How This Program Has Changed My Teaching For The New Year...Actually, these courses in the Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy (CoETaIL) program have changed my teaching during the last school year as well as impacted my teaching for this current school year. Before taking these courses I knew the basics about technology, but little else. I came to ISB Middle School after teaching High School Advanced Placement World History, a course which relies heavily upon Powerpoint notes. To spice things up a little, I added short video clips to the Powerpoint notes presentations. A revolutionary move in my US school district, but the small pictures and bullet heavy slides remained. In my honors World History class, I’d often use a picture or an image to get a discussion started, but the rest of the class relied on low-technology projects and activities.
Last year, while teaching grade 7 Humanities, I had the opportunity to implement many things I learned in CoETaIL in my classroom. Some of the things that I implemented included:
- students blogging about different subjects and topics
- student making Powerpoint presentations in the Kim-Jeff-Zen style
- students using moviemaker to create their Korat photo essays
- students learning about Creative Commons image searches
- students creating and using iGoogle accounts and RSS Readers
- student choices regarding projects using or not using technology (creating videos, podcasts, Xtranormal videos, writing final chapters, creating sculptures, etc.)
- students learning about and using wikis, GoogleEarth, Google Docs, video clips, image searches, and music
- students learning to analyze the validity of websites
- teacher created activities, games, and brief Powerpoint presentations using the Kim-Jeff-Zen style
- class discussions centered around images and the analysis of those images
This current school year, I’ve been busy continuing to utilize technology in my classroom. With three new preps and all of the planning involved, I’ve been very busy (thus, the reason why I’m so far behind in my blog entries!) In addition to continuing some of the same types of technology activities that I used last year, this year I have been working more with Panthernet.
Like last year, this year I don’t use technology just for the sake of using technology in the classroom. I examine what I want the students to learn and use the best tools available to accomplish the task. Sometimes it may be writing a blog entry, while other times I might see more benefit from writing a journal entry or even creating a picture or web using a large sheet of paper. I try to balance traditional methods with technological ones. I think the CoETaIL classes have been instrumental in providing me with the knowledge of the different tools that are available and how to use them.
Image From Flickr, Josef Stuefer http://www.flickr.com/photos/josefstuefer/9500503/
Fantastic Laura! You are have applied so many of the ideas and skills we're discussing in appropriate in relevant ways! I'd love to hear what you/your students think about learning and sharing in these new ways!
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