Reflection: New and Emerging Technologies: EDUC 6715

Upon reflection of my assignment created in Weeks 6 and 7, I have come to understand how difficult it can be to find technology resources that relate to my content areas and are meaningful to the end goal I want my students to reach. I also realize the important that technology and digital gaming can have on student success. According to Gee, games give children the tools they need to explore complex systems and experiment with different possibilities and outcomes (Hoffman, 2009). Games are a great way to engage students and enable them to master concepts without memorizing information that is given to them and later disregarding it. My completed assignment demonstrates what I have learned in this course because I have created a lesson around a new technology in education and explained why students will be using it along with how it will benefit them. I have also explained how this technology tool will help further develop 21st century skills and engage students in an authentic learning environment. I have included an explanation for how I can become a change leader by promoting how this technology will help my students and ways that my school can change their policies in order to permit this technology transformation to occur.

There are many adjustments that I will make in my efforts to identify emerging technologies with the potential to transform teaching and learning. I would like to collaborate with my colleagues to create a learning community where we can research and locate various technologies that we feel would be beneficial to our students. By collecting this information, we can share our findings with the administration and explain that by using more technology we can steer away from traditional textbooks. Christensen and Horn (2008) state that computers offer a way to customize instruction and allow students to learn in the way they are best wired to process information, in the style that conforms to them, and at a pace that matches their own. Why would administrators and teachers not want to use technology to allow students to learn in a way that is best for them? Through this learning community, we can influence other colleagues and our administration towards the adoption of new and emerging technologies in our school. Once technologies have been adopted, we can “test” them on a trial basis with teachers who are interested in implementing technology in their classrooms. They can become the experts who help train the others in the school. Another adjustment that I will make to incorporate educational technology to support 21st century learners will be to use the learning community to help share success stories with others about how technology has helped children be learners that are more successful. Reeves (2009) shares that in order to translate the research about teacher leadership and modeling into action, we must first provide examples, not policy mandates. Our learning community can collaborate with each other to assemble a resource of technology-rich lessons that are accessible through our school’s server. This can help educate others on the lessons and can be a resource to refer to while they are becoming more comfortable with using technology in their own classrooms. It is important to provide support for colleagues and not diminish the efforts they are putting forth to integrate technology into their instruction. We must all work together to convey the importance of technology in the classrooms and share the benefits it will have on student understanding and successful mastery of concepts.

References:

Christensen, C., & Horn, M. (2008). How do we transform our schools? Education Next, 8(3), 12–19.

Hoffman, L. (2009). Learning through games. Communication of the ACM, 52(8), 21–22.

Reeves, D. (2009). Model teachers. Educational Leadership, 66(5), 85–86.

Reflection- Reaching and Engaging All Learners Through Technology: EDUC 6714

Throughout this course, I have learned so much more about the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Differentiated Instruction (DI). I have also realized the important role that technology has on supporting a classroom that uses UDL and DI. Smith (2009) explains that technology empowers the learning environment. After reading many articles by Dr. Tomlinson, I have come to the understanding that DI is not something that will take place over night, but it is something that I will need to continue to work on throughout my educational career. Before the start of this course, I knew about DI, but had not heard of UDL before. I now easily recognize the correlation between both UDL and DI and how they can benefit the needs of all students. Howard (2004) shares that UDL focuses educators on developing flexible curricula that provide students with multiple ways of accessing content, multiple means for expressing what they learn, and multiple pathways for engaging their interest and motivation. This change in the way of teaching will enable educators to focus on the needs of students and help them gain access to all material we cover in the classroom.

My colleagues in this course have shared many valuable resources that I will continue to use as I incorporate both UDL and DI in my classroom. Our social network site is a place I can easily access to find resources that will benefit me and resources that will benefit my students. I will also share many of the resources with my school colleagues so that they can benefit from the numerous ideas and activities that I have learned about throughout the duration of this course. I can use the student resources as remediation or enrichment during our reading groups. I can also plan whole-group activities where students can use the technology resources to learn more about topics we are covering.

My instructional practice with regard to the use of technology integration to customize instruction will change tremendously based on the knowledge I have gained during this course. I understand that it is important to start small, but that the benefits of technology use largely outweigh the risk of students not having equal access to classroom materials. Throne (2009) states that technology helps teachers to become more attuned with students’ varied learning styles and readiness levels. I think that technology use today will help reach more students and engage them in the learning process. I would like to spend some of my planning time to school to locate technology tools and resources that will benefit my students as we explore the various standards and make learning more exciting and interesting to them. I would also like to make sure that I could find at least one technology tool or resource that can help my students understand difficult topics and illustrate that information in a more interesting way. Technology can also help students develop the 21st century skills necessary for their everyday lives both in and out of school.

References:

Howard, K. L. (2004). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. International Society for Technology in Education, 31(5), 26–29.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.