Day #8: Smart and Tech Savy

Class today started with an introduction to the new questions discussion board, the purpose of which is to allow us students to answer the questions that one another has, or for Dr. Kele to answer them on the discussion board instead of through emails. After that we had a short lecture about standardized testing.

We then moved onto a video that talked about the use of technology in the classroom. One quote that came up was a quote by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. The quote went as followed: "Teachers with not be replaced by technology, but teachers who don't use technology will be replaced by those who do." I agree with this statement. A teacher who is more tech-savy will be much more capable of taking new technology advances in stride than those who are intimidating by advancing technology. But teachers will not be replaced by technology because as teachers we still have our knowledge about the certain subject that we teach, and we will still be capable of teaching our subject even if we don't have technology. The video then went on to give the several reasons why students benefit from technology, and while the format and presentation of the video was sub-par, the information was very helpful.

After this we broke into groups to discuss the articles that we read for class. The article that I read was about the use of smartboards for students with disabilities in the regular classroom. It listed a wide variety of tips for engaging students with disabilities, tips that will also further engage the regular ed students as well. Another article discussed was an article read by a group member. This article also dealt with students with disabilities, only involved teaching students with cognitive disabilities about real-world situations such as grocery shopping. Then, as a class, we shared the results of our article search.

Class# 7: More SMART talk.

Ed Tech started off pretty slow today, mainly because there appeared to be something up with the projector, but we eventually got started and delved into conversation about our weekly discussion posts. We then moved on to discussing the various sources of information that Dr. Kele gave us about smart boards. One of the main points I recall about the article that I read was that there will be an ability gap between teachers. I found this interesting, as we normally talk about ability gaps between students. In the case of this article it brought to light that some teachers will take to smartboards and other technologies faster than others. This is sometimes due to an age difference, or perhaps simply a difference in preferences. The result, however, can severely impair a teacher's confidence. An example that the article provided was that in a grade where the students have different teachers for different subjects, there may be one teacher who uses the smart board more than another. The result of this can be that the students will come to understand the workings of the smart board better than some of the other teachers. A situation such as this can damage the confidence of a teacher that ends up needing help with their smart board lesson from one of the students. This is something that I have never thought about prior to reading this article. It brought me to understand that if a school decides to implement smart boards, as many have, they will have to ensure that all of the teachers are trained in how to use it effectively. Also the article listed the stages of learning for teachers, and brought up the point that teachers using smart boards will not become advanced smart board users with just a few uses. It takes a long time to learn.

We then moved on to discuss an article written by a teacher that opposed the use of smart boards. She brought up some pretty good points, mainly that the smart board doesn't necessarily change the learning experience for the students. The format of teacher lecturing and student listening is still the same, it doesn't promote interactive learning as much as it should given the amount of hype about it. She also brought up that it will be a wow factor for a while, but the novelty will wear off. However, despite her thought provoking opinions, I am still a supporter of smart boards, and reading her article simply challenged me to make my future smart board presentations even more engaging and informative.

The discussion of her article brought us to discuss the use of smart boards further as a class. One question that Dr. Kele raised was:"Do you have every student come up to use the smart board in a lesson?" My answer for this was that not every student needs to use the board in one lesson, you can group the students together and have them collaborate.

Finally in class we started working in groups, or alone, on creating a smartboard lesson. My partner Jennifer and I began creating a small geometry lesson involving identifying different angle sizes. Some parts of creating the lesson were frustrating, but overall it is still a very enjoyable program to use.

Class #6: Get SMART

So class today began with attempting to install a SMART technologies program. This did not work so well on my computer. We then moved on to watch a video showing different people who code on computers, and showing that all types of people are able to do it, and not just brainiac nerds with glasses and pocket protectors. Even a man who was a basketball player was interested in coding. This actually caught my interest because I actually taught myself some rudimentary HTML coding when I was in middle school and learned to build a very basic web page from scratch. Unfortunately I have forgotten almost all of it.

We then moved on to using the SMART program we downloaded on our computers. Since mine didn't work I shared with a neighbor. Using the SMART program was actually a lot of fun, and I was able to find some pretty cool tools. The tool that was my favorite was the shape correcting pen, which perfects shapes that you draw freehand. Although for a while there the program changed every shape I tried to draw into a circle. All circles aside it was cool. My other favorite was the protractor. You can draw a shape and then pull out the protractor tool and line it up to your shape to measure the angle. You can rotate the protractor to fit any angle, and resize it for larger or smaller objects. It was a really handy tool and was fun to use as well.

We then watched some more videos about different smart board activities that were very simple to create, and also very interactive.

Overall I really like SMART Technology and can't wait till I am able to one day incorporate it into my teaching.