Holding the Power at their Fingertips
A year and a half ago, I could not have imagined the experiences I would have had as a student in the Master's of Arts in Educational Technology. Personally and professionally my life has evolved tremendously and through this growth I have shifted my focus in relation to how I “see” myself working with underprivileged youth. As an elementary educator I have always seen the importance of technology integration into the classroom; however, as a student in the MAET Program I now consider how to do more than just integrate technology but to focus on how to make it meaningful but to also see how I can bring new technologies to the fingertips of youth outside of my classroom.
After completing the program I would like to further explore my ability to incorporate technology into the after school program that is currently in my building but also acquiring technology for students to have for both personal and educational uses. One thing that I have noticed about the use of technology with the children I work with is that they have knowledge of technology, i.e. different types of tablets, the various games that they can play, and the multiple websites that “house” their favorite games; however, their knowledge of various presentation platforms, word processing applications, or even video recording capabilities are significantly less. As someone who has spent the past year and a half studying and learning about meaningful technology integration I would like to design a course for the after school program that will give students in grades 1-5 exposure to various technologies and a platform to display their knowledge.
Our school is currently focusing on our students learning through an International Baccalaureate (IB) approach to learning and I would like to create the course in the after school program that will embody the IB approach to learning in which students learn based on hands on experiences and they drive their learning through previous knowledge and things they want to know on a particular topic. Throughout my course work there were two things that stood out to me as an IB approach to learning and one of them was the “Quick fires” in one of my classes and the other is the group presentation I completed on the “Flipped Classroom” approach.
Quick fires were opportunities for us as students to be briefly introduced to a new technology or technologies, given a small task, and allowed free range to explore that technology and to attempt to complete the task with the new technology –the type of learning that children should be doing, not just playing Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja. In an effort to utilize the skills and exposure I have acquired in this program I would like to compile useful technologies and create quick fires for students that they can then transfer into their classroom and their projects, assignments, etc.
The flipped classroom approach was something that I found extremely interesting because it is a method that allows students to work on their ability to build and maintain positive relationships through the use of more hands on experiences and opportunities to collaborate in both partners and small groups. While considering this method, I would like to have students work with new technology while in the after school program but to “study” or learn more about the new technologies prior to coming to the course.
I have had the opportunity to work with the after school program in the past; however, the capacity in which students worked with technology was quite superficial and not done so in a manner that allowed them to utilize their strengths as IB learners, I would like the opportunity to shift my paradigm and how I approach teaching students about technology and with technology. Opportunities to grow the after school program through technology integration can include students utilizing technology to continue projects that were started in school and even assist in moving to the 1 to 1 technology goal that is currently being put into place in my district.
I know that for some my goal may seem small or not significant but I see it as more of an intricate goal. I would like to pay close attention to the needs of my students at the most basic level in an effort to teach them scaffolding methods with the hope that they can take some of the things they learn in an after school environment and apply them to their time in the classroom and in their future coursework as middle and high school students.
