Technology Goals

The district that I work in is committed to the implementation of Technology in the classroom.  All students have a device from grades 5-12.  In the elementary level, the students have a set of Ipads to share within each grade level.  In Title 1, I have three Ipads to use with my students and I share these with another Title 1 teacher for part of the day.  Each year, I need to write goals and submit them to my principal.  This year, I needed to include a technology goal as well.  I have been reading and watching videos about 21st Century Learning with a focus on the 4 C's.  My technology goal this year is centered around creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication.  By using technology in learning, students become engaged in ways they can't when using textbooks to perform paper/pencil tasks.  There is so much more available to them when able to explore the world in a single click, and to engage in collaborative learning by brainstorming and using technology in creative ways.  I am keeping in mind that my goal is to get to modification and redefinition. Here are two goals for the 13-14 school year:  

1.  Improve my knowledge and skills in order to integrate technology into my instruction.

     *I have started working on this goal by watching videos and reading on how to incorporate technology into the classroom curriculum.  I have gotten some great ideas that will move my integration from

substitution (last year) to modification and redefinition.

2.  Integrate technology into weekly instruction to support teaching and learning.

      *I began using Ipads and Educreations with my students last week.  I took vocabulary words from their 2nd grade basal story and passed them out to each group of two students.  Then, they walked around the school and took pictures of what they thought represented their vocab. words.  For example, one group had the word enormous so they went outside and took a picture of the school because they said it was enormous.  They had so much fun deciding on what they would photograph and how it related to their word. We talked about freedom to explore and to make decisions on their own.  They kept looking to me for approval.  They were not use to the freedom to think outside the box and to actually have fun with the learning.  We also talked about categorizing and sorting pictures.  One word was turnip and they said there wasn't one in the building.  That led to a discussion about ways you could categorize pictures like shape, color, food, texture.  We are going to keep expanding on this learning.  This week the students are going to modify a story in their basal called, "Helping Out".  They will first take pictures that show "helping out" around ORE. Then to integrate writing, they will write on the picture pages and and use their own voice to read the story.  I can hardly wait to see how this will turn out.  They are excited and so am I.