Wise Owl Teacher: October 2010

Throughout my course readings, one of the most important notions I have learned is that students learn best through meaningful experiences. My personal theory about how people learn is that people make their own personal connections to ideas and concepts they learn. For example, if you are learning about WWII and a family member is a veteran who has shared personal stories of his experience, you will bring that to mind when you are learning and recalling events of the war. When students participate in experiences they store the experience in their memory. Compared to students reading information out of a book, it is easy to understand why this is not the most effective way to learn.
During my technology course I have been exposed to great lessons where teachers integrated technology to enhance learning. One adjustment I plan to make to my instruction regarding technology is to shift my teaching to a more student-centered environment rather than teacher-centered. It is easy for a teacher to order students around and tell them what they are learning, however, this is not an effective teaching strategy because students will begin to rely only on the teacher to learn and not themselves. Students need to explore and discover educational tools for themselves in order to gain an enhanced learning experience.
One goal I have is to allow my students more access to the computer and other technology tools and integrate them into all content areas. I have learned in this course that math, science, reading, and social science can all be enhanced with technology. I will allow my students more opportunities to use of various technology tools to complete their projects or as an assessment of what they learned. My second goal is not to use technology tools as a reward only. Many times in the past I would allow students to use the computer if they had good behavior for the day, and would not allow those who struggled with behavior to use it. I want to change this policy and always allow students to use the computers unless of course they are not using it as intended.
Two learning tools I would like to use with my students are voice threads and blogs. Both of these tools are easily accessible and easy to use. Voice threads can help my students come together as a community and share their knowledge and ideas with each other. I would like to use it for problem solving lessons and have other students share their solutions. This can be used for a math or science problem as well as language arts. I have created a classroom blog and use it mostly to post information such as homework, special events, study guides, and learning games. I would like to create a more student-centered blog where students can post ideas, assignments, and collaborate with each other. I would have students post certain assignments on the blog and allow students to post comments, ideas, and revisions to each other’s assignments.
I am excited to utilize all the technology tools and strategies I have learned in this course. I know that not only should I provide students with technology tools, but I should also provide them with the most effective teaching strategies in order to enhance every lesson.