Technology Exploration

Looking through the sites listed on the slide, I would probably consider myself a visitor. I noticed that I only use about a quarter of the sites, and have only heard of about half of them. Most of the tech I use is texting, email, and some social media sites.

One of my favorite sites to enhance student learning was Slide Share. I think this site is a great idea because whether a student was absent or just wanted to study from a PowerPoint, they can find them right here on this site. Also, teachers can share slide shows with each other. This could be great for teachers in the same school or for teachers not even in the same state to find ideas for their peers. Scribd would be a great site not only for students to find books to read, but also to post writing which students have completed. This site would allow students to have a much larger audience than they are used to, which could motivate their writing. I also think Skype could be useful in holding conferences with parents and/or students. Although I would rather meet face to face, using Skype could definitely be useful in situations where the parent’s work schedule may not allow for them to come in for a conference during normal hours.

After teachers leave school, they keep learning mostly through professional development. This typically takes place face to face however I now know that professional development can take place virtually as well. Virtual professional development seems interesting because instead of just communicating with teachers in your school or district, you can communicate with and get ideas from teachers all over the country. I noticed that a lot of virtual professional development takes place through blogs and through sharing ideas. I think this is great because the more ideas we can acquire the better.

It’s important to get students to write virtually because this expands their audience. Usually, the only audience a student has for their writing is their teacher and maybe their peers. But if they know that they are publishing their writing for more people to see, students usually feel motivated to create better writing. I think that these sites are interesting because they provide so many creative ways students can complete assignments ranging from writing to creating graphics and videos. However, the risks of these sites is that the internet is available for everyone to see, so you have to make sure what your students are posting is okay to be on the internet, and not harmful for themselves or for anyone else. A couple of my favorite sites were Prezi and Picfont because I think these are different means of presentations which students would enjoy.

In Jane Hart’s slideshare, I noticed that most of the techs in the top ten are sites that most students probably use very often. I also noticed that most of these techs are used for collaboration between students and between the student and the teacher. I also noticed that some were techs that students could use to research, but not as many as you would expect.

When choosing to integrate technology, I need to consider the fact that technology needs to be scaffolded. I can’t just start my students off creating a presentation and sharing it without first being sure they understand and can apply, analyze, and evaluate the information which is going into the presentation. Each piece of technology can work together and build upon the last so that students create writing and presentation which shows their use and understanding of the technology and the information they are presenting.

Based on my tech exploration, I think I will definitely use some of these sites in my future classrooms. I definitely want my students to publish their work in online forums so that they can have a larger audience and therefore feel more pride in their work. I also plan on using some of the virtual professional websites I found in this tech exploration. I think that professional development is very important for teachers because education continuously advances and changes, especially with technology being such an important factor. So professional development is a great way for teachers to stay up to date on these changes.