What specific goals do you have between now and next summer in your teaching practice?
Since my school is implementing a one-to-one program this year, one overarching goal I have is for the students to use their laptops on a daily basis as an effective learning tool, (as opposed to a toy or a device for on line social networking), for my subject area, French. The web 2, 0 tools available on the internet makes the student's "toolbox", aka, his/her laptop, a very rich and powerful resource. The coursework this summer has introduced me to so many applications that I can see will actively engage my students in the French language, at a whole different level. For example, I would like to give the chat feature in Edmodo a try to engage the students in an on-line discussion about a topic in French; I would also like to use this feature to try back channeling during class as I would be curious to read what the students have to "say" during class, especially the ones who do not speak up much. I also plan to have students use the Google tools a lot more for collaborative work. I did not push the students to use Google Docs this past year but now that I have worked with it myself and have seen what one can do using Google Docs, I would like to see my students using it more.
With the one-to-one program being implemented and after having done a vodcast on Digital Citizenship, I now see how important it is to model and attempt to teach good digital citizenship in every class, not just the computer course. Consequently, another goal for me this year is to be more diligent about the promotion of good digital citizenship.
Another goal I have is to strive to bring more creativity into my teaching because doing the “creativity” activities during the MAET program really showed me how much more one really engages with the course material when one must be creative. For example, I would like to try the abstract lesson we did during the course to portray new vocabulary words in French or take a virtual field trip to somewhere in France and have the students do a social learning challenge like we did for Giverny. This course has definitely made me more aware and conscious of bringing in this aspect to my course.
The last goal I have for this upcoming school year is to share what I have learned this summer with my administrators and colleagues, especially those who are not that comfortable with technology or those who are skeptical about having teenagers use laptops with internet connection during class time. With the implementation of the one-to-one program, I will also attempt to emphasize to my colleagues that we should all model/teach Digital Citizenship in our classes, especially if we want to help empower the students.
I plan to accomplish my first goal of having the students use their laptops as an effective learning tool, by slowly introducing the "tools", aka, applications, during the 1st quarter, so that by the 2nd quarter, I can integrate these tools into my lessons on a daily basis. Modeling/teaching Digital Citizenship will begin from day one of the new school year and I will make the effort to reinforce and discuss Digital Citizenship with students during the entire school year. I don't feel that I modeled this enough this past year, partially because I forgot and partially because I naively assumed that the students were getting this elsewhere in their English or in the freshman Wellness Class. (I teach mostly 9th and 10th graders).
To implement creativity into my teaching, I plan to attempt a few of the activities that I did during this summer’s MAET program as well as come up with a few on my own. If I get stumped for ideas, I will check the MAET Year 1 wiki to see if any of my classmates have posted any activities that promote creativity or get in touch with classmates, (via Skype or the wiki), to help me brainstorm ideas.
As far as sharing what I have learned this summer with my colleagues and administrators, I plan to do this informally by working one-on-one with anyone who is looking for help or ideas with integrating technology into their classroom. However I also plan to do this throughout the school year during department or faculty meetings and during professional development days.
Which goals do you think you can accomplish on your own, with which do you need help, and from where might that help come ?
I think that I can accomplish all of my goals on my own; however, having the support of my parents, colleagues and administration would definitely help me to accomplish my goals, especially the modeling/teaching of Digital Citizenship. If I am to share what I have learned this summer with my colleagues at SAS I will look to my administrators to provide ample time and opportunities for me to work with my colleagues. The time factor is always a challenging one for everyone unfortunately.
Since I will be trying many of the applications I learned this summer out with my students this year and I don’t know how it will go, I will need students to be patient with me and above all not be shy about giving me feedback about the lessons into which I integrate technology.
As I mentioned earlier, should I need help brainstorming a creative lesson or should I want to seek advice on ed tech, I am fortunate to have several options open to me: I am lucky that I have many competent colleagues in ed tech among the faculty at SAS with whom I could talk; I can also contact my MAET classmates and/or look on educator social networking sites and/or blogs to see if I can find for what I am looking.
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