One thing I have learned about effective teaching strategies when using technology are all the options to incorporate collaboration and teamwork through technology. Using technology can be an effective way to meet many different learning styles, especially students who learn well through collaborating. Another important thing I have learned is how important it is to use technological tools appropriately and use them to enhance learning, not just use them. I loved how this course was setup to use a variety of technological tools, but always with a higher goal of learning in mind. For example, we were asked to collaborate with a group to create our SIG proposal and used Google docs to do so.
The use of the Internet has helped me grow my personal learning network and find some wonderful tools to use in the classroom. One of my favorite lessons was learning about the RSS reader through Google. I have always wondered about the additional tabs in my gmail account, but never knew how to use them. I am glad I had the opportunity to explore Google reader, calendar, and documents in this course. The RSS reader has helped me stay more connected to educational issues & follow educational blogs that include wonderful teaching ideas; all with little effort.
I believe the assignment that exemplifies good teaching with technology was my SIG project. The group I worked with created a presentation about Storybird. For a lower elementary classroom it can be difficult to find appropriate technology that students can use as an effective tool, but Storybird does just that. First, my group collaborated on a Google document for our SIG proposal. I loved being able to work on one document together, and with such ease. At one point, two classmates happened to be working on the document at the same time as me and we were able to start a chat about what we were working on. The ability to collaborate on a document all at once is very neat. Second, the ability to collaborate on creating a Storybird for our presentation was great. I love the idea that two students can be at different computers and collaborate on one story.
Because the school year has ended, I have not been able to meet many of the goals set in my Personal Growth Plan. I absolutely plan to begin the next school year with two of my goals in place. First, I will begin the school year by collecting parent emails to use Google docs for newsletters. Second, while viewing the SIG presentations I was very intrigued to learn more about the capabilities of Moodle. One goal I had was to use more online tools for homework. I would like to assign more online homework opportunities and quizzes for students and parents to work together on at home. Learning more about Moodle for me is taking an aspect of an old goal and now creating a new goal to explore Moodle and find what aspects would be beneficial in a lower elementary classroom. Another goal that was not met in this course was to learn more about the capabilities of excel. This is a great tool as teacher to collect data and drive instruction, and also a great tool for students to input and graph data.
