TECHNOLOGY
As I plan for integrating technology into my DreamIt Project, I have to keep in mind that all technology portion must be in class as not all of my students have access to technology. That said, I chose specific technology tools for group work and for individual work. The use of technology during group work time will not only support learning, organize thoughts, and present the understanding gained during the unit, but will also motivate and engage students. The use of technology individually will serve to assess student understanding in terms of assessment.
During group work days, students will have the laptop carts in the classroom and two members of each group are to be the scribes and take notes of the conversation on a Google Docs shared with their group members and the teacher. This will be a journal to document what was accomplished, what questions each group had, and be a way of accountability. The scribes will rotate so that everyone has the chance to play both roles. The shared Google Docs will be used to create a Wordle so that students can visually see what their conversation looked like. This visual element will hopefully move them towards discussing larger themes and topics by discussing why certain words are larger than others. After this discussion, students will be asked to start a list of themes and main plot points in the text and create either a Despair or Block Posters. The production of a visual poster will help demonstrate what students understand and what they might have missed. As a final project and assessment of the work of the group, students will use EdCanvas to present a book report to the class. The report will consist of conceptual terms and ideas and connect it to the course theme of the individual and society. Group work days will not be back to back all the time and each day groups will have a different discussion task, work task, and students will always have to write in their independent journals at the end of the class period. Three-four times within this unit, students will be asked to prepare for an individual work day. Students will be taken to the computer lab where more reliable technology exists. Students will have the entire hour to research the web and find an article that shares its theme or message with the book they are reading. A couple days after, students will receive a link for a different article found by a member of their group and will be asked to use Diigo, annotate the article, and find the connection of the theme of the article to the book. This will demonstrate how students have improved in their critical thinking skills and will serve as a mid-unit assessment. Technology also serves to engage and motivate students. The use of technology gives them a different avenue for proving their understanding. Students typically enjoy utilizing technology that it almost serves as a mask for doing work. And in turn, the work they produce demonstrates a far superior show of understanding. It also exhibits the creativity and originality of students, which makes grading more engaging for teachers. |
The DreamIt Project is an assignment for Michigan State University's Master of Arts in Education Technology course CEP 800. The purpose of this assignment is to see how students will "intelligently integrate new technologies to help student understanding within [their] subject area in a transformational way." The ideas of this program and project are centered around TPACK.
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