Two years ago, I was teaching in a high school in Seoul when it got a $40,000 grant to construct a state-of-the-art English classroom. The Principal told me it would be “my” classroom, since I was the only full-time English teacher there. I was thrilled of course, but six months later when I walked in to check out the 55-inch touch screen display at the front of the classroom, the superfast computer in my office, the laptops provided for students… it hit me. I had no idea how to incorporate these tools into my pedagogy.
My entrance into the MET program was precipitated by that experience of feeling lost – of having all these great tools at my fingertips, and no idea what to do with them.
One of the first things I read that brought this point into focus for me was Prensky’s 2001 essay, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. A succinct, fascinating essay to read through, but it can really summed up in the first paragraph when he says, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1). This single line has become foundational to my teaching approach since that time. I continually ask myself whether I am teaching my students the skills they will truly need for the future, or if I am defaulting to the way I was taught, and giving them the tools and skills of the past.
I have also been heavily influenced by Vygotsky, social learning theory, and distributed cognitive theory in particular. These ideas have transformed my classroom, but there is still a long way to go. Although I am now halfway through the MET, I feel like I am only just now starting to find my voice, and more and more often, it is saying things like, “What a fascinating question. What do you think?”
In this course in particular, I hope to deepen my understanding of good teaching practice and learn from my more-experienced peers. On a practical level, I want to discover and become proficient (or at least competent) in using more of the many free tools I have not yet discovered on the Web. A year ago I had never used Prezi, Google Docs, Animoto, Moodle, Jing, Dropbox, Delicious, and the list goes on. Now I have found ways to incorporate many of these tools into my teaching, and the impact on my students has been very positive. I am excited to learn more about what is out there.
Finally, I hope to refine my application of the tools I already do use. I still fall into the trap of just using a particular tool because it seems cool or fun or flashy, and sometimes it may not be the best tool for the job. Learning how to select the best tool for the job is important to me, and I think it will go hand-in-hand with becoming familiar with more of what is out there.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon.
9(5).p. 1–6.