We made it. This date has been circled, highlighted, and underlined on every one's calendar for a long time. That's right, it's finals week. It's a week when students are asked to completely forget the schedule we have made them memorize (our class schedule this week is totally different) and then ask them to perform on a final assessment of some sort. Maybe they have to take a test with essays to write and terms to match. Maybe they have to give a presentation on how the circular system keeps our bodies alive...In my class I treat finals a little different.
Being a technology teacher has it's quirks and finals week is certainly one of them...I have my students complete a final project in my class, not a test. The project does a few things that I like...one is, it takes a discipline like web design, which at times is very complex and abstract, and gives me a simpler more effective way to measure knowledge, growth, and success in my class. More important than that is it allows my students the opportunity to be creative and excel in a way that a standard multiple choice exam does not.
In today's educational environment everything is about data...how do we know students grew? How do we know teachers are teaching? What matrices are we using to measure these outputs? This is perhaps the paramount reason that I LOVE project based finals. I can demonstrate to another teacher/student/Principal/parent that my students have grown, because lets face it, if a student didn't know Dreamweaver when they started my class, and now they are creating comprehensive websites in it, THEN I KNOW THEY HAVE LEARNED!
Finals week will be an interesting time for this first year teacher. I look forward to learning what it is all about, and continuing to improve to make next semester that much better.
Until then, I hope you all are having a happy holiday season!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Technology in Education
I feel as though there is a certain pressure that exists in today's educational environment to integrate technology that is relevant, rigorous and appropriate into the classroom. How do we do this? Is it something that the teacher should be solely responsible for, spending countless hours on the web and in the library scouring multiple sources, or is it something that students should have input on? I was at a tech committee meeting last night for the high school where I teach and was amazed at the difference in opinion about how our tech money should be spent. Hardware, software, peripherals, where does it go? I don't pretend to have the answer, and as money becomes tighter this answer seems more elusive, but I do know that if we are not careful we are going to paint ourselves into a corner and hinder severely the technology that is at our fingertips. I believe that the technology we provide to our students should meet certain standards before it is to be implemented in a class:
1- The technology should be safe and present an opportunity for all students to learn
2- It should be current (relatively speaking) so that students can be prepared for life beyond the walls of high school
3- It should promote academic, social, and emotional growth in the students so that they can be positive citizens of the communities they live in
4- Lastly, technology should challenge us all to be open to new ideas and possibilities, because as a teacher, in five years literacy wont be about what books you read, but what blogs, wikis, and podcasts you participate in.
Another issue raised at our meeting was should we allow students to connect personal technology devices to the network at school. Students could use their IPhones as presentation devices, hook up their laptops to demonstrate a project they've done at home. I love this possibility in theory, however the implementation is not so easy. What about liability for the schools network? What about theft of not only physical devices but intellectual property as well. Again, there is no clear answer, but as money shrinks, and technology demands grow this may be one option we have to consider.
As I continue towards the end of my first semester as a teacher, I am continually in awe of my students and their capacity for knowledge. Not only is it the way they acquire, process, and synthesize the knowledge, but it is the new way in which they do it. I hope I can continue to encourage this as technology continues its exponential growth.
1- The technology should be safe and present an opportunity for all students to learn
2- It should be current (relatively speaking) so that students can be prepared for life beyond the walls of high school
3- It should promote academic, social, and emotional growth in the students so that they can be positive citizens of the communities they live in
4- Lastly, technology should challenge us all to be open to new ideas and possibilities, because as a teacher, in five years literacy wont be about what books you read, but what blogs, wikis, and podcasts you participate in.
Another issue raised at our meeting was should we allow students to connect personal technology devices to the network at school. Students could use their IPhones as presentation devices, hook up their laptops to demonstrate a project they've done at home. I love this possibility in theory, however the implementation is not so easy. What about liability for the schools network? What about theft of not only physical devices but intellectual property as well. Again, there is no clear answer, but as money shrinks, and technology demands grow this may be one option we have to consider.
As I continue towards the end of my first semester as a teacher, I am continually in awe of my students and their capacity for knowledge. Not only is it the way they acquire, process, and synthesize the knowledge, but it is the new way in which they do it. I hope I can continue to encourage this as technology continues its exponential growth.
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