Week ten - Assessing Technology Integration and Wrap Up!

With the fast development of technology and its application on our daily live tasks, we need to take advantage of it by using it in the best form possible. 

When using technology in teaching there are two important issues addressed which contribute to our students' development.

The first one is related to the fact that people nowadays use technology regularly, therefore by offering students the chance to experiment with new tools we encourage them to become active learners ready to participate, review and reflect upon, not only their work, but their peers' too. 

Secondly, technology can offer us tools through which the learning objectives are achieved in a smooth, interactive and cooperative way. 

The two tools presented to us this week, helped me reflect on the way I use technology in the classroom. (See models below)

My result was somewhat pleasing and I realized that this course has been a great inspiration for me. It feels like this opportunity is just the first, but extremely important, step towards a long journey. 

This course gave me the chance to try many methods and become aware towards their usage.  I have tried these tools either with my students or being in the role of the student during the course. These are the ones that I find most useful: 

- Web searching techniques (I tried and loved it. A plan to implement it with fellow teachers and students)

- The ABCD learning objectives;  (Tried them both as a participant and when preparing for classes)

- Creating blogs; (A plan to be implemented)

- Delicious bookmarking system; (I tried and loved it)

-  Rubrics; (I have been using them for four assignments now and they make everything easier)

- wiki classes; (wiki class seems like the perfect plan for having students upload their work so that they can give quick feedback and save time)

- Paddlet (Loved it when we tried it during the course. Planning to try it out with students during the second semester)

It has been a great journey so far and I will continue exploring this ocean of opportunities. 

• State of Washington: Tiers of Technology Integration

• University of Southern Florida: The Technology Integration Matrix

 Till next time!

K. 

Week nine – The use of technology in addressing various learning styles

As individuals we are all different and therefore we all learn differently. In his theory of multiple intelligences, Howard Gardner provides us with insights into multiple intelligences which are related to individual’s personal skills and their preferred ways of learning.  It is both the role of the teacher and students themselves to identify students’ learning styles in order to provide them with the right activities which in turn help them acquire the information and the material in the best form possible. With the advancements in technology, this has become much easier since various materials that are found online, can be adapted either for offline or online use to address different learning styles.

For example, for visual or spatial learners, presentations in PowerPoint, Prezi or other forms, can be used to offer students the possibility of looking at the key ideas or pictures. Google images are a great source where one can find multiple images which can be used, either online or offline by printing them and bringing them to class, to facilitate learning.

For auditory, also known as aural or musical learners technology can provide various possibilities to help them learn. For example, songs are a great source to teach and reinforce vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation. When using songs students can either work individually or in groups either to brainstorm ideas and predict what the song will be about based on the title, to fill in the missing words, to rearrange the lyrics, etc. They can also be a great source for discussion.

There are many different possibilities how technology can be used to facilitate the teaching and learning process, however it is the teachers’ job to find the proper tools that address their students’ learning styles and which in turn help students better acquire the information and the material.

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences: http://www.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/learning/howard_gardner_theory_multiple_intelligences.pdf

An online quiz to find out your learning styles and read more on learning styles and multiple intelligences:
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment

A website consisting of videos and quizzes related to the videos:
http://www.eslvideo.com/ 

British council offers numerous songs for young learners of English:
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs

This website is great to learn and improve language skills through the use of music videos and lyrics:
http://lyricstraining.com/