This week we had a presentation from the Brandon School Division about technology in the classroom.
I was pleasantly surprised by the process to be able to use certain technology tools in the classroom. I admit that I had thought that the school division was quite restrictive in their internet use. After the presentation I found that they would just prefer that if there is a tool that BSD provides that does the same as the tool you want to use as a teacher then they want you to use the BSD one instead. I think this is a pretty reasonable request, especially because the tools provided by the school division are private and you don't have to worry about student information getting out.
Something that I found interesting about this presentation was their focus on personalization of learning. It goes along with the theme of not using technology for technology's sake but to actually use it to enhance learning.
One thing that I have started to think about is assessment. What I am wondering is if I were to do a project using social media like Twitter, how would I assess it? Also, would I force the students to use it, or would I allow them to choose what they want to do? What would you do? Would you use social media as one big project or would you have a topic and allow students to choose how they represent it?
Good questions, Karlie. Some we will consider in class - others - hopefully some of your classmates will give some thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot to do with assessment involving social media but I think you are going to have to give choice to give benefits to the students. With social media you might have to be involved as well.
ReplyDeleteFor a more heavily weighted project, I like the idea of giving them choice and seeing what they come up with. After the Bryce and Martin's 1:1 presentation I was so inspired with how creative their students were when given free reign. I don't know if I'd consider some of the sites they were using as "social" media, so any students who don't enjoy tweeting etc, can choose to use something less "social" instead.
ReplyDeleteI agree that giving students the freedom can allow them to create some pretty amazing things! I think that being someone who doesn't use twitter a lot, giving students an option would allow them to feel comfortable to do something else that you might find better than the twitter assignment.
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