article - http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/alignment.html
Article - http://moviemaker7464.wikispaces.com/file/view/Article.pdf
Flyer - http://moviemaker7464.wikispaces.com/file/view/Flyer.doc
How To Guide - http://moviemaker7464.wikispaces.com/file/view/Movie_Maker_How_to_Guide.doc
Power Point - http://moviemaker7464.wikispaces.com/file/view/Movie_Maker_Presentation_Show.ppsx
Work Shop Plan - http://moviemaker7464.wikispaces.com/file/view/Movie_Maker_Workshop_Plan.doc

MovieMaker Article

Langran, E., Langran, R., & Bull, G. (2005). Copyright Law and Technology. Learning and Leading with Technology, 32(7), 24-26. http://search.ebscohost.com.ts.isil.westga.edu

This article discusses the now wide-spread access of authoring programs like iMovie and Movie Maker which allow for student to move from the role “of passive observer to active creator of digital media” (Langran, E., Langran, R., & Bull, G., 2005, p.24). Students can use Google, or any other search engine, to find images, songs, and video clips, and in a few minutes, they can create their own digital story. This presents a whole new set of problems for schools because much of that material is copyrighted (even if it does not include a copyright symbol), but copyright legislation is constantly evolving and subject to interpretation. Teachers and students need to be aware of the Fair Use Act which says, “the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching…, scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” Then, to qualify for fair use, four factors must be weighed: purpose of use; nature of work, amount used, and effect on the market. Some sites like Creative Commons charges consumers for downloaded music, but encourages educators to use their music free of charge. One should also consider works that are in the public domain and are available for use. In 1998, the Digital Millennium Act extended the copyright term for these items to the life of the author plus 70 years. While we live in an age where it is easy to access any information you desire on the internet, teachers must be aware and must make their students aware of copyright laws.

Digital Storytelling Article

Joseph, L. (2006). Digital Storytelling. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 13(4), 13-16. http://search.ebscohost.com.ts.isil.westga.edu

This article discusses using digital storytelling in the classroom, and it provides very helpful information for teachers who are just getting started with using this technology. The article is basically a list of resources to help teachers. It begins with the American Folklife Center and The Center for Digital Storytelling, both valuable resources. Digitales, another resource presented, offers seven steps to creating digital movies. The article also provides links to sites that discuss ways to use digital stories in the classroom as well as sites with example lesson plans and digital stories. Since making digital stories often involves using other programs like Audacity, this article also involves a link to using that program. There are several programs available for moving making including Microsoft’s Movie Maker and Apple’s iMovie. This article provides links to information about both of those programs. At the end of the article, national standards from ISTE are provided that relate to digital storytelling in the classroom. While this is not a traditional article, it is probably one of the most helpful lists of links I have ever found about one topic. I will definitely use this list in the future to improve my use of digital storytelling in the classroom.

Movie Maker

My movie is located at
http://stu.westga.edu/~rrogers1/7464_movie_rrl.wmv
My movie maker file is designed to use at the beginning of my American literature unit on the Puritans. It serves as both an introduction to the Salem Witch Trials and as an example for my students. As a part of the unit, I require my students to create a video in Movie Maker about one of the people involved in the trials. We watch my video first, so they can get general information. They use some of the techniques that I used in my video to get started with their project.
I have used Movie Maker several times before, and as with most programs, it gets easier over time. I do still find some things about it quite tricky. It is difficult for me to get the timing right when I add in transitions between my images. When sound clips, song clips, and narration are also included, it almost confuses me beyond belief. I am getting better with it, and this project was must easier to complete than the last video I tried to make. I'm sure with time that I will get better and faster at creating videos to use in my classroom.

Blog Entry 8--Production

When thinking about production, I automatically think about the commercial project I assign my world literature students. As defined by Egbert (2009), "Production is a form of learning whereby students create a product, or a concrete artifact that is the focus of learning" (p. 182). The first unit in my world literature class focuses on persuasion both in their own writing and the writing/multimedia presentations of others including commercials on television. As the culminating project, the students write, direct, act in, film, and edit their own commercial which must contain the types of persuasion. Then, we watch the commercials in class, and the other students decide how persuasive they think each commercial is. By completing this project, the students have a much better grasp of how to write an effectively persuasive essay, and since the graduation test essay is persuasive, that is a skill that they all need in order to graduate from high school.

Blog Entry 7--Smart Boards

This year I am very lucky to be in a brand new school building with all new "stuff." Everyone finally has a Smart Board, and there is more than one computer lab (a huge upgrade from our old school). I was so excited to learn that I would be going to a Smart Board training during preplanning, but when I got there, I learned that it would only be a little over an hour long. I had used a Smart Board years ago, but I had never used one in a classroom setting; I certainly didn't know how to best utilize it and benefit my students. I went to the meeting, and as I suspected, I left feeling overwhelmed and a little lost. Since I am the English department head and I'm working on an instructional technology degree, my colleagues always come to me for technology help. Unfortunately, this time I was not able to be very helpful. I was able to muddle through what I understood from the meeting, but basically, we all had to take time to play with the Smart Board. That is time we really didn't have during preplanning. Fortunately, I found out that our RESA is having a Smart Board training at the end of October, so I guess it's better late than never. I have already been told that when I get back I will rely what I learned to the rest of the faculty which is fine with me, but I probably won't do as good a job as the person who teaches me. This situation stems from the fact none of our technology staff was hired to be an instructional technology specialist. They all perform installation and maintenance duties. In the past, I might could have persuaded our administration that we needed an instructional technology specialist, but now with budget cuts, I don't think that will happen. In the current economy, we all need to be prepared to teach others what we know about utilizing technology in the classroom whether we are technically getting paid for it or not.

Blog Entry 6

Since I teach high school English (10th and 11th grades), the Georgia High School Writing Graduation Test, is one of the most important days of the year for me and my students. Beginning in the 9th grade, we spend a lot of time preparing students for this test, and the 11th graders, spend several weeks prior to the test, making sure they can write persuasively. When I saw the section in chapter 4 about The Argument Clinic at the University of Northern Colorado, I almost fell out of my chair. I couldn't believe this resource was out there, and I didn't know anything about it. If I had know this information just a month ago, I could have used it with my 11th graders. They just took the writing test last week, and we could have really utilized that resource. I know what a great persuasive paper looks like, but it is always nice to have a second opinion. My student might also appreciate a fresh pair of eyes looking at their paper. This is going to be an invaluable resource for me in the future.

Technology Integration Article #2

Harvey-Woodall, A. (2009, July 16). Integrating Technology into the Classroom: How Does It Impact Student Achievement?. Online Submission, (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED505984) Retrieved September 27, 2009, from ERIC database.

This article discusses the fact that technology is increasingly more important, and students are more technologically-savvy than ever. As a result, schools are using technology to make learning more interesting and meaningful, and as a result, they may become more successful. Because of No Child Left Behind, schools are constantly looking for ways to increase students’ achievement, especially on test scores, and it is the job of the educator to learn how to use technology that can benefit the students and increase achievement. While some teachers know how to use and are comfortable with using/learning about new technologies, many are apprehensive. Lowell Monke states, “There is a hug qualitative difference between learning about something, which requires only information, and learning from something, which requires that the learner enter into a rich and complex relationship with the subject at hand” (2009, p. 8). This is the biggest challenge with integrating technology into the classroom; teachers must know enough about it to be completely comfortable teaching others about it. Teachers must get out of their comfort zone (where they have been teaching for the past 10, 20, or 30 years) and learn how to incorporate technology to increase their students’ performance.

Comic Life Reflection

I really enjoyed getting to use Comic Life, and I look forward to using it in the classroom setting. When I was thinking about creating a comic, I really didn't know what to do (especially since our workshop was geared toward an interdisciplinary science unit), but I soon realized that persuasive writing would fit into that nicely. I think in the future I may have my students turn one of their persuasive papers into a comic; that idea just struck me today. I though the program was easy to use which is a must for the classroom since we don't have a lot of time to spend teaching the students a complicated program, and when I showed my students what I had produced, they were really excited about it (especially the two students whose pictures made it into the comic).

Comic Life Group Project

Initial Posting
Our group chose to focus on the idea that "Comic Life is Out of this World" for our workshop. Our presentation and examples revolve around the theme of outer space. This workshop will show teachers how to use the different elements of Comic Life and how this program can enhance their instruction and assessment. The presentation includes sample comics that teach persuasive writing techniques, metric and customary conversions, and scientific notation. The workshop also allows teachers to consider other ways they can use Comic Life in their classrooms.

Workshop Plan
This workshop is designed for middle and secondary teachers who are interested in learning about new technology-based programs that can enhance their instruction and assessment. Teachers will learn how to use the features Comic Life offers and will discover the possibilities it offers for education. The workshop will include step-by-step instruction in how to create a comic, ideas for using the program in a classroom, and suggestions for assessment of student products. Following the workshop, teachers will complete an online survey to help the presenters improve the workshop. Additionally, teachers will add ideas for using Comic Life to a Google document page that participants can continue to check after the workshop.

Workshop PowerPoint Presentation

Workshop Handouts

Quick-Use Guide to Comic Life

Rubric

Articles
Article- How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom
Article- Using Student-Generated Comic Books in the Classroom

Comic Life Examples:

Barbara Snidow's Comic Life on Scientific Notation
This Comic Life example will introduce students to the idea that scientific notation helps people to write big numbers in a simpler form. The use of personal family photographs in this comic will help to engage students in the topic.
Rebekah Lowery's Comic Life on Persuasive Writing
Students will see the connection between a study of outer space in Science class and the study of persuasive writing in Language Arts with this Comic Life example. The teacher can use this comic as a class warm-up to have students start thinking about the writing topic for the day. Student photographs are used in this comic to increase interest.
Michael Lofton's Comic Life on Measurement Conversions
This Comic Life project is in the form of a multi-page comic book. Students can use this comic book to learn how to convert measurements between metric and customary units. This comic makes use of many different features available in Comic Life.

Flyer

Online Survey

Article about Using Comic Life

Summary and Commentary on Article

Project Reflection

Blog Entry 4

I read this chapter about supporting student communication, and my mind kept going back to my department. While not students communication, most of what we discuss during our planning time goes back to supporting student communication. Since we teach English, a lot of our time is spent planning and teaching writing, and the score they get on the graduation test in writing is all about how well they communicate. We also have English standards under the category Listening, Speaking and Viewing (LSV). These are in every high school English class, and they deal with how well the students listen to discussions, respond during discussions and view video/multimedia presentation. Since I am the most "technologically savvy" teacher in the English department, the job of creating ways to incorporate technology to increase students communication usually falls on me. It was great to read about the benefits of technology-supported communication.

Comic LIfe in the Classroom

Comic Life has so many applications to English class! I hope that I can get it on all of the computer lab computers, so I can take my students in there. They are going to love it. I would like for my students to use Comic Life to...
* retell works of literature--there is no better way to make sure students understand what happened than to make them retell the story in their own words
* create a story that takes place after one of the stories we read finishes to show what they think happens to the characters next--this involves higher order thinking skills since the students have to create their own story
* create a children's version of a text--by creating a children's story, the students have to ponder the material and decide how to make it "kid friendly"
* explain their essay through pictures and small amounts of text (this would be especially great for practicing for the writing graduation test)--this forces the students to break down their paragraphs and find the main idea of each paragraph.
* write a biography--document some part of their life in pictures and short captions
* document an interview--instead of the traditional interview, students will take pictures of the person and write short quotes from him/her

My Comic Life Example

My comic life project is part of group 6's interdisciplinary unit on space exploration. I am an English teacher, so my part of the unit deals with persuasive writing. When practicing for the Georgia High School Graduation Test in Writing, Georgia students must learn how to write persuasively. In my classroom, we write on a wide variety of persuasive topics, and doing so is a great way to participate in interdisciplinary study. My comic life project deals with students coming from science class to English class who are talking about how they wish they could study space in English. When they learn that they will, they are surprised and confused, but I explain that we will be discussing the space program in our persuasive writing for the day.

Voice Thread in the Classroom

I am now really excited about using Voice Thread in the classroom in the near future. Here are some ideas that I had on how I could use Voice Thread in my 10th/11th grade English classes
 Make a voicethread that contains paragraphs from persuasive essays. Include comments about the writing. The students will then comment about the pros and cons of the writing.
 Have the students create Voice Threads at the end of a novel unit to discuss themes that were presented in the novel. Other students will have to access the Voice Thread to post comments on how that same theme can be seen in other novels.
 Make voicethreads as a unit review. Post them at the beginning of the unit, so anytime students want, they can go online to review material that has already been covered, preview material that is coming up, or ask questions/make comments about the information.

Reflecting on Voice Thread

I had never even heard of Voice Thread before looking at this assignment. I was concerned about using it to appeal to elementary students since my knowledge of them is limited, and I was also a little worried about using a new program. Fortunately, Voice Thread is incredibly easy to use. I can't wait to get my students involved in making their own Voice Thread's and commenting on some that I will make very soon. Voice Thread seems like such a great way to get students involved because, not only can they hear me explain something, they can leave their own questions and comments about the material. I really enjoyed learning how to use Voice Thread, and I know my students will too.

Brainstorming for Persuasive Writing

Voice Thread Article

Bomar, S. (2009). A Pre-Reading VoiceThread: Death Comes for the Archbishop. Knowledge Quest, 37(4), 26-27. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts database.

This article is a wonderful example of Voice Thread being used in a high school English classroom. Since our workshop had to focus on elementary uses of Voice Thread, I wanted to find an article that gave me a look at Voice Thread from a high school perspective. In the article, high school honors English teacher Shannon Bomar writes about using Voice Thread to introduce the novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. The novel, a long-standing component of her department’s junior level English curriculum, was dreaded by the students. She wanted to develop a pre-reading activity to get the students involved with the novel and cut down on the negativity toward it. She worked with the school’s media specialist to create a Voice Thread assignment that allowed the students to make their own Voice Threads concerning various topics that would come up while reading the novel. Since I teach AP Literature, I am always looking for ways to introduce novels and themes, and I hope to utilize a project similar to Bomar’s during the upcoming semester.

Rebekah's Voice Thread project

When I first saw that our Voice Thread workshop had to be for elementary students, I groaned because I don't' know a lot about teaching elementary kids. I have always taught high school, and other than having one child who has survived elementary school, I am pretty clueless. I quickly realized that I could translate my knowledge of persuasive writing to an elementary level. In high school English, we are always preparing our students for the graduation test in writing, but there is also a 5th grade writing test in Georgia. My Voice Thread focuses on brainstorming for a persuasive prompt from the 5th grade writing test which would be applicable for 4th and 5th grade students. Brainstorming results in a much better paper, but students don't always want to brainstorm because they think it is a waste of time. Getting the students interested in brainstorming and convinced that it will help goes a long way to helping them write a better essay. I think that Voice Thread is an engaging way to introduce brainstorming to elementary, as well as high school, students.

VoiceThread Project

The focus of this workshop is to demonstrate how VoiceThread can be used in the classroom to enhance learning. Examples from science, math, and language arts will be provided. VoiceThread is an engaging technological tool that promotes discussion and interaction between teachers and students. The group has collaborated and created this workshop in the hopes that you will walk away feeling confident about incorporating the strategy in your curriculum.


Workshop


Examples

• Rebekah's Persuasive writing--check out this blog for more information This Voice Thread focuses on brainstorming for a persuasive prompt from the 5th grade writing test which would be applicable for 4th and 5th grade students. Brainstorming results in a much better paper, but students don't always want to brainstorm because they think it is a waste of time. Getting the students interested in brainstorming and convinced that it will help goes a long way to helping them write a better essay.
• Betsey's Changes in Matter VoiceThread--check out her blog for more information This project was designed to present information on changes in the states of matter in a way that would be both informative and entertaining to a 5th grade audience. Throughout the VoiceThread students are introduced to the changes in states of matter through a set of characters known as the Water Molecule Family.
• Michael's Problem SolvingVoiceThread --check out his blog for more information This Voice Thread shows how problems can be posted for students to discuss and solve. The discussion will help those who understand the problems teach others as well as for those who don't understand as much to learn form their peers. The discussion also has students revisit skills practiced during the day and allows our students an avenue to talk in the language of the standards.

Flyer

Related Link

• Summary and Commentary
  

• Article

Online Survey

Reflection

Emerging Technology that Supports Content Learning

Egbert discusses declarative, structural and procedural knowledge. I was thinking about how I use technology in the classroom to support the students' learning of these three types of knowledge, and the first thing that comes to mind is persuasion. There is a huge emphasis on persuasion and persuasive writing in high school English across Georgia because the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT) in Writing is always a persuasive topic. I spend a lot of time teacher persuasive writing, and this year, I have been able to utilize the Smart Board to assist with persuasion. The students' declarative knowledge concerning persuasion was dealt with through some definitions (not the most technologically savvy part of my lesson, but alas, they still have to write the occasional note no matter how much technology is available). To understand how those terms fit together, the students watched commercials on the Smart Board. We discussed how those commercials attempted to persuade the viewer, and we located the terms they had just learned to the commercials. Then, to exhibit their procedural knowledge, the students wrote, filmed (with the help of our co-teacher) and edited (using Movie Maker) their own commercial.

Technology Integration Article

Borsheim, C., Merritt, K., & Reed, D. (2008). Beyond technology for technology’s sake: Advancing multiliteracies in the twenty-first century. The Clearing House, 82(1), 87-90.

This article focuses on more than simply implementing technology in the classroom just for “technology’s sake” by discussing the benefits of teaching with a commitment to a multiliteracies pedagogy in order to help students “understand how to move between and across various modes and media as well as when and why they might draw on specific technologies to achieve specific purposes” (p. 88). The examples in the article relate to the English classroom, but the authors state a desire to reach audiences from all disciplines through their suggestions that reach across curricular boundaries. The article is divided into three categories concerning multiliteracies: multiliteracies in the traditional curriculum, multiliteracies beyond classroom walls, and multiliteracies for preservice teachers. In the traditional curriculum section, Borsheim discusses the importance of integrating technology even in the age of high stakes testing and mandated curricula. Merrit, in beyond classroom walls, discusses incorporating the technologies that students now use to communicate (text messaging, social networking sites, etc.) into the classroom as a way to engage students in reading and writing. When teaching preservice teachers, Reed encourages the use of wikis and blogs to help her students see how the kinds of technology they use in the classroom matter. The key to all of this technology use in the classroom is providing students with meaningful information about using new technologies in order to “enhance students’ abilities to use them as well as understand the complex ways they challenge us to participate in the world” (p. 90).

Working Definition of Technology Integration

Before discussing exactly what I believe technology integration is, I will first mention what it is not. Technology integration is not using any and all available technology just for technology’s sake; there must be a purpose or reason behind the use of the technology in the classroom. Students don’t need to come to my English class to learn how to use a new piece of technology, but they need to learn how that technology can better help them in English class. Many teachers at my school are afraid to use a program or website the students have never used before because they think it will take too much time away from their curriculum to teach the students how to use the program. Sure, my class is English, not computer class, but if I teach them how to use say Movie Maker at the beginning of the semester, then we can use it several times over the course of the semester. Only the first time will require extra instruction. But, I'm not using Movie Maker just so my students will know how to use that program. I am using it because I think it enhances the standards that I am trying to teach. That program, and the movies they can produce using it, serves to get the students more interested in world literature, and that is a good thing.
Based on this, I believe that technology integration is utilizing available technologies to better teach the required material and make a connection to the “real world.” Available technologies can be many things from the traditional paper and pencil technology of the past to the newest, latest invention, and in my case, the required material is found in the Georgia Performance Standards for high school English. Technology integration for my classroom involves using the technology that I have available to better teach those English standards and prepare my students for the Georgia High School Graduation Test and End-of-Course Tests and eventually, life after high school. It is unfortunate that everything I teach must be looked at through the lens of "Do my students need this for _____ test?" but that is the reality of today's educational system. Why not utilize technology to help the students become more successful on those dreaded tests? Then, they might not be so dreaded.

The Digital Playas (Group 6)

Group 6 includes
Rebekah--Blog project leader
Betsy--Comic Life project leader
Barbara--VoiceThread project leader
Michael--Digital Storybook project leader

The Digital Playas

Our group

How do you effectively use technology in the classroom? How do you integrate technology into the existing curriculum so that it helps you teach the standards instead of hindering you from teaching them? What new technology is available for classroom use that I don't know about? How do you deal with lack of technology in your school? These are just a few of the questions that I have about integrating technology into my classroom, and hopefully, through this blog, my group and I will hash out some answers and become better teachers along the way.