1. What policies govern your uses of ICT in your school setting?
There is a faculty Information Technology Acceptable Use Policy and a student Information Technology Acceptable Use Policy. The policy makes reference to the April 2011 Ontario College of Teachers social media advisory.
2. What digital technological resources do you have available for teaching and learning in your school setting?
Each teacher is issued a PC laptop. Every classroom has a SmartBoard, DVD player, VCR player, speakers and 4 or 5 desktop (PC) computers. I have a digital camera assigned to my class, a webcam, and a digital overhead projector in my class. There are 2 COWs with 22 (poorly maintained) PC laptops on each available for Grades 4, 5 and 6 (a total of 126 students). The library has 10 iPads available for use in the classroom (apparently going up to a class set of 22 this year). The library also lends 20 different KOBOs – mini and regular. There is a SMART response set of remotes (?) available for booking. Each student has a membership with Mathletics to practice math skills and help teachers differentiate. The school has a membership with VOICETHREAD (used to be easy, now ridiculously complicated since they added special ‘for education’ features and with ANIMOTO (easy, fun). Each class has a “BlackBoard” site – an online area with blogs, wikis, course content, journals, etc. * I dislike Blackboard – I find it cumbersome, unwieldy and unintuitive!
3. Please provide an example of an exemplary use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.
Three years ago I successfully used VoiceThread in my grade 5 class to spark and continue discussions around the 10 Silver Birch novels. Students drew pictures that were scanned and uploaded. Each book had a separate thread, each picture a different question. Students had to respond to some questions and then comment on others’ responses. It worked really well and was a wonderful way for student to respond to text in a non-written way.
I have also had students make movies as a way of showing their learning. One group, studying the Immune System, wrote new lyrics for a pop song, then made a music video that showed all they’d learned about the immune system, including diagrams and skits.
4. Please provide an example of a problematic use of digital technologies for teaching and learning that you have observed or experienced personally.
Since my original success with VoiceThread 3 years ago, VoiceThread has changed its security and when I tried to use it again in Fall 2012, I ran into problem after problem. Students couldn’t log on, or could one day but not the next. Their responses were lost, or not transferred or uploaded or something. It was one big horrible headache, the IT department at my school couldn’t help and VT was uncontactable! I swore never again. I lost a huge piece of possible assessment and ended up wishing I had just used traditional ‘pencil and paper’ comprehension activities after my students (and I) had wasted so much time setting up the VT and then trying to add to it.
5. Please provide a brief history of how you learned to use digital technologies (personally and professionally).
From 2007 to 2009, I worked at the Western Academy of Beijing, an amazing international school that has been featured on Apple’s education website for its use of technology. Working there, alongside their Digital Literacy Coaches, forced me to try new things in my classroom and on my own. I began following various technology teacher blogs, trying things out, etc.
6. How would you rate your digital technological proficiency? 0 = low level of proficiency -> 10 = high level of proficiency? Why did you give yourself this rating?
I think I am about a 6 or 7. Other teachers think I am higher than that! I’m not good at fixing any tech issues but I’m very comfortable finding information on the net, trying new programs, manipulating programs, etc. I have a PLN on Twitter that I really enjoy tapping into and sharing with. I want to learn iMovie this summer but whenever I open it I feel daunted — it just isn’t intuitive to me!
I feel there is sooooo much more I could be doing in my classroom with technology, but I feel hampered by outdated and non-supported technology at my school and have difficulty making ‘room’ and ‘space’ in an already full curriculum… I know to do more online/with technology, I need to give up something else… but what? Unfortunately, technology too often is just instead of pencil and paper and doesn’t necessary enhance or empower…my classroom computers just often just being used word processing or research tools.
7. What do you hope to accomplish in this course?
I would like to address the “what to do/what to dump” issue and the ‘word processing’ tool/research tool issue I outline in the paragraph above. I would like to use technology to create and so my students can show their learning, their reflections and the processes of their thinking. This article http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/04/ipads_in_the_classroom_the_right_way_to_use_them_demonstrated_by_a_swiss.html
sums it up!
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It sounds like there is a concerted effort to provide digital technologies in your school. I agree, I have a real aversion to Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard. I’m liking the UBC Blogs, though. The Immune System musical sounds great! I have also used digitized pictures to inspire reading and writing, in my case, it was an at-risk literacy program for youth. That combination can be a powerful kickstarter for engaging with text. The Voice Thread debacle sounds awful. Those kinds of experiences can have a significant negative impact on teachers’ uses of digital technology. It is possible that you could do an iMovie project for this course, if you would like to give it a try. Maybe it would be good to produce your own instructional video on the curricular and pedagogical possibilities of iMovie? It is tough to try to ‘shoehorn’ technology in. I think of it as a process of incorporation. Your topic inquiry could be looking into innovative uses of ICT for learning.