Mrs. Sally Song is a grade seven teacher of nine years. She shares her journey and passion for the use of technology in her classroom. She narrated her experience from being trained with no use of technology and how through her professional development and has a life long learner she has been able to develop the skills over the years. She said twitter was very helpful as she shares some of her class work and activities on twitter. She also has her blog to be able to have a digital platform where she can put her work. However, all this became overwhelming as she has to keep up with work life balance. She realized that picking and choosing what works for the student is what is important.
In her words. “As teacher we already have too much going on, don’t add too much to your plate”. She introduces office 365 which she found valuable and the program help with PowerPoint, collaboration of students working together, and interactive and engaging activities.
Office 365 is a platform where students can be able to showcase their learning, collaborating ideas together that can be shared in “Sweey’’ room. even when they are not face to face. Essentially this program connects students all over the district to share their thought, ideas, and strategy methods together. They can upload and share their files navigating through the media to build some digital platforms.
However, technology according to Sally, cannot replace the brain, communication skill, curricular competencies and they creative and life skills that student should be able to function with. Like the ability to think critically, problem solve and you their logical reasoning. Technology should be used in a positive smart way. Sally recommend another app that helps her in planning which sis called the “remind”.
What is interesting about this app is that it generates number and she is has the setting of the app as a one-way communication. This app helps to send reminders to parents about upcoming event in the school, homework, class activities or even they might be having. She added that setting the reminder app that one-way communication is to prevent professional blur and two-way communication and some parents do not respect boundaries of when to be texting the teacher and she had had that experience where parents was asking her about a student assignment 8:00 pm in the night. Also language is important and we have to be mindful of the way we use it. The reason for that is that communication is document and sometimes language use might be strong and parents can take this up with the teacher.
The final world she retreated is the Ed-tech should be meaningful to students that student’s will see it more than social media and that students can use it as a way to show and share their individual knowledge, skills, and abilities.
What really resonates with me is that in the world were we have so much going on even in the world of technology. As educators we still have to research and make good choice for our students. Pick what will real fit their learning abilities and make sure it is meaningful, engaging, and they can personalize their leaning.
I liked how you listed key topics talked about in Sally’s presentation. This is a good read in terms of if someone is away, a reader can fully read this blog and feel like they did not miss the presentation! good job!