Standard
12:
Evaluate and use technology for teaching and learning
Course: EDTC6433-ISTE3 Resolution Reflections
For this standard reflection, I went back and used two of my ISTE standard reflections that I took away the most from. I focused mostly on ISTE Standards 3 & 4. Teaching with Technology was a class that I initially learned a lot from. I am not a big "techy" person, so seeing what is available for teachers to help teach students and support students was really beneficial for me.
ISTE Standard 3:
For this standard reflection, I went back and used two of my ISTE standard reflections that I took away the most from. I focused mostly on ISTE Standards 3 & 4. Teaching with Technology was a class that I initially learned a lot from. I am not a big "techy" person, so seeing what is available for teachers to help teach students and support students was really beneficial for me.
ISTE Standard 3:
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work
processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital
society. Teachers:
a. Demonstrate
fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new
technologies and situations.
b. Collaborate
with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and
resources to support student success and innovation.
c. Communicate
relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers
using a variety of digital-age media and formats.
My
Question: What digital tools are available to educators
to communicate grades, ideas, and other important information with their
students, parents, and local community to support student’s success?
Growing up through the time where technology continues to
make new developments, makes it extremely difficult to keep up and catch on to
all the “newness.” I also think that because I am one of the youngest on my
team at work, they expect me to be more tech savvy, which is not always the
case. However, this class and with research, I have definitely come across and
become more aware of what is available to create new learning situations for my
students, colleagues and find ways to get parents involved, which is all what
ISTE3 is about.
I approach working at Horizon Elementary with a mindset that
this school and these kids are my mission field. It is not the easiest at
times. As I have mentioned in posts before, I work in an area of high needs
kids. They come from families that are not always involved or want to be
involved with their child and school. In an article that a fellow cohort member
posted states how parent involvement in school correlates with student success.
It is said that “Students who have parents who are actively involved in their
education have higher grades, test scores, enroll in higher-level programs,
graduate high school, and go on to post-secondary school” (Olmstead, 2013).
Knowing how important parent involvement is, set forth my question of: What digital tools are available to educators to communicate
grades, ideas, and other important information with their students, parents,
and local community to support student’s success? Katie Adams, posted an article that I really
enjoyed. In the article “Using Technology to Increase ParentInvolvement in Schools”
brought up a point that really made me think of how to address parent
involvement. Olmstead refers to parent involvement in two ways-reactive or
proactive. “Reactive involvement in schooling includes
activities such as attending meetings, family activities, or volunteering.
Proactive involvement in children’s learning includes activities such as
helping with homework, staying informed about school events, and following a
child’s progress.” From that list, we would want parents to try and do all
those things, but unfortunately there are situations where parents either
cannot or wont. Continue to read the article, it brought up the point the
convenience to access materials.
Through my research, I found an article ( 7 Free Apps for Keeping Parents and Teachers Connected)
that introduced 7 phones apps that allowed parents to stay in the loop with
their child’s teacher using their cellphone or tablets. The one app that I feel
would be best is the Teacher App & Gradebook by Acedemically InformED. This
particular FREE app offers a lot to parents who wish to use it to stay
informed. This app offers access to grades, messaging, interactive class
calendar, attendance records, a way to send assignments, and assignment grades
and notes. I feel that this app offers a lot and is a great resource for
parents that is literally in the palm of their hand. The other app, which I am
looking into implementing in my classroom soon, is the Remind app. Horizon
caters to a high foreign language community, Spanish, being the most popular.
This app sends messages straight to parents phones AND has the ability to
translate messages into 70 different languages. We often send home notes that
are translated, but the odds of that paper getting from a child’s homework
folder into the hands of their parent or guardian is slim, compared to the
instant message sent directly their phone. Remind has the ability to send to a
single person or to a group, and you can tell who is receiving them.
All in all, I feel that my question has definitely been
answered. There are MANY different ways using technology that can get parents
involved with their child’s classroom. I also really enjoyed Vanessa Oh’s resource of "SocialMedia for School Leaders : A Comprehensive Guide to
Getting the Most Out ofFacebook, Twitter, and Other Essential Web Tools" offers
a TON of insight as well. This book gave so many different ideas of how to use
different technology formats to communicate and for students to display
work-each chapter giving the benefits, best practices, and how to use.
ISTE for Teachers Standard 4 - Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
ISTE for Teachers Standard 4 - Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
Teachers understand local and global societal issues and
responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical
behavior in their professional practices.
a. Advocate, model, and teach
safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including
respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation
of sources
b. Address the diverse needs of
all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to
appropriate digital tools and resources
c. Promote and model
digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of
technology and information
d. Develop and model cultural
understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of
other cultures using digital age communication and collaboration tool
Question: How can I teach/model to my 4th grade English
Language Learners safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and
technology?
Summary:
On this website there is a variety of different resources for teachers
and parents to access to help teach and support students with internet safety.
The biggest challenge for my class is, that a majority of my students and their
families speak different languages other than English. This website provides
many different Medias and resources for other languages. I really like
NetSmartz Workshop which provides videos, games, activities cards and
presentations for teachers and parents to use, and the website is available in
Spanish, which will cater to a majority of my student’s families. I also really
like iKeepSafe which offers videos in Spanish and Arabic-languages that are a
part of my class makeup this year.
Reflection:
The biggest challenge that I face with integrating technology into my
classroom is finding the time to explicitly teach internet safety and how to
cite sources when we research information for class projects. My students are
of that age where they now own cellphones, have iPads, tablets, and access to
video and computer games that connect them to other users all over the world.
One of the articles that I really enjoyed reading was found by Conrado Julian, who is part of my
learning circle. The article is titled “The Strategy for Digital Citizenship: Children in a
Digital World.” What I really loved about this article is that it
really hit upon the ideas that educators tend to overlook. That technology can
be integrated into everyday lessons. The source states “In a school that prides
itself on academic excellence and character development, digital citizenship
needs to be woven throughout all core curricular areas. It needs to be relevant
to students’ lives and integrated into their everyday learning and living”
(Orth, 2013). As teachers, it is part of our job to make whatever we are learning
in class, in any subject area, relevant to real world application and purpose.
I have never really thought I integrating technology into a lot of my core
subject areas, but can see how important it can be. I just wish that we had
more resources here at our school to be able to do technology integration
smoothly. Normally when we do so, to get students logged on, into the system or
application we are using, it takes a lot away from instruction time. But I am
definitely more aware and thinking more about how I can integrate to teach my
students how to cite their sources during research, what is a reliable source,
how to perform safe searches as we enter into informational writing.
Another idea that I really liked about this article is having that
school-home/parent connection. For instance in the source, it says “alignment
between school and home with regards to digital citizenship and healthy digital
usage is a hallmark of a 21st century school. A community-wide
understanding on norms, rules of engagement, and common practices is necessary
for all schools in order to raise an ethical, digital (and real-life) citizen”
(Orth, 2013). My school has really jumped on board with a lot of ideas to try
and get parents more involved. Just after researching for ISTE3, our school is
now jumping on board with getting the Remind App for school-parent
communication. We as educators know how much parents really rely on us to help
their students, this article fully supports that idea. At Horizon, we already
have a group of parents, Parent Net, that connect with our Spanish speaking
families to help close the gap. With information from this article, it would be
nice to add that technology safety and cyber bullying component to
their group conversation.
Another resource that I found that will be very helpful for my English
learning kids is the resource that another fellow learning circle mate, Vanessa Oh found titled 13 Apps and Games for Internet Safety Awareness.
With English Language Learners, we are told that having visuals-such as
drawing, sketches, and videos are great tools to help them understand concepts.
These applications provide a way for students to visually see and participate
in learning internet safety. An example of one of the games is below:
Carengie Cadets: MySecureCyberspace Game Demo
After all the research I believe that my question has been answered. In
order for my students to learn safe, legal and ethical technology practices,
they must be integrated throughout core instruction and taught explicitly. As
teachers, we cannot come to the conclusion that since our students have access
to these gadgets that they know the proper ways to use them. We also need to
help bridge the gap between home and school life. At Horizon, we constantly
talk about how our PBIS behavior system can be transferred to home use,
technology safety, is another thing we need to think about linking as well.
With my question also being directed towards ELL students that falls on how to
approach the instruction of technology safety. When I teach these concepts, I
have to have a lot of vocabulary practice and visual representation, which most
of these resources found through research have provided. These websites
have given fun, hands on ways for our students to learn important
concepts.
Since taking this course, I have yet to really implement some of these new concepts that I wanted to dive into. The access to the tablets and technology for my students in such a large schools has made it difficult to do some of these things. I have had the opportunity this year to using a few translation apps on my phone to help communicate directions and even responses from my two Ukrainian girls. With having a high population of English Leaners, I have always relied heavily on my students who are fluent in both languages to help me translate, however this year, I had two girls who just moved her from the Ukraine and no one to translate for me! Having an app on my phone, helped break down that barrier a little than just shoving English at them and hoping for the best. I also explicitly taught a few online safety lessons with my students this year. It seemed really appropriate as my students are accessing technology more and more over the years. We really had to have the discussion of talking to strangers on Xbox and Youtube users. I have come to realize my 9 and 10 year olds are becoming very advanced in their uses for technology, but the thoughts of keeping safe really didn't register for them.
Since taking this course, I have yet to really implement some of these new concepts that I wanted to dive into. The access to the tablets and technology for my students in such a large schools has made it difficult to do some of these things. I have had the opportunity this year to using a few translation apps on my phone to help communicate directions and even responses from my two Ukrainian girls. With having a high population of English Leaners, I have always relied heavily on my students who are fluent in both languages to help me translate, however this year, I had two girls who just moved her from the Ukraine and no one to translate for me! Having an app on my phone, helped break down that barrier a little than just shoving English at them and hoping for the best. I also explicitly taught a few online safety lessons with my students this year. It seemed really appropriate as my students are accessing technology more and more over the years. We really had to have the discussion of talking to strangers on Xbox and Youtube users. I have come to realize my 9 and 10 year olds are becoming very advanced in their uses for technology, but the thoughts of keeping safe really didn't register for them.
References:
C. (n.d.). Technology Safety for
English Language Learners. Retrieved November 10, 2016, from
http://www.colorincolorado.org/teaching-ells/technology-ells/technology-safety-english-language-learners
Dixon, B. (2012). Social Media for School
Leaders : A Comprehensive Guide to Getting the Most Out of Facebook, Twitter,
and Other Essential Web Tools. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
G. (n.d.). 13 Apps and Games for Internet Safety Awareness. Retrieved November 17, 2016, from https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/13-apps-games-internet-safety-awareness
G. (n.d.). 13 Apps and Games for Internet Safety Awareness. Retrieved November 17, 2016, from https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/13-apps-games-internet-safety-awareness
McCrea,
B. (2013, June 11). 7 free apps for keeping parents and teachers
connected. THE Journal. Retrieved
from https://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/06/11/7-Free-Apps-for-Keeping-Parents-and-Teachers-Connected.aspx?Page=1
Olmstead,
C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in schools. TechTrends, 57(6),
28-37. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.spu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eft&AN=91587612&site=ehost-live
Orth, D., & Chen, E. (2013).
The Strategy for Digital Citizenship: Children in a Digital World. Retrieved
November 17, 2016, from http://www.nais.org/Magazines-Newsletters/ISMagazine/Pages/The-Strategy-for-Digital-Citizenship.aspx
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