Focus Questions: In what ways does technology promote unique, powerful, and transformative learning for students?The five kinds of unique, powerful, and transformative learning experiences include:
1) Visual learning
2) Accessing and assessing information
3) Student engagement and collaboration
4) Feedback5) Creativity.
When it comes to learning, many students find that visual presentations play a big role in their understanding. Any kind of visual presentations seem to enhance the understanding and tends to help the students grasp concepts. As a teacher, one of the most crucial things to ensure is that students can understand a concept and not just memorize.
Nowadays there are countless ways to access information but, the tricky part is validating the usefulness of that information. As professionals, we must learn to become the hand that guides the student to accessing and assessing information. Once the student has an understanding of what is a useful and reliable source, this will change their educational lives forever. Not only does it change the way they look for material, but it also alters the way they perceive daily bits of information, e.g. the news, social media, etc.
Tech Tool: Poetry 180
I found this neat website to have some interesting use in a classroom of students. This could be used as a daily activity. For example, as the students walk into the room they are presented with a poem, the student will group into groups of three or four students and as a group they must decipher the poem. This will not only give the students a chance to collaborate with one another but, also to create opinions of their own.
Summary & Connection:
After reflecting on this chapter, I agree that there has been a positive impact brought on by technology in an educational environment. Many students are given a chance to shine with their unique creativities along with their individual personalities. Although, I do believe that there are some issues with incorporating technology into the daily routine of teaching. Some of those issues are valid ones, for instance, the abuse of technology by students. But those issues have been slowly diminishing as our school systems are becoming more aware of these issues and have been filtering what the students can and cannot do while on a computer in schools. All in all, there is no harm in incorporating technology with teaching and it should be high encouraged and even enforced to some extent. We should expose our future generations to as much of the new and upcoming technologies, no matter how corky they might seem.
Resources: Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2011). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN:10 0-13-159611-X, ISBN:13 978-0-13-159611-5
