Standard 3

Ava Long

Technology in the Classroom

Taskstream Signature Assignment

December 3, 2013

• Standard 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
• Meaning: Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society (http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf).

1. How your understandings of the standards changed based on your experiences:
• Designing Lessons: So this standard is a little bit harder for me to address because the modeling of digital-age work does not come easy for me because I am not what people would consider “technology savvy.” It was hard for me to sit down and design lessons that not only incorporated technology on a surface level, but to really use it as a source of and for the teaching of the lesson. It was humorous when my teacher looked at me one class night and said in regards to my insecurity of implementing technology into my lesson plans, “Ava, this class you’re taking, it’s called Technology in the Classroom. I understand your comfort levels and insecurities with the idea of it, but you cannot get away from the fact that you must be learning how to use technology as a tool in the classroom.” I looked at him and knew he was right and also knew that he saw me as a challenge, so I took heed of this obvious, relevant piece of information and moved forward in my planning. It should be understood by most educators that being comfortable in teaching content to students is important, but I also know and realize that as human beings we are always learning and everyone starts off not knowing anything about something, and that was where I stood in the idea of modeling digital-age work and learning. I get it. The teacher can learn along with the students, but what I am most afraid of is that I am going to be labeled a teacher who does not know how to teach this or that, and I am not comfortable with the idea. And it terrifies me even more that so much of the world and specifically the classrooms nowadays, revolve around technology as a resource or tool to assist in teaching. How do I feel comfortable in a classroom that I have envisioned myself in for years now using books-paper-and-pencils whereas now I will be using computers-tablets-and Smart Boards? My understanding of the importance of modeling digital-age work has changed immensely from the beginning of class until now because before I thought that I would not necessarily need to use technology to get the point across, but now I understand that it makes my job easier and my students more engaged and well-rounded in education as a whole if I do. I work at Desert Valley Elementary as a Title One aide and during the last five months in this class I discovered I was using the idea of implementing the use of technology into my lesson plans (which I have never done before). For example, we were reading about polar bears and some interesting facts, like they have fur on their paws. I could see that my students were not quite getting what they were reading from the story, therefore their reading was not smooth and fluent (and I firmly believe being able to read and comprehend go hand-in-hand). I decided to go online and find images of the facts we were reading about. Some of the students had never even seen a polar bear let alone some of the specific facts we were learning. The moment these facts became images they could turn into concrete content in the minds, their reading and understanding of the material just soared beyond my expectations. It was amazing. I then decided to make my lesson plans thereafter to include a day of “Internet Research” and even though in Title One the main goal and focus is on reading, I have proven to myself and others that improvement came when they cemented the content. It was a wonderful discovery and that is how I learned how to better design my lesson plans where I model digital-age work and learning.
• Teaching Lessons: So much of what I ended up with at the end of this class came from when I presented or “taught” my lesson. The presenting of the lesson showed me how it would come across to a classroom full of students. I took what my peers and teachers questioned and multiplied it by 100 and figured that was what I would be dealing with in a real life situation. It was important to make this connection in order for me to improve upon what I had created. You know, when it comes to modeling digital-age work and learning in front of peers and a technology teacher, it can be extremely intimidating, but in fact it was the best scenario I could have imagined because it gave me the opportunity to understand what was coming across the way I wanted, what I needed help with understanding, and to inquire how I could do it better. Under this standard, it says for the teacher to be fluent in technology systems and in the beginning I feel I was far from this happening, ever, but seeing as I was my teacher’s challenge student, I knew this would come to pass. I would not say I am an expert, but I definitely felt more confident presenting and teaching my lessons than I would have in the beginning. I see the classroom world much differently since discovering what the technology world has to offer. I will be a better, better-rounded teacher coming into the education realm having learned what I did from this class. I feel that I would have been completely blindsided if I had stepped into student teaching without this prior knowledge and wealth of knowledge. I mean, I did not even know what Smart Boards were. J It is like anything else in life, you must learn before you do. Now, when I build lesson plans, even for my Title One aide position, implementing technology resources is at the forefront of my mind because I have personally experienced how beneficial it is for the students’ learning.
• Assessing Student (Peer) Artifacts: In regards to modeling digital-age work and learning, I think assessing student artifacts is one of the key facets to being a well-rounded educator. Assessment is extremely important in finding out what the students know, what they have retained, if they know how to apply it, and if they understand what they have learned on a critical-thinking level. Assessing nowadays has gone overboard and seems to be hindering students’ learning more than helping it. I believe through a strong collaboration team (be it with students, peers, colleagues, administration, and/or parents), teachers can find an effective way to assess the digital-work and learning of students. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard during my years of schooling how beneficial and effective it can be to let the students be a part of the decision –making process, and I can see that it would help the students help the teacher assess what they have learned if they were in fact part of the assessment process. There are so many standardized assessments nowadays that students are almost acting as drones who just fill in bubbles and guess. They do it so often they do not take it seriously. What ends up happening is that the results are not authentic because the assessment was not authentic to begin with, therefore it is all a waste. Assessments must be authentic if teachers are to find some kind of use for the data. Teachers must assess students, I get that. But in my mind, with my experience, where we assess must be where we are teaching. The gap between these two aspects of the educational world is too far for the data to be useful. My peers really helped me see how many different ways I could use technology to assess my students’ digital-age work and learning. I can see that it would not make sense to teach digitally and test by paper and pencil. Teaching must coincide and be consistent.  
2. What you learned about preparation and teaching from your peers:
• Lessons: As far as my lessons go in regards to this specific standard, it was obvious that I would need to really keep an open-mind for what my peers had to say about my plans and ideas. Because I am not technology fluent or savvy with technology systems and resources, the collaboration with my peers in preparing my lessons and what I could do to better model digital-age work and learning was vital to me. They were not shy about letting me know what I could change, add, and improve upon. They understood better than I did what I could do to engage and incorporate ways to model a digital-age work and learning environment. My lessons that I first brought in to my teacher included some aspects of technology, but it had not been truly integrated and my “classroom” was not transformed into a true digital-age environment. Part of the reason for this was because of my own insecurities about the transferring knowledge into the tech world. I was very hard-headed the first couple of classes that were held in the beginning of the semester because I insisted that students should know what real books feel and smell like, what a pencil and paper assessment was like. My teacher saw me as a challenge because of this outlook. My lessons changed along the way because I realized I cannot fight the monster that is technology. Almost every person I know has a cell phone and whether they like to admit it or not, there are people that feel completely lost if they lost it. I do not live in that mindset, nor do I understand it. So much of what I learned in building lesson plans came from my walls being broken down by my peers and teacher.
• Feedback: This class was so helpful in the way of opening my eyes up to what the technological world has to offer for educators. Their feedback is what turned my lessons from surface technology usage to a fully developed digital-age classroom. It was apparent to me that it was this feedback that made such a difference in learning about what teachers can use to better their teaching, teaching styles, resources, and applications. It is unbelievable to me still how much I learned from just five people in so little time after working with them through this program for over three years. It never occurred to me that I knew so little about integrating technology into lessons because I was so paper-pencil minded. And if someone had asked me about technology in the classroom before this class and experience, I would have answered to them (and/or thought to myself) of course I will use it…but the first night of class I realized I had no idea about technology in the classroom, how to use it, what to use, when, and why. My experience has been amazing because of these reflective revelations that have occurred and affected my position in the education realm presently and for the future. Feedback, both from my peers and to my future students, is integral to a human being’s growth, as a student, and as a future teacher. I can see that I have grown and my feelings, insecurities, and beliefs have changed immensely over time and could not be more grateful that I learned the technology ropes before I stepped into student teaching. My Title One students already benefit from these lessons I’ve learned and I know my future students will benefit and excel in their learning due to my learning here.   
3. How your experiences might impact your future teaching experiences. I believe that my experiences in this class will impact my future teaching more than any other class has up to this point in my school career. I have been able to apply and integrate what I have learned here into my position now and have begun to reflect on what creates a truly digital-age work and learning environment. I realize that the technology integration is integral to students’ learning nowadays because they have been exposed to it for a few years now on a regular daily basis in the world around them, so it only makes sense to do the same in the classroom. The modeling and facilitation of technology in the classroom must not be something that is added in on the spot though because it does not always work properly and that is something I was happy to learn because it brought me back to my comfort zone of paper-pencils-and books. I am glad to have learned what I can do to better my students’ education, but know that I will always be able to fall back on the traditional learning and teaching strategies when need be. Preparation is key in using technology in the classroom because of the steps that need to be taken in order to teach a lesson smoothly using the technological resources you have chosen. My experiences here have taught me that if I integrate technology use to always test it and prepare it beforehand. Another important lesson I learned was that the amount of resources, strategies, tools, suggestions, ideas, communication lines, venues, and advice that are available is unknown and goes beyond what I have even begun to realize, but that the world is literally at the tip of our fingertips, so why not use it to let students live outside the box of the classroom. Technology has expanded the horizon from the dull and boring exploration of national symbols and monuments to actually being able to explore and visit them on the web. Virtual tours? Oh my gosh. This class has just blown my mind and I know I have not even reached an “inth” of the possibilities. I am excited to see what the future has in store.