The course of life is unpredictable... no one can write his autobiography in advance. ~Abraham Joshua Heschel
A vision piece by Eric March
Today’s learners are surrounded in a sea of technology that has only come about in the past few years. When I was in high school, home computing power was still fairly limited, and our graphing calculators were the most advanced piece of technology we owned. Today, many of my students have no idea what an “overhead projector” is or what it looks like. We have projectors in the classroom that can show our computer simulations, as well as movies and document cameras so we can write in color on a piece of paper. Students are carrying around more computing power in their pocket with their iPhone than the desktop computer I took to college had. I’m competing with YouTube, text-messages, and Facebook for their attention. If I taught my classes the same way that I was taught, I would lose their attention in the first 15 minutes. I always feel like I’m walking a line to use time-proven educational pedagogy while integrating technological advances to make it easier for students to understand the curriculum. When it comes to learning about and utilizing technology, I have always made it a part of my life, and will continue to do so in the future. New technologies will always come along, and I see it as my job to search out and make a plan to use those that will be most effective for my students.
One of the many technologies that I’ve implemented in my classroom this year due to my MAET degree as well as my own exploration of technology is Moodle. I put up links to all of the assignments, labs, videos, etc. that I’ve used every day so far this school year. When I told my student’s parents about the Moodle page, all of them said that it was a great way to keep up with the goings on in class. Not only is it a useful tool for the parents, it’s great for me to use to keep my classes organized; I can use the Moodle page the next time I teach that class. Likewise, the MSU MAET program exposed me to Popplet (www.popplet.com) which is a great way to organize thoughts graphically. I found that I have given my students the option to use Popplet several times this year. I always have an rss ticker running on my computers at home and at school, so I can share interesting news stories with my class.
I enjoy sharing new technologies with my colleagues as well. I don’t currently have an official title as a technology support person, but I enjoy listening to my colleagues wishes for the classroom, and see if I know of a way that technology can solve them. The payback for myself is that I sometimes get ahead of myself and want to use a technology even though it might not be an appropriate use for the classroom. I find something interesting online, and want to have the kids use it no matter what. I sometimes ask for my teaching colleagues input on the technology to see if I’m just using it for the sake of using it, or if it actually has a value in the classroom.
Reflecting on my online degree and it’s effect on me as a learner, I realize that an online class is not necessarily suitable for every student. I would not want to assign a class to a student who was not a self-starting student. It requires a lot of self discipline to start the assignments early enough to make sure that they get done to an acceptable level. Sometimes my school uses online learning as a credit recovery tool, but I’m not convinced that this is best for the learner. For example, it’s sometimes easy to find the answer to a math question online, and this does not help the learner advance in his studies. He has to be a student who wants to learn the material in order to be effective.
Another example of something that cuts both ways is my school’s policy of assigning laptops to every student. While I love the fact that I can assign webquests and online research projects to the students, I’ve quickly run into the fact that the laptops can be a huge distraction for the students. They all have games installed, and with classes of 32 students or more, it’s hard to keep an eye on every student all the time. This is a problem that I can see myself struggling with in the future.
The future of education is at a turning point, both politically as well as pedagogically. As we advance through this unprecedented technological age, we must see ourselves as both teacher as well as student. We must become students of innovation so that we may teach the next generation as efficiently and effectively as possible.
One of the many technologies that I’ve implemented in my classroom this year due to my MAET degree as well as my own exploration of technology is Moodle. I put up links to all of the assignments, labs, videos, etc. that I’ve used every day so far this school year. When I told my student’s parents about the Moodle page, all of them said that it was a great way to keep up with the goings on in class. Not only is it a useful tool for the parents, it’s great for me to use to keep my classes organized; I can use the Moodle page the next time I teach that class. Likewise, the MSU MAET program exposed me to Popplet (www.popplet.com) which is a great way to organize thoughts graphically. I found that I have given my students the option to use Popplet several times this year. I always have an rss ticker running on my computers at home and at school, so I can share interesting news stories with my class.
I enjoy sharing new technologies with my colleagues as well. I don’t currently have an official title as a technology support person, but I enjoy listening to my colleagues wishes for the classroom, and see if I know of a way that technology can solve them. The payback for myself is that I sometimes get ahead of myself and want to use a technology even though it might not be an appropriate use for the classroom. I find something interesting online, and want to have the kids use it no matter what. I sometimes ask for my teaching colleagues input on the technology to see if I’m just using it for the sake of using it, or if it actually has a value in the classroom.
Reflecting on my online degree and it’s effect on me as a learner, I realize that an online class is not necessarily suitable for every student. I would not want to assign a class to a student who was not a self-starting student. It requires a lot of self discipline to start the assignments early enough to make sure that they get done to an acceptable level. Sometimes my school uses online learning as a credit recovery tool, but I’m not convinced that this is best for the learner. For example, it’s sometimes easy to find the answer to a math question online, and this does not help the learner advance in his studies. He has to be a student who wants to learn the material in order to be effective.
Another example of something that cuts both ways is my school’s policy of assigning laptops to every student. While I love the fact that I can assign webquests and online research projects to the students, I’ve quickly run into the fact that the laptops can be a huge distraction for the students. They all have games installed, and with classes of 32 students or more, it’s hard to keep an eye on every student all the time. This is a problem that I can see myself struggling with in the future.
The future of education is at a turning point, both politically as well as pedagogically. As we advance through this unprecedented technological age, we must see ourselves as both teacher as well as student. We must become students of innovation so that we may teach the next generation as efficiently and effectively as possible.