Thomas Steele

Dennis Charsky
Educational Technology
8/2/2017

Expanding Technology Use in My Future Classroom

1 Expanding Technology

“I know my computer science class had a tremendous impact on my future

aspirations in my readiness for college, career and life,” says Sofia Cabrera in her

article 3 Ways Computer Science Can Help With Student Readiness (2017). This just

about sums up exactly how useful technology can be in the classroom, and why we as

teachers should embrace its use. Technology can prepare people for a whole host of

jobs and skill areas. For example, teaching computer programming doesn’t just produce

students who know how to program, it produces students with problem solving,

organizational, and proofreading skills that can be translated to just about any job they

could get (Siemens, 2005). Teaching with technology that is well integrated into the

classroom and uses a wide range of tools can be even more effective. Brainstorming

skills are good, yes, but students who grow up round technology, and learn to use a

number of different forms of it develop flexibility of problem solving methods, an ability

to move between different media and methods fluidly, and the ability and drive to create

something new (Schrock, 2017).

In addition to this, technology can be used to complement teaching methods that

already exist. I worked for two years as a teaching assistant for my school’s physics

department. In science, one of the best, most tried and true methods of educating

students is through collaborative work. Group learning is not a new idea, but it’s made

so much more effective by technology. You can create a webquest for the group to go in

and investigate a specific objective, taking them through large numbers of resources to

accomplish their task. This type of inquiry encourages you to add to the webquest all

kinds of resources from videos to online journals and beyond (Pitler, 2012).
2 Expanding Technology

Many organizations recognize this trend, and are embracing it. There are a great

number of conferences on the ways to properly utilize the newest technologies in

classrooms and for educational purposes, from MassCue to South By Southwest.

Conferences like MassCue see technology as a tool that “fosters collaboration and

builds community” and are looking to expand the influence and implementation of

technology to provide “ongoing, high-quality professional learning opportunities”

(Strategic Plan, 2017). Another conference, the ISTE, operates based on the principle

that the digital age presents “new and exciting opportunities for teaching and leading”

(Mission Statement, 2017). These conferences and others like them prevent the perfect

opportunity to step into the world of technologically integrated teaching and stay firmly

planted there. Some of these conferences are more exclusive than others, but the sheer

number of them ensures that there will be a great number of opportunities for me to be

able to keep up with the newest technological trends and see the direction in which

things are headed. This will provide me with a perfect opportunity to seek out new

technology that can help assist my students better than whatever I currently have in my

classroom. As long as these kinds of things exist, a teacher who is dedicated enough

can stay abreast of the latest trends in technology. This is imperative, lest we become

the textbook and transparency users of tomorrow.

One of the key ways I can utilize technology in the 12th grade Physics classroom

is through formative assessments. Clickers and other forms of classroom response

systems are perfect for this, because it allows you to give instant feedback on

questions, provides opportunity for context-dependent discussions that stem from

answer trends that you can make visible on the board to students, and allows you to
3 Expanding Technology

work through questions at a pace that suits the students (Pitler, 2012). Formative

assessments are key in understanding complex scientific concepts. Using technologies

like Socrative.com, which allows me to make multiple review questions that students

can take or use a single question mode that allows me to use it as a clicker system, can

let me spread multiple short formative assessments throughout a lesson easily.

Another important feature of technology is the fact that it gives me an easy way

to create and utilize interactive demos. Because of the nature of science, the best ways

to learn are by seeing a chemical reaction take place, or watching how a wave behaves,

and then replicating this on your own. These demos can sometimes be difficult to set

up, costly, and hard to maintain, however. Many science classes that I have taken part

in have had demo days where multiple demos just didn’t work. Using the internet as a

resource to find things like interactive wave simulators can be an excellent alternative to

this, and much more cost effective. Websites like phet.colorado.edu have a huge

resource pool of demos for all kinds of interactive classes. These demos are made with

the purpose of classroom education in mind and are excellent supplements to real

experimentation, if the need arises.

I believe that this kind of integration of technology into the classroom is essential

for making the most of a student’s education. I think that as teachers, we should always

be looking for the ways in which we can most dramatically improve our teaching

methods and skills, and the ways in which we can keep students engaged. Whether we

like it or not, technology can be a very engaging and enriching tool and should not be

discounted just because it can be negative. Any teaching method has the potential to be
4 Expanding Technology

more harmful than helpful if implemented incorrectly. The power of technology in the

classroom lies in the way we implement it.

These are the biggest reasons that I feel so motivated to use technology in the

classroom. While I don’t disagree that it can be a double edged sword, if used correctly I

think that it can make learning much deeper, because of the way it connects to the

modern student. Textbooks and transparencies just don’t speak to a student who i

growing up around technology, and whether we like it or not they are all growing up

around some form of it.

Many organizations recognize this trend, and are embracing it. There are a great

number of conferences on the ways to properly utilize the newest technologies in

classrooms and for educational purposes, from MassCue to South By Southwest.

Conferences like MassCue see technology as a tool that “fosters collaboration and

builds community” and are looking to expand the influence and implementation of

technology to provide “ongoing, high-quality professional learning opportunities”

(Strategic Plan, 2017). Another conference, the ISTE, operates based on the principle

that the digital age presents “new and exciting opportunities for teaching and leading”

(Mission Statement, 2017). These conferences and others like them prevent the perfect

opportunity to step into the world of technologically integrated teaching and stay firmly

planted there. Some of these conferences are more exclusive than others, but the sheer

number of them ensures that there will be a great number of opportunities for me to be

able to keep up with the newest technological trends and see the direction in which

things are headed. This will provide me with a perfect opportunity to seek out new

technology that can help assist my students better than whatever I currently have in my
5 Expanding Technology

classroom. As long as these kinds of things exist, a teacher who is dedicated enough

can stay abreast of the latest trends in technology. This is imperative, lest we become

the textbook and transparency users of tomorrow.

Cabrera, Sofia. (2017, July 29). 3 Ways Computer Science Can Help With Student Readiness. Retrieved
from www.gettingsmart.com
- This is one of my sources from the wiki

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E.R., Kuhn, M. (2012). Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works.
Alexandria, VA: McRel.

Schrock, Kathy. (2017, July 24). Promoting Inventiveness in the Classroom [Web Log Post]. Retrieved
July 29, 2017, from http://blog.kathyschrock.net/
- This is one of my sources from the wiki

Siemens, George. (2005, January 1st). Connectivism: A learning Theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved
from http://www.itdl.org

(2017). Strategic Plan. Retrieved from http://www.masscue.org

- This is one of my sources from the wiki

(2017). Mission Statement. Retrieved from https://conference.iste.org

- This is one of the sources from the wiki