Week six - Implementing a technology-related change

Engaging students in learning is a crucial element in the learning process, which is achieved through the implementation of various techniques, and results in student-centered lessons, where students are active participants in the learning process and acquire the knowledge by exploring the content through numerous tasks given by the teacher who acts as a facilitator. Keeping students motivated and interested in learning is attained by varying our lessons to break the routine and surprise our students and by giving them the tools to work with, which in turn help them acquire knowledge through a natural process.

Engaging students and having active participation in the classroom shifts the attention from the teacher, which is a trait of traditional teaching, to the students who become a part of interactive learning. The development of technology has propelled and facilitates this shift by offering teachers unlimited possibilities to use it as a tool in attaining learning objectives by having students act as the main actors in this process.

This course’s week was very exciting since I got to experience the first step towards making a technology-related change. As my goal is to improve my fifth-grade students’ writing skills, I have been researching and selecting different tools to use in my classrooms. Among others, I have also selected Edmodo (www.edmodo.com) as the main platform where students will communicate with each other in English, work on different tasks and assignments and share different links with their classmates, hence become autonomous learners and better users of English.

In the last lesson for this week, my students and I created our online classrooms. After introducing briefly this website, I helped the students create their accounts and they also gave their answers in a poll that I had posted beforehand.

It was amazing to see the children’s excitement and their curiosity to start exploring this tool. Right from the beginning they kept asking questions related to the website, such as:

-          how can we upload our pictures,

-          how can we post, what can we post,

-          who can see our posts,

-          how can our parents login,

-          how can we find the code,

-          how can we win badges?

After school, I uploaded a riddle, just to see if they would react and how. From that point on the majority of them have been responding to my post and not only. Many of them have been uploading their own riddles, jokes, and links and responding to their peers’ posts. What is more, I can immediately identify areas which they are struggling with and provide my student with instant feedback, suggestions, and links with videos giving instructions on certain uses and practice through games.

I can’t wait to go back to class on Tuesday and see their reactions and hear their feedback. I think that from this point on they will be much more motivated in learning and this will give them a chance to not only become autonomous learners, but also improve their skills in English and technology as well by using it appropriately.

Until next time!

Krenare