![]() Chapter 10 Prompt: This chapter suggests your role is to become a technology advocate and change agent within the education profession. Do you agree that this is indeed a responsibility of 21st century educators? Why or why not. I absolutely believe that it is the responsibility of today’s educators to be a technology advocate and agent of change. As stated in chapter 10, “schools are reflections of the society they serve and ultimately represent its values, culture, and technologies” (Lever-Duffy & McDonald 332). Our society is nearly 100% reliant on some form or fashion of technology, and it is not going away, which can be a bit scary. I was recently watching a documentary ‘Naked Science: The Big Freeze’ where the 1998 ice storm that hit Canada was discussed. Survivors talked about how they didn’t have electricity for a week or more and could have been months if they had lost their lone power grid that survived. This means that Canadians went without communication and heating; they couldn’t get supplies, and this was in 1998! Think about if a major city in the US was hit with a similar storm today? It would be an even worse catastrophe given how we are much more reliant on technology. We would lose not just the essentials, such as heat and power, but no more internet, no more cell phones; hospitals would be affected (remember electronic medical records are only good if you can access the technology!). But I digress, we, as educators, need to be technologically literate and advocates because our students need to be successfully today, which means they need to be technologically literate. You can’t even apply for most jobs now a days without being able to transverse electronic searches, electronic filing, digital resumes, etc. And even more importantly, in this pandemic, our students and fellow educators must use technology. Virtual learning is no longer a possibility for a few select students; it is mandatory for a large majority. Teachers are at the forefront of figuring out what pandemic virtual learning is developing into. While administrators can offer their support, it has fallen on teachers to be the agents of change whether we want to or not. So, as it is no longer a question of if a teacher will be an advocate for technology, but how they will utilize it.
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![]() Chapter 7 Prompt: What are the challenges you faced with when integrating Web resources into classroom teaching and learning? Any resolution suggestions? Integrating Web resources into the classroom at times is easy, and other times it is challenging. There are 2 challenges that are particularly irritating to me. First, the big challenge that I encountered in the classroom was keeping students on-task. It seems that whenever I allow students to use the Chromebook in my classroom, they want to do check their grades on ActiveStudent or watch videos on YouTube. Thankfully, I have access to FamilyZone that allows me to ‘see’ what all the students are doing on while online and can block their access. However, students are smart and constantly try to get around my blocks. Students will get very upset when I completely block their internet access if they get repeatedly warned to do their assignments. I try to emphasize and teach them how to use both their time and resources wisely otherwise I cannot use the technology and all the benefits of technology in the classroom. One rule that I plan on trying out this fall is that students will have to appeal to get internet access reinstated if they fail to stay on task and lose my trust. The second challenge with teenagers is more general in teaching students to be responsible while using the internet, in particular social networking websites. I would have informal discussions occasionally when we used Chromebooks regarding the permanence of their content they share on the internet. For instance, I talked about how Facebook posts could influence future employers during the hiring process. I would give the example of a college professor I knew that was denied a position at another college because he had “I dig dead people” on his MySpace site. While it was an ironic statement because he was an osteologist/bioarcheologist who recovered and studied the skeletal remains of prehistoric and historic people, it was also of poor choice that could reflect negatively on his level of respect for the deceased, which could be reflected negatively on the college. I personally use Facebook to keep in touch with family and close friends and only post about 4 things: running/races, my artwork, my dog & cat, and my nephews. I also occasionally will do a google search with my name to see what pops up, and it really is limited to race results and academic endeavors I have participated in. Students do not think about such things, and it is our job as educators to introduce them to such in order to get them ready for the world outside of school. ![]() Chapter 1 Prompt: What standards do you feel are most relevant to your teaching and to your content area and that will challenge you the most? What strategies will you employ to become familiar with these standards so that you can more easily address them in your classroom? When discussing ‘standards’ in education, there are many different ones that educators use to guide their instruction. There are national standards; there are state-level standards; there are content-area standards. Here, in ITD 645, we are concerned with technology standards used to guide educators in integrating technology into their classroom. While there are no single ‘set’ to follow, the most common have been set by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). The ISTE has defined 7 different student roles of students in the 21st century: empowered learner, digital citizen, knowledge constructor, innovative designer, computational thinker, creative communicator, and global collaborator. Educators are no just charged with using technology in the classroom but to foster an environment where students become technologically literate in the 21st century. In my science classroom, technology is at the heart of many scientific advances, such as virtual dissection labs. One of the most novel and relevant ISTE student standard is being a global collaborator. According to the ISTE, “students use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning” (2020). I think that it is so exciting that educators can connect with scientists all around the world and even the International Space Center to bring experts to the classroom at the drop-of-the-hat so to speak via video conferencing. Conversely, the most challenging ISTE student standard is teaching students to be a digital citizen and understand the permanence of their footprint in the digital world. Even before looking up the ISTE technology standards for students, I already adhered to and believed in many of their goal ideas. In this day-and-age, being technologically savvy is more than just learning how to type and use word processors. Moving forward, I plan to …
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AuthorHi! My name is Nicole, and I am a high school science teacher. Blog Roll
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