Education 311-Prezi "EdModo"

Educ 311 Prezi on Prezi

Technology Reflection: Instructional Use of Whiteboards/Smartboards

Description/Experience
The technologies demonstrated in the last seminar were Whiteboards and Smartboards. These were very interesting to learn about because most all teachers have to deal with Whiteboards or Smartboards. Learning different things we could use them for was very informative to us as future teachers. I realized that with the Whiteboards and Smartboards, not only can you educate the students, but you can do so in a fun way. There are many different educational opportunities to use these boards in the classroom that will peak the interest of the students.

Application
An instructional activity I could do when using the Whiteboard or Smartboard is an interactive activity where the students have to make sentences or phrases with the words provided by matching them with the corresponding words. One side will be nouns, the other side will be verbs with phrases attached to them.

First, provide some details regarding:

• Learners: The learners in this group could range from elementary to middle school students. With each level, the level of difficulty would increase.
• Learning outcomes: Learners will gain the knowledge of how to write sentences or phrases correctly. Students will be able to correctly put together nouns and verb phrases by correctly identifying the parts of speech and assigning them to the correct form of verb.
• Assessment: I would know the students have correctly learned this by the activities being finished properly. To assess even further, I will have the students write a couple more sentences to make sure the fully understand.

• The lesson would begin with introducing the students to the Whiteboard or Smartboard. This would only take a minute to explain because the students will most likely already have knowledge of these.
• The students would then spend the next 10 minutes going over the correct formation of sentences and making sure they know how to match subjects and verbs with correct tenses.  
• Following this exploration the students would be given 5 minutes to complete the individual assessment.
• Then, after all the students have completed their assignments, I will have them write a few more sentences on their own to assess that they fully understand.

Reflection

--Pedagogical-Content:

Your pedagogical content knowledge refers to your understanding of teaching strategies that are specific to a content area. That is the knowledge about choosing appropriate pedagogies for teaching a particular content Example: Using drill-and-practice to teach math problem solving. This strategy however may not necessarily be effective for other content areas such as teaching speech and drama.

Now, forget about the technology for a while…..Just tells us about your teaching strategies that you employ in your activity (e.g., analogies, demonstrations, illustrations, examples, explanations, group work, drill-practice, simulations, role-play, lecturing, self-guided learning, inquiry-based learning, problem based learning or etc). Specifically:

• The strategies I will use are demonstrations and examples. These will allow the students to follow the correct format when doing the activity I have provided them. These are appropriate to use because the students will have models to check their work with so they know whether or not they are correctly doing the assignment. When a student is matching the subject with the verb phrase that matches it, they can refer back to my models to make sure that the verb phrase and tense match the subject and make sense.
• Some pre-conceptions I would have are that younger students wouldn’t really understand it and that middle school aged kids may not want to learn it. I would have to make sure that I am in the students’ zone of proximal development when I have my expectations set for this assignment. I will have to scaffold the younger students more because they don’t have as much experience with the type of activity I would be teaching.

--Technological-Pedagogical:

Your technological pedagogical knowledge refers to your understanding of technologies for particular learning tasks, your ability to choose technologies based on its fitness, your knowledge of pedagogical strategies, and your ability to apply those strategies for use of technologies Example: Selecting Edmodo/facebook for facilitating student generated debate. Edmodo here is the technology that supports the main pedagogy-group discussion/debate.

In the previous section, you talked about your instructional strategies. Keeping these strategies you stated in mind, now tell us how the technology is used in your activity.  Specifically:

• These technologies would serve as examples, models, and demonstrations to the students. They will serve as a guide to the students and enforce what they have learned by putting it into action. The technology would be able to help the students understand the way that sentence are formed and back up what I have already taught the students by allowing them to practice these sentences and get direct feedback
• I would have to make sure that I have alternate assignments for the students as they use the smart boards because I won’t have one for every student in the class. I would probably have them write sentences while waiting for the use of the boards and have them work in groups when working with the boards. I would need to be able to keep an eye on the students to make sure they stay on task as well as that they use the technology for the purpose I intended.

--Technological Pedagogical Content:

Your technological pedagogical content knowledge refers to your understanding of how teaching and learning from content may change when technology used and is our knowledge about selecting technologies that suits, support, and enhances teaching strategies and learning activities in your particular content area. It is your understanding of teaching strategies to effectively teach the particular content and help student conceptual difficulties in this content by meaningfully incorporating technologies. Example: Using a flash card app on iPad as a means to aid students memorize words and definitions in language learning. iPad app is here chosen as a tool to support the pedagogy around instant feedback, quick repetition, and individualized learning. These are some effective strategies used in language learning content area.

Now, let’s focus on the content you’re teaching in your activity. Think about your decisions to incorporate this technology and the teaching strategies in relation to your particular content area. Tell us specifically about:

• I would use this technology as a demonstration, example, and explanation. These will help the students because the activity demonstrates how to make sentences, provides examples through them learning, and will give them explanation through the directions of the activity.
• The students could find different applications on the Smartboards or Whiteboards that allow them to use these sentence builders. This technology allows students to get direct feedback and examples without the teacher having to explain it to them. The benefits are that the student would be able to understand what he or she is doing wrong right away and correct it right there.